(saw buzzing) (slow slide guitar music) (upbeat music) - All righty, so we've had the brisket on for about six hours now,
when you decide to wrap, could be anywhere between four hours, it could be eight hours,
you could maybe cook a whole brisket and not wrap it at all. Either way, you're looking for color, and you're looking for how
quickly the fat's rendering off, and you're not burning it up. You don't want it to get
crispy around the edges. You can wrap in paper,
you can wrap in foil, foil is called the Texas
Crutch, I don't do it, but if you were really in a pinch or if you were trying to cook a brisket in maybe six, seven,
eight hours, you know, real hot and fast, you
might wanna use foil. If your brisket looks like it's
getting really, really dry, you may wanna try foil,
but I'm sporting paper, because this stuff's got
plenty of fat left on it, and it's cooking along pretty nicely. Also, the time that you decide to wrap is gonna have a lot to do
with how your fire's burning. If it's dirty, if it's clean,
if you've got green wood, if you've got cured wood,
it's gonna accumulate to whatever color you have about now. Some people may wrap about four hours in, a lot of times I won't wrap at all. I could finish off a whole
brisket in 12, 13 hours, and not wrap it once until it's finished. But this one, for this
episode, we're gonna wrap it. It's looking just about right. We've got the flat right here, it's kinda got a nice mahogany color. A lot of times, these
things will kind of pull up, and it will collect moisture right there. A lot of the fat will cook down, so you might end up with
a light spot right there. If you do, it's OK. Got the flat right
there, it's looking good, nice and pliable, not getting crusty. Got a nice bark forming right here. So I think it's about
time to wrap this thing. Get my butcher paper situated. So normally what I do, I
put my paper like that, kinda wrap it up, cup
that around the point, put that paper folded along the... Whatever the actual angle of the flat is. Roll it over once, tighten it
up, roll it over a second time and that way you can
always grab it under there without hitting the paper. Wrap it up, put it back on. Maintain at 250 degrees until finished. While we've got our brisket cooking, we've got a lot of time on our hands. We're gonna come inside,
make a barbecue sauce. There's two types of people in this world: One type thinks you need
to have barbecue sauce, while the other side knows without a doubt that you absolutely do not
have to have barbecue sauce nor should you, on a piece of
barbecue, if it's good enough. I'm on that side, but either
way, the sauce is kinda nice. So we're gonna make one. We're gonna do a real basic, Texas sauce. We're gonna start off with
a half pound of butter. Unwrap this little guy, we're
gonna get it melting first in a stock pot that's already hot. I prefer to use a stainless steel pot as opposed to aluminum, it's non-reactive, and there's a lot of acid in the vinegar, the lemons, the ketchup, all that stuff, so stick with a stainless steel pot. While the butter's melting, we're gonna chop up a little onion here. All right, so now that we've got our half pound of butter melted, I'm gonna throw in half
of the yellow onion. Gonna let it cook down 'til
it's nice and translucent. It's gonna start to
smell really nice here. That's what onions should look like when they're ready to go. Now I'm gonna plop in a cup and a half of low high-fructose corn syrup ketchup. Gonna do a half cup of
apple cider vinegar. This is two ounces of lightly
packed, light brown sugar. A little more than a
teaspoon of kosher salt. Looks good to me. Little more than a
teaspoon of black pepper. Little less than a
teaspoon of chili powder. And a little less than a
teaspoon of garlic powder. Half a lemon. That's a juicy lemon. Then we're gonna stir that up, and use the largest whisk we can find. (whisking) Let the flavors kind of meld, really just gonna let
it simmer for a wee bit. Let's go check the fire. ♫ Boil away, boil away, boil away ♫ (laughs) So we've been cooking this brisket for a really, really long time. If you've been watching
your fire really closely, and you haven't fluctuated a whole lot, it's really gonna tell you right now. If your fire was up and down, if it's been dirty, if it's been clean, if you wrapped early, if you wrapped late, it's all gonna come to a head right now. It could mean the difference
between a 15-hour cook, it could mean the difference
