Pellet Cooker Brisket | Chuds BBQ

what's going on everybody welcome back to trust bbq my name is bradley robinson and today i've got a pellet cooker i'm going to give you my biased opinions on pellet cookers i'm going to do my first brisket cook on a pellet cooker and at the end of the day i'm going to give you my honest opinion coming up if you've seen the show before you'll know that i'm a professional barbecue cook and professional barbecue pit builder so as you can imagine i've got my opinions on pellet grills cooking with compressed sawdust using an electric motor and heating element inside of a tin foil box really doesn't sound that appealing it kind of takes all the fun out of what i really enjoy about cooking barbecue but that being said i do have a youtube channel where i say at the end of every episode please go cook something outside so i can understand that there is a time and a place for the pellet grill and not everyone has the ability to have an offset smoker in their backyard so that being said today i have got a pellet grill i'm going to be cooking a brisket on it and hopefully it is going to be delicious this is a usda prime brisket in order to cook on an offset smoker you need some pretty ideal conditions first and foremost you need a backyard someplace that allows you to cook with live fire and a pretty big one at that because offset smokers are pretty big from there you need a reliable source of wood also a reliable source of meat and you need the offset smoker itself and if you're going to get one that's any decent it's going to be pretty expensive with all the pit builders nowadays building quality cookers you're gonna be spending a couple thousand dollars at least so i completely understand why there is a market for pellet grills for a lot of people it's the only option you have and i've said it before and i'll say it again as long as you're cooking barbecue outside you're a friend of mine i don't care what you're cooking on i know a lot of people can be pretty snobby about that but there are two main people that really need a pellet grill first and foremost people with small backyards an offset smoker takes up a lot of space i understand that sometimes a pellet cooker is your only option the other type of person that should consider a pellet cooker is a beginner right when you're getting into barbecue you need to know some butchery skills you need to know fire management you need to know how to pull you need to know how to season you need to know how to maintain constant temperatures babying a fire and it's a lot to take on at first so starting with an automated cooker like a pellet grill or any electric smoker for that matter is a pretty good option because it allows you to focus on everything else first smoker i ever had was a brinkman little vertical water smoker and it was great because i got to spend my time focusing on seasoning and trimming before i had to ever worry about burning a clean fire i hear stories all the time about people who want to get into the barbecue world but with all the different variables of you know wood and meat sourcing trimming fire management clean smoke dirty smoke all this stuff it's a little overwhelming at first and people get burnt out when they don't put out good meat right off the bat and then they give up and that's not at all what i want to have happen so if you're really new to the barbecue game spending thousands of dollars on an offset may not be the right option for you so that's where pellet grills can come in really handy it's kind of like training wheels for barbecue and to be honest i have never cooked on a pellet grill before so i feel pretty bad that i have all these negative opinions about it even though i've never even cooked on one so when z grills reached out and offered to send me a free pellet grill at first i laughed but then once i thought about it i said absolutely send it on down i'll give it a shot because you never know maybe it can come in useful for certain tasks and if i'm going to have these opinions about other types of cookers i need to do my research first shut scrape so that being said today i'm gonna do my very first cook on a pellet smoker and i might as well start out with something i know the good old brisket the usda prime brisket picked it up from my local heb i'm gonna just trim it like normal and that is looking pretty much perfect to me to season this brisket i'm gonna go with the classic two parts 16 mesh black pepper to one part kosher salt and we're just gonna go nice and heavy don't forget the sides folks no need for a slather it's gonna go pretty classic today really taste the smoke from the pellets the beauty of a pepper heavy rub like this so you can go really heavy without worrying about over salting it which is just going to help give you that really nice bark which i think is going to work particularly well because we're not using real wood all right that is looking pretty good to me let's fire up the pit i mean plug in the pit this is the z grill 700e pellet grill pellet smoker pellet oven i'm not sure what they call it today we're going with the z grills wood pellet super premium oak full disclosure z grills did not sponsor this video actually this video is brought to you by skillshare but more on that later they did however send me this grill for free but every opinion i have on this grill is completely mine and they're not paying me to say anything smokey watch me be