Texas Pitmaster Reveals All Brisket Secrets | Chuds BBQ

what's going on everybody welcome back to chad's bbq my name is bradley robinson and today i'm going to show you how i made this beautiful barky tender smokey every trick in the book paper wrap brisket coming up over the last 10 years of working in and around the professional barbecue scene here in austin texas i have met a lot of people i've worked alongside some of the biggest names in texas whether it's at the restaurant during the collab at an event forming personal relationships with the pit masters ex-employees current employees needless to say i have heard it all when it comes to tips tricks and little secrets regarding how to cook the perfect texas brisket if you've seen any of my previous videos you know i tend to keep it pretty simple salt pepper foil boat clean smoke it's really all you need to create a perfect brisket in my opinion but i have always wondered if i applied all these little tips and tricks and secrets could i make the ultimate texas style brisket well that's what we're gonna do today folks and it is going to be delicious this is a brisket tip number one for an amazing brisket is starting with an amazing brisket this is an american wagyu brisket from snake river farms and believe it or not i got this at my local h-e-b this is a beast a good trim is 100 necessary and i know i've trimmed briskets on this channel many times before and i'm just going to keep doing it because i kind of like it and i think it's beneficial get that silver skin off of there look at that marbling on there that's why you want to start out with a quality brisket otherwise you're in the turd polishing business whenever you're removing silver skin too always cut with the grain otherwise you're going to have a hard time yeah don't eat any of that that is going to make some good burgers again mostly fat you see right there i'm getting pretty close to the meat good indication so glad there's a bunch of roofing going on today oh yep there it is look at the marbling on that lean oh this is going to be good some places pound their brisket helps tenderize the point meat a little bit i'm doing it just so it sits a little flatter that is a nice looking nicely trimmed brisket in my opinion clean on the back rounded edges looking good to me so down here in texas everyone says they put nothing but salt and pepper on their briskets but i gotta break it to you a lot of big name places put a little bit something extra in there sometimes it's just some garlic powder or some onion powder or something like that but the majority of places that are trying to mimic that john lewis style of barbecue use this bam lowry's seasoned salt this stuff is pretty tasty it's got some garlic and some onion in there a little bit of sugar i believe and because it's seasoned salt they can still get away with saying it's just salt and pepper kind of sneaky so for our rub today i'm going in with two parts black pepper one part kosher salt well almost one part try not to look into the viewfinder when you're making rubs and one part larry's seasoned salt simply enough we're just gonna mix this all together you could put this in a shake bottle much like this one a lot of places do that i'm not a big fan of the shake bottle i think i have more control just by grabbing it i don't need to worry about the granules settling nearly as much that's why i'm doing this in a quart container here and there you have it some authentic texas barbecue rub next up we got to have something to help this rub stick right so we're going on with our mustard slather you've seen me do this before this is mustard and hot sauce frank's red hot pretty much in equal parts just because mustard's a little too tacky and hot sauce is a little too loose and you can use whatever you want as a slather traditionally around here what you're going to see a lot of is mustard and pickle juice but i don't have any pickle juice handy kind of like the idea of mustard and hot sauce you're not really going to get much flavor out of this but if there's a chance might as well add something with some good flavor to it just going to go at this pretty aggressively with our rub don't forget the edges rookie move that is looking pretty good to me always start fat side down because this is your presentation side and you want it to be as pretty as possible again you don't need too much slather it's kind of why the mustard is nice because you can really see what you're doing as opposed to something like water or oil put it on there tack it up real nice that's feels so weird i haven't done a slather on a brisket in a very long time and to be clear we do none of this aliroy and liz there we go try and counteract the wind look in good all right i think we're just about there again double check your edges you want a nice even coat maybe even a little heavier on the fatty side just because there's a lot more meat over there all right there we have it that is your central texas style brisket damn it there's a snake in my boot we are going to rock this pit at around 250 degrees for the first few hours of this cook and the reason for that is because the first three four hours of any brisket cook is when the brisket is gonna absorb the majority of its smoke flavor