between a seven-hour cook. So, it's really up to you and how much attention you're paying to the fire. So, we're gonna check this. I'm ready for brisket. Hasn't been wrapped a real long time, I'll kinda, flop it down. Yes, you may wonder, this
brisket would be really hot, and it's true, I don't
really have any nerve endings in my hands anymore. So it feels really good, it feels pliable, much like the ribs would be, much like any other meat would be,
I'm feeling for looseness to see if the meat feels soft and pliable. And it does, so we're gonna unwrap it. Gonna kinda take a look at it. If it cooked real hot, maybe
the paper might stick to it, and that's OK, but
something that you're always looking for for brisket
is to get it where it's kinda caramely and sticky, and
the fat really renders down, I guess kind of a
meat-candyish kind of thing. It looks moist, gonna kinda
feel, it feels really soft. If you wanted, you could
poke at it with a toothpick. You can overcook a brisket, and you can severely undercook a brisket, so there's a pretty small
window of where it gets loose and before it really
starts to dry back up. We're kinda at that time right now. Roll it over, lookin' at it, looks good. We're gonna let it rest for about an hour, or at least until it's cool enough where you can get your hand under there and it doesn't burn too badly. We'll wrap it up. Just gonna let it hang
out for a little bit, and then we're gonna learn
how to slice this guy. So our brisket's rested for about an hour, it's ready to cut, I can touch it, it doesn't burn me delicate little hands. So we're gonna dig into this thing. Like we did when we trimmed it, this is the point that's the fattier half. This is the flat, it's the lean half. And the deckel is that fat
band that runs through, so pretty much we're
gonna trim up to here, and if you look at it,
you can see where the fat and the lean part kinda
split off as you jiggle it, and the line is right about there. We're gonna cut this
way against the grain. The grain on the flat
side, being the flat. It goes kinda like that,
it can change a little bit, but either way, we're
gonna start off like this and we're gonna fan up, and we're gonna terminate right there. At that point, we're gonna
turn this 90 degrees, and then we're gonna start cutting against the grain of the point. And that's the difference
between lean and fatty or lean and moist or whatever. A lot of people go
through, and they'll take the back of the knife and
they'll scrape off the fat, and they'll just cut this part off and they'll throw it away. That's the best part, I don't know why you'd wanna get rid of that. That's the good part,
this is where the burn-ins come from right there, that's
like black gold right there. As usual, I prefer to use
a 12-inch slicing knife. It's kind of a bread
knife, it's not scalloped, it doesn't have the
dimples, but it is serrated. I think this is a great knife, it's flat. We're gonna start cutting this thing. I like to cut it and kinda hold it, and you never wanna scrape
off the fat or the bark. We work really, really hard to render fat, and we work really, really
hard to keep a good bark, and you don't wanna cut it
off, it's the best part. (knife slicing) And this, when you're cutting these, you can always tell, that's
what a brisket should look like, should have a smoke ring like
that, lots of black pepper, that's Central-Texas
style, that's how we roll. The fat should hopefully be rendered off, it should be kinda sticky,
and kinda just caramely, and a little sugary and kinda sweet. So that's a really good-looking slice, it should look moist, too. It shouldn't be tough. When you're looking for a brisket, it shouldn't fall under it's own weight, but you should be able
to pull it delicately. That's called the pull test. If you were judging
barbecue at a competition, that's how you would judge it. We'll finish this up. Proper thickness for slices
is the thickness of a pencil, about 3/16 to a quarter inch for lean, I think little pencil, big pencil. On the fatty slices I like to go about 3/8 of an inch like a big pencil. And I still use those on a daily basis. If you go to a barbecue
restaurant, a lot of times you get really paper thin slices. That's a great way to
fake out a tough brisket, and sometimes you get really thick slices, and that's a great way
to fake out a brisket that's overcooked and too tender. If it can't hold up on a
quarter-inch slice, it ain't right. (knife slicing) Cutting against the grain. And sometimes, if you get