one of those guys that blows up their pellet grill i'm gonna let this clear out a little bit then we're gonna shut it down it smells like a freshly cut table all right this thing is up to temp oh listen to that work i'm just going to go ahead and throw this brisket on it sounds like every other barbecue youtube channel right now let's start out fat side up just the way i always do we'll probably flip it a little bit because the heat's coming from the bottom after all we're rocking right about 275 degrees which very well may be too hot so we're gonna keep an eye on it but again this is my first brisket cook on a pellet cooker so i'll let you know how it goes we'll check back in in a little bit i got to admit it is pretty fun learning a new cooker and if you enjoy online learning you should check out the sponsor of this week's video skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes to help you explore your creativity and passions whether it's photography video editing illustration design no matter what they've got a course for you and they're not just tutorials the comprehensive class is designed for learning not just entertainment meaning there's no ads and they're always updating their list of classes to help you explore your creativity and passion whatever it may be right now i'm taking a class on photo editing because in this day and age your online photo accounts are really your portfolio and they can really help separate you from the next person skillshare classes are generally under an hour long you can pause and start and take it at your own pace and they have classes for every skill level members get unlimited access to thousands of classes with hands-on projects and feedback from people who really know what they're doing so if you're interested in picking up some new skills the first thousand people to click the link in the description will get a one month free trial to skillshare premium so click the link in the description the first thousand people who do will get a one month free trial to skillshare premium thank you skillshare we are about four four and a half hours into this brisket cook and it is looking pretty good so now what i'm gonna do is i don't know why i left that in there flip this thing on over so we can get a little bit of attention on the fat cap because we are getting heat from the bottom after all all right all right cool so we're gonna let this go for the next few hours we'll check back in in a little bit one thing to note about this cook is according to this temperature gauge here this thing has been kind of within a plus or minus 30 degree range like it's set at 275 but right now it's at 303 sometimes it'll drop down to 250 and to be honest it kind of makes me feel good because on an offset we have temperature swings too because of you know the different water densities of wood and timing and all that but just to know that a machine can't do it either makes me feel a little less bad about myself all right it's been another three hours fat cap down and this thing is starting to feel a little bit dry still pretty tough although it's temping at about 190 which is pretty ridiculous seeing how it's only been on for about seven hours but either way i think it's time to wrap it up decent color on that underside though going with the foil boat method today i think you might as well i think it's going to benefit the pellet cooker pretty well because most reviews i've heard on these things is that they don't have too much smoky flavor so leaving that top exposed ought to help also because it's bottom heated the foil above collecting all the extra juice and towels is really going to help soften the underside of this brisket but the downside of flipping a brisket lost some bark oh well still feels pretty good though back on the cooker this goes probably for another few hours this thought i'm going to scoot it all the way over here because the heating element is right about here and i don't really want to blast the bottom of this too much so i'm going to keep it over here because in theory this is where a lot of the smoke is going to be kind of pushing back on its way out of the stack so hopefully we'll get some extra crust on this brisket and get that bark back well at the same time we're going to be aiming this fatty side right towards the heat which should help it render all right we are right around hour 10 on this cook that bark is looking pretty good not gonna lie fat feels pretty well rendered nice and squishy ow that's hot and when i probe it it feels tender 205 in the fattiest part 200 down in the lean so i'm going to call this thing done i dropped the temp down to 180 degrees and i'm just gonna let this kind of cool down and rock in this pit for the next little bit before i pop it in the overnight oven all right this brisket has rested down to about 150 degrees internal that bark doesn't look bad i mean compared to my normal block it looks kind of bad but better than i was expecting i've never seen anyone do this style of brisket on a pellet cooker with that heavy pepper bark so that being said into my oven this goes just like this uncovered at 170 degrees until tomorrow when we will slice into this thing one overnight rest later it is the next day i just pulled that brisket out of the oven i'm letting it rest on the counter from about 165 internal down to about 140 145 and then we're going to slice on in but before we get to that point there's something