before it gets too cooked so by lowering the temperature at around 250 for the first few hours this is going to be a slower process a smokier process and we're going to get a little extra smoky flavor on our brisket as always fat cap facing up fatty side towards the fire we're not too close to the exchange we're also not too close to the chimney because there's going to be a little bit of back heat right in this region right there is exactly where we want it to be i'm also going to go in with a water pan and the point of the water pan is that it adds humidity to the cook chamber which is great because humid air is a lot more consistent than dry air which is going to help eliminate hot spots in your smoker and if you have multiple briskets going you're going to eliminate some of the variables based on where they're sitting in the pit and also having some extra humidity is going to help keep from drying out the surface too much so if you're getting a lot of crunchy ends on your brisket a water pan will help with that and also a human environment cooks a little bit faster than a dry one so this should help speed up your cook this is a little pain i picked up at the kitchen supply store you can find them online as well you can also use a foil pan or a pie tin whatever you got so i'm going to put it right at the exchange here which is going to help kind of block some of that direct heat and make sure this comes up to a boil or a simmer adding a lot of nice humidity to our cook chamber and while i'm in here i'm also going to throw in a blocking log point of the blocking log is quite simply to soften the blow of all the heat rushing into this pit basically we're trying to protect this little end right there from getting blasted with direct heat because it's closest to the fire so what this is going to do is just kind of redirect the airflow to kind of come up and down and over this instead of the brisket taking all the full force this is a great opportunity to go through your wood pile and pick some of the densest pieces you've got because you really don't want this to ignite on your pit and also if you pick one of these really green pieces by the end of this cook this will be ready to throw on the fire we are about five hours into this cook let's see how this brisket is looking so far so good got some good color starting to get some pooling right in the lean as to be expected so we're gonna tip that let that drain off a little bit still pretty tough not as good of a bark as i was hoping for i mean that's a that's a slather for you in between hours three and four i cranked the temperature up to around 275 and i started spritzing with this just your classic apple cider vinegar spritz if that's too intense for you you can also dilute it down by 50 you know half vinegar half water and also look at this blocking log smoldering away so i've been keeping that pretty soaked too again that's why i don't like blocking logs and look at that our water pan is empty i think it's time to fill it back up even briskets like beers will this affect flavor no probably not have i heard about people doing it yes beautiful all right so now we're gonna shut this lid maintain temperatures around 275 degrees we'll check back in another trick i've heard of is some people like to throw beef fat into their fire around this stage in the cook so i went through my brisket trimmings and i pulled out some of these pieces of soft fat from the top of the lean and i'm just going to start chipping these into the firebox periodically throughout the cook thought process here is that it's going to give you that nice kind of char-broiled flavor something you get if you're cooking burgers over direct flames or santa maria style or even chud box style so supposedly adds a little extra flavor to your brisket so we're going to try it today cooking with post oak wood today as usual right on schedule and look how clean that smoke is that's what we're looking for for the perfect brisket clean heat coming out just crispers of blue smoke beautiful gotta say i'm loving this hole throwing fat on the fire thing not sure how much it's gonna affect the taste of the brisket but uh it certainly does smell fantastic great way to lure in customers and hey i'm sure you got plenty of beef bat lying around after trimming your brisket either way speaking of extra brisket trim no need to waste it might as well make some burgers while we're here looking good to me and if you want to learn more about burger making you can check out my chud burger episode where i make a pretty mean cheeseburger out of brisket trim bam whole bunch of ground beef ready to go into the fridge and as for the rest of this fat that didn't go into burgers and didn't get thrown on the fire might as well make some beef tallow right easiest best way send it right through the grinder you can also just cut this up really small but if you've got a neat grinder this is going to make it as fast as possible and as the most efficient meaning you're going to get the most hallow for your yield as opposed to leaving it in big chunks perfect from here your best bet is to throw this into a pan and reduce it down but i want to put a little smoke on it first so in the smoker goes just for a little bit this is a little