From Pasture to Plate: The Journey of a Beef Brisket

Friday of the Labour Day long weekend and all I could think about was finishing work and heading to The Butchery, my local purveyor of fine tasty meats!  I’d already decided on this long weekend, I was going to smoke a beef brisket. I spoke with one of the Marks at The Butchery who cut me a 8.5lb brisket himself.  Watching him skilfully cut the brisket for me was like watching a surgeon on one of the 857 hospital TV shows, he made it look so easy.

We picked up the ingredients we needed at the grocery store and headed home.  I decided to follow a recipe I found on the Big Green Egg site here:  http://www.biggreenegg.com/brisket.html 

My sous-chef (Kelly) dutifully mixed the ingredients together while I prepared supper (Turkey Burgers in case you were curious).  Once the rub was mixed, I applied it liberally to all parts of the meat and wrapped it in foil, letting the rub and the meat get acquainted with each other for the next couple hours.

While our meat is resting, let’s have a look at the meat cut breakdown of the cow so we understand where brisket comes from.  As you can see from our image below, the brisket is the cut of meat from the breast on the cow and it’s the muscle that supports the cow’s head.

image courtesy of JoeSmack

As someone with a giant head myself (my motorcycle helmet is a XXL), I’m aware at how strong the supporting muscles must be to support giant heads.  My neck size on dress shirts for instance is 18.5”.  Anyway, the point is it’s a very strong muscular meat so the tissue needs to be broken down over low and slow heat, with moisture, otherwise you end up with a very tough meat.

Ok, so back to the brisket…when we last left our meat, it was wrapped in foil and resting comfortably absorbing the rub.  Ok, so I set up the grill with an indirect heat setting, lots of charcoal and some soaked maple wood chips to add a bit of a additional smoke.  A pan filled with boiling water under the grill itself was also added to ensure moisture in the meat.  I put the meat on at 250 degrees Fahrenheit and after I was confident the temperature was steady, went to bed.

Early the next morning, I awoke not unlike a child at Christmas, so excited to run down and check on my meat.  The beef was nestled all snug in the egg, while visions of brisket danced in my head.  When out on the deck there wafted such a scent, my neighbour sprang from his deck chair to see what was the cooking.  Why it’s brisket I said, and…I can’t think of anymore rhymes to continue this thread. ;)

Anyway, when the internal temp hit 150 degrees Fahrenheit, I lowered the temp to 225.  After the brisket had been smoking for about 16 hours or so, it had reached an internal temp of just under 185 and I pulled the brisket off.  

I wrapped it in foil and added about half a cup of warm beef broth and placed it in a cooler for a couple hours to rest, it had a long night after all.  

Special note for pet lovers...I had to include a picture of my cats trying to figure out how to get into the cooler to get to the brisket.

That evening, Kelly and I (along with several neighbours on our street) enjoyed some beef brisket.  I’m rather biased since I cooked it, but it was really very good.  The rub and the smoke really came through in the flavour and I found that I ate so much by hand while cutting it up in slices that I was a bit full by the time it came for us to eat supper ourselves…hehe.  

Bottom line; I’d recommend this recipe to anyone who wants to try brisket.  It took a while but the results were well worth it, and we have lots of leftovers to enjoy over the rest of the week!  I’m planning Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches, fajitas and other sandwiches for starters.  And THAT my friends, is part of the reason why I cook these giant slabs of meat, for the leftovers!