i want to talk about that's been on my mind i usually don't get too serious on this show but i just gotta get this off my chest oh there's a snake in my boot it is time i am super curious to see how this came out oops okay feeling pretty good underneath a little dry towards the end that's all right fatty feels real nice it's kind of nice to see a brisket like this coming off of a pellet cooker all the videos i've seen of people cooking briskets on pellet cookers usually lean more towards the competition side as opposed to the central texas side of barbecue so there's a lot of injections and rubs and sauces and all that stuff so i've always been curious what a just simple salt and pepper brisket would look like in the foil boat of course but without further ado let's go ahead and cut this bad larry right in half not bad good render decent smoke ring looks pretty tender feels nice let's see how this lean came out definitely a little charry on the bottom pulling apart a little bit but cooked properly not bad yeah that underside definitely got a little overcooked starting to shred a little bit but other than that nothing wrong with it next time i'll probably flip it a couple hours sooner and the main reason i started fat cap up was because i was really hoping that this bark would set before i flipped it and did a pretty good job in most parts but that was the thought process behind that i know a lot of people started fat side down all right let's see how this fatty side came out well i'll be damned if that isn't a good looking slice of brisket right there perfectly marbled nice and juicy very tender i'd eat that yep that's really good definitely not as smoky as a typical brisket i cook around here as to be expected but that's one of the better briskets i've ever seen come off of a pellet grill tender moist nicely rendered yeah that's real good gotta admit pretty surprised about how good this is it's kind of a weird moment for me right now that it's a properly cooked brisket and considering how easy of a cook this was it was pretty quick too definitely an option brisket brooke would you like to try my first pellet grill smoked brisket ever hell yeah have at it got some lean over here too oh man this is juicy af as the kids are saying yup oh my god so moist very juicy how does it compare to the average shud household brisket surprising crunchy bark i guess i don't get the flavor like the the smokiness you know mm-hmm but still great still really juicy even the leans juicy mm-hmm yeah it it's really good this is my favorite yeah i don't think you're alone if the fatty is your favorite not bad gorgeous not bad i see why people do it i feel like this pit is looking at me right now it's crying i feel like i betrayed my buddy oh it was for science pal we always love old reliable behind us but if you don't have access to that this is absolutely delicious it works very comparable it works yeah thanks for sharing yeah so all in all i wish i had a little bit more control over the cook this side over here got a little bit toasted a little on the hard side bark is a little uneven again it could use a little bit more smoky flavor but all in all it's properly salted it's got a decent crust on it that pepper crisped up real nice where it stayed on it's cooked to tenderness it rendered well so it's like a solid 80 or 90 percent of the way towards a solid a plus brisket so while i'll be keeping this pellet cooker around yeah i really want to try and explore some new options on it trying to find something where it outshines the traditional form of cooking first things that jump into my head is cold smoking or the other end really hot smoking i think would be great for cold smoke and some sausages because it holds a very steady low temp it only goes down to 180 which is a bummer i was kind of hoping to use it as an overnight warmer but that's a little too hot and then also hot smoking get that thing up to 400 degrees 450 and it'll stay there evenly but it's pretty taxing on the offset and go through a lot of wood but for things like baking like the pretzel episode i did pellet cooker would have been great for that so i'm planning to do some experiments and i will keep you posted on my findings as for traditional barbecue i'm definitely going to be sticking with my offset and the chud box and that's because i'm more about the journey than the destination i really enjoy the act of tending to a fire and having complete control over every aspect of a cook but if you're a busy dad or something or if you really just want to have some smoked meats in your life get yourself a pellet grill they work really well take up a small footprint pellets are readily available pretty cheap and as i was saying earlier it's a perfect foot in the door into the bbq world but that being said if you enjoyed this video please like and subscribe to the channel let me know in the comments below what you want to see me cook next or if you think i'm a total sellout for using a pellet grill big shout out to all the patreon members thank you for supporting the channel and if you give this recipe a try for yourself be sure to tag me on instagram at chud's barbecue i'd love to see what y'all are cooking so until the next time i see you please go cook something outside peace

Channel: Chuds BBQ

Views: 180,809

Keywords: Pellet Smoker, Z Grill, Backyard BBQ, Review

Id: M871ES6MZJc

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 13 2021