trick i picked up from michael wyan who makes smoked beef fat tortillas they're good and having some smoky beef tallow around is never a problem in my book we're about seven hours into this brisket cook and i have swapped my vinegar spritz out for a worcestershire spritz and what that's gonna do is really help with this color right at the end while adding some pretty nice flavors that are gonna roast and cook on there just for the next few hours you could also dilute this with half worcestershire half vinegar but i'm going to straight worcestershire sauce because i want to add those unique notes and get that nice darkening effect on the crust so i'm going to spritz this for another couple of hours and then we're going to wrap it up i also got rid of the blocking log because i've now got this pan of fat in there but i'm a little concerned about this part of the lean getting a little too crispy so i'm going to take one of these little pieces of foil here and just protect that edge because that's the driest part of the whole brisket and i want to make sure that it's protected and stays nice and juicy [Applause] still got it we're about eight hours almost nine hours into this brisket cooking that behemoth has finally gotten through the stall i could have wrapped it a bit sooner but i really wanted to build that bark up a little bit because paper wrapping tends to soften the bark up so either way i got two pieces of butcher paper about this big that's all you need you don't need anything too gigantic but i'm simply gonna take my spritz and i'm gonna get this paper nice and wet and that's just gonna help with the wrapping making sure everything folds a little easier a little tighter and when it comes to paper wrapping your brisket it really could not be easier first things first we're gonna go flap over the top sides in trying to hug this natural curve right now same with this side and then kind of tuck it in a little bit and then making sure everything is nice and scooted back we're going to flip it over again tucking everything in and then one more turn we have got ourselves a perfectly wrapped brisket i'm gonna throw this back on the smoker for another maybe hour or two it's not gonna take long but what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna aim the lean side towards the fire there's another little trick i picked up along the way because the fatty part always cooks faster so giving the lean end a little extra attention right towards the end here is really going to ensure even cooking across the board as for our beef tallow it's been on there for a few hours and as you can see we've definitely rendered some fat out but nowhere near as much as we can so we got enough smoky flavor on there so i'm going to finish this off in a pot you could also just do this from the get-go which is what i normally do if you want to see that process you can check out my chuck burn ends video now we're just gonna let this cook down until everything is nice and crispy and floating and that is exactly what we're looking for folks nice and golden brown not too dark that's how you know you've got pure beef tallow because you can't get this color unless you boil out all of the water and the crispy bits start to fry in pure fat so unless you take it to this stage you're very likely going to end up with some tallow that's also got a water content which is not what you want while we're at it we're gonna add a little bit more lowry seasoning to the tallow just for another layer of flavor now that is some liquid gold we're at about ten and a half hours into this cook whitening this brisket is reading right around 205 degrees feels nice and jiggly and it is time to come off feels very tender so onto this sheet it goes i'm going to rest it down a little bit to maybe 175 degrees or so and then into my oven it goes on its lowest setting which for me is 170 degrees and i'm gonna let it rest just like this until tomorrow it is the next morning and i'm pulling this brisket out to take a look at it make sure it's feeling nice and tender and see if it needs any more attention this is generally how they do it at most barbecue joints they'll put their briskets in the warmers around 10 o'clock midnight or so then the next morning around 8 or 9 they'll go through feel them all make sure they're all feeling tender if there's any that need a little more attention they can bump up the temp of the warmer and just make sure everything's looking right [Applause] and luckily this is looking just right oh that's incredibly tender got that jiggle factor to it bark is looking real nice clearly got some really good jiggle to it we know this is super tender but the real trick is to feel the underside feels nice and pliable this thing is looking good and it's at this point that they will go through and add the talos that's what we're gonna do right now i got this tallow that we rendered down last night and we're just gonna dump some on and that's just going to make sure it's nice and juicy while it finishes resting it's going to give it that gloss and that sheen that makes all the photos look so good make sure nothing is dry on the cutting board and now we're just going to wrap this right back up into the oven for another couple hours and then it'll be