something that's kinda charry, and if it is cooked to tenderness, you may have a slight problem getting through it a little bit. One of the big things about a brisket, is that it's a severely uneven cut, some of it's fatty, some of it's lean, some of it's thick, some of it's thin, and the biggest challenge to
cooking a brisket properly is to make the equal amount of tenderness all the way through, and
that's really, really hard. I think that's probably what
most people struggle with. Hopefully, this one turned out right, I think it's pretty close, it feels good. Don't be surprised if
one part's a little more tender than another part, maybe. That's one of the things
about low and slow. Keeping it all held
together so it'll stay moist and won't oxidize on
the edge of the slices. This is the fatty half, the point, we're gonna turn it 90 degrees. And I'm gonna cut right down the middle, and this, in my opinion,
is the best-looking part of any brisket right there. And that's what it looks
like when it's fatty, that's the deckel right there,
it's rendered pretty well, you're never gonna be able
to get completely rid of it, just 'cause it's a huge band of fat, and if you got rid of
that, you probably burned the rest of it pretty badly. I feel pretty good about that. That's more like a ribeye texture, which is my favorite part,
and this is the bottom part of the flat that extends
underneath the point. So that's still lean,
and if you really wanted some lean brisket, that's
where you'd go for it, 'cause that's the leanest part of the whole brisket right there. We're gonna get to slicing this in big-pencil style,
about 3/8-inch slices. And in a perfect world, if
you wanted to get crazy, you could do burn-ins. And this is where burn-ins
would come from, right there. This is the delicacy of a brisket. This is the best part, it's got all the fat marbled in there,
it looks like a ribeye, it's got bark on it. You could sauce this,
you could dust or sauce the bottom of it, put
it back on the cooker. If I was gonna do burn-ins,
I would cut them like that and have little one-inch squares. This is the best part of the whole cow right here, I love it. Gotta cut enough, I'm gonna
leave this part whole. As soon as you cut brisket or any meat, it's gonna dry out almost immediately, so you wanna leave it whole. If you're gonna travel a long way with it, you don't wanna cut it early, you wanna try to leave it whole and cut it as soon as serving time is possible. That's why we cut it to
order here at the restaurant. Keep it as fresh as you can, always. So we've got our lean part cut right here, got the fatty part cut right here, got our little burn-in hunk
right here, rest of the fatty. I think it's time to eat. I'm getting really, really
hungry, it's been a while. Get me a couple little burn-ins in there. Just an easy slice of fatty right there. This looks real nice, I've
got a good smoke ring, the fat's rendered out nicely, got some little Texas-style
burn-ins right there, my favorite part. You know, if your brisket doesn't turn out exactly the way you want it
to, don't be discouraged. It takes a lot of
practice, it takes a lot of sitting around watching the fire. And it's more about trying
to do something fun. You know there's really only
one way to make it right and that's just by doing it more. Hopefully, if it didn't work out right, you'll get it really soon, and it's still gonna be pretty darn good. You can make chopped beef out
of it, it'll be delicious. Good luck to you. Oh baby!
He's so effortless when he does it. Man, I love this series.
"And you never want to scrape of the fat or the bark. We work really really hard to render fat and we worked really hard to keep a good bark and I don't want to cut if off - the best part".
Don't understand why some people need that being explained for them, but I guess they do.
I noted too in the description that it says "sauce on the side". That's something else people need to realize - good q doesn't need sauce. The meat, smoke and rub should be able to speak for themselves.
The hero we need.
what's this disaster video you're talking about? tried going through a couple pages of the subreddit but can't anything
I kept wondering how he could cut that without sampling? I'd be taste testing it all the way.
I could eat that whole beautiful hunk of cow and not feel any shame.
The meatsiah!
This needs a NSFW tag for the completely opposite reason as the last horror show. When he cut into the point, my mouth was just watering. Fuck that looks so good, it's 8am and I'm hungry for bbq
I feel like a dog because i'm salivating and barely holding my drool back.