time to slice on in all right folks i think it's time to see how this came out one thing to bear in mind even though i had my oven set at 170 this thing was holding around 160 the entire time so don't be too scared if your oven doesn't get very low [Applause] boom big reveal oops that looks pretty good to me [Music] hard to beat that folks nice and juicy oh you know it's tender yup and yes jiggle factor is there i'd say that's pretty juicy burn end don't mind if i do that is so tender so marbled it's like cutting butter i mean what more let's just have a moment of silence for this piece right here nice soft bark that's what we're after with the paper god it's so soft oh i think it's time to give this a taste test [Music] oh wow cockburn you got to get in on this dude you can barely pick it up yeah it's definitely on the tender side oh my god it like barely can hold itself that is freaking delicious so you pulled out all the stops on this one huh all of them every one i've ever heard of see how that lean came out looking pretty good to me holding up yes please i think i like to lean a little bit better yeah it's a little less uh intense than its fatty companion over here the fatty is amazing but i don't know how much of that i can eat it is like it's rich it's super rich that wagyu beef ma'am i have to say i'm uh regretting all the candy i ate right before i came out here the thing i'm noticing the most different than your typical brisket cook is the the bark is definitely a lot less crunchy yeah it's very soft it's uh the whole thing is kind of the same sort of texture yeah it's that meat jello through and through yeah if you like meat and you don't like this there's something wrong with you that is indulgent to say the least very rich very flavorful too all those little tips and tricks along the way definitely paid off usually the briskets i make that are just salt pepper foil boat is very beefy yeah you know smoky kind of hearty this has got a lot more nuance to it definitely and it's good it is good um long day's sweating in the shop eat some of this brisket and be knocked right out yep it is a sight to see sight of beauty there all right final tasting notes it's really good incredibly tender maybe even a little too tender that wagyu beef you gotta be careful with it smoky not too smoky can you taste the fat in the fire a little bit it's pretty subtle and overall it's just a bit more savory i'm not sure if it's the mustard it doesn't really taste like mustard it doesn't really taste like worcestershire or vinegar but all of it added together with the lowry's just just got a saltier savory note to it which is really pleasant really good one other thing is the bark i went pretty heavy on the bark to try and keep up with it so it held up pretty well except for right here in the lean you can kind of see where it was pooling a little bit a little discoloration but that's to be expected every now and then when you're wrapping in paper and with slathers as well all in all would i do it again absolutely it's kind of fun just babying a brisket like this doing all the different steps pulling out all the stops is it necessary no you can do a lot less work and have something just as good or just something that's different you know i really do like the crunchy bark but you know it just goes to show you there's a lot of different ways to get a good result at the end of the day all right y'all and that is it that is how to make the quintessential central texas style craft brisket big shout out to john lewis and aaron franklin for popularizing this paper wrap method and just to sheer attention to detail without you guys i would not be here making barbecue videos today and again i'm not saying that any place in town is doing all of these tricks these are just things that i have seen in the kitchens and heard about from other cooks so i wanted to put them all together and see how the final result came out and it was absolutely fantastic but that being said if you give any of these little tips or tricks to try for yourself be sure to let me know on instagram at chud's barbecue i'd love to see what y'all are cooking if you enjoyed this video please like and subscribe to the channel it helps me out so much big shout out to all the patreon members without you guys that wouldn't be able to afford 22 pound wagyu briskets let me know in the comments down below what you want to see me cook next and until the next time i see you please go cook something outside peace

Channel: Chuds BBQ

Views: 1,997,671

Keywords: Beef, Backyard BBQ, Offset Smoker, BBQ Pit, Smoked

Id: Z2aD16zFP8E

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Soahc5321]

This guy's channel is rapidly becoming my favorite. Every single video he's put out has been so helpful and informative.

[u/Sirhctopher024]

I’m curious what everyone’s opinions are regarding how long you can leave the brisket wrapped in low temp oven. I usually take my wrapped brisket and toss it in my Yeti for 4 hours and rest unwrapped for 30-45 min before slicing. If I can keep the brisket in the oven over night without degrading the structure of the meat too badly that would be a game changer.

[u/LuigiLife69]

I love Chuds

I think I've watched every single one of his videos already.