The Brisket Wrap Test

hey everybody i'm chef tom with atbbq.com and this is the brisket wrap test well today we're doing a little experiment we've got three whole briskets we're gonna smoke up using three different techniques one wrapped in foil one wrapped in paper and one cooked naked and unwrapped throughout the entire process we want to find out how these techniques affect the finished product in flavor texture and time so we're going to hop right into the middle of this cook we've got three beautiful creek stone farm prime briskets that have been on the yoder smokers ys 1500s pellet grill for nearly eight hours now smoking away at 225. they're just about to wrap so that's where we're gonna jump in so all three of these briskets are roughly about the same size all three of them have been treated the same they've all been injected in the flat with a little beef stock and then a simple salt and pepper based seasoning on the outside now this one right here you can see it's got a nice bark formed on it starting to get that dark mahogany color in fact all of these are progressing pretty nice so i'm gonna pick a couple of these that we're gonna wrap one in foil one in paper and we'll leave the third one just sitting there naked smoking open so let's start off with the foil now typically with foil one of the things i really like to do is add a little extra liquid in to kind of add to the braise and to the flavor but in the name of keeping all things equal today we're not going to do that we're just going to wrap it up nice and tight in the foil all right so next we're going to do our paper wrap so once again we want to go pretty tight with this there we go all right so we're gonna get these loaded back in here and we'll see them when they finish and start to come off the first of our three briskets are done just shy of the 10 hour mark and that's the foil wrapped brisket it's tipping just over 205 and very little resistance when probed so we're going to pull this off and let it rest well guys we're at the 11 hour mark now and i'm feeling this paper wrapped brisket and man it feels good it feels like it's done not much resistance when it's probed so we're going to pull this off right at the 11 hour mark which just leaves us with our unwrapped brisket and it's getting really close as well i can actually tell now that this is a bit smaller of a brisket than the other one so i think that's going to help us out on the timeline but it doesn't mean probably more than another 15 to 20 minutes would be my guess well all three briskets are off the grill now all three have had time to rest we're gonna start by slicing into the foil wrapped brisket since it came off first all right there she is decent bark definitely softened a bit in the wrap but otherwise looks really nice great wiggle to it let's just go ahead and take it about in the center where those two muscles meet a little bit of that point muscle right there on top of our flat i mean juicy for sure great smoke ring i mean same thing to be said for the flat great juiciness take some slices here out of the flat getting to that center mark there pretty decent little hang on it just a little bit of tug but comes apart pretty easy very juicy flavor from the bark is great let's just check on that point meat now now our point kind of runs in the opposite direction so i'm going to switch directions on us here and that up there is all that point meat with a little bit of that flat underneath and once again plenty of juice in there but it's slicing like a dream and if we take that fatty meat away from the lean it's holding together right but if we tug on it it just wants to come right apart so that's a good sign that's at the right spot where it's rendering out but it's still holding stuff together feel pretty good about that for the foil wrapped the bark isn't super prominent but i think we'll see a little bit of variety as we move on and slice into these other two briskets all right so let's get into our paper wrapped brisket now so initial thoughts there's definitely a bit more bark to it that's for sure let's come in here about halfway i mean that's just right where that point meets starting so we're right right about halfway through the flat not quite as juicy but still got good juice to it so about the same on the hang about the same on the tenderness i'd say just a tad less juicy but again it's not dried out now that's interesting the flavor to me is more peppery so i'm definitely tasting more of the bark than i was on the last one now for this one i'm just going to peel these mussels apart so we can kind of look specifically at the point meat so we've got a much thinner point muscle on this brisket just shaped a little bit differently but you can see all that juice that's still coming out of the center there so again that's a piece of that fatty meat it's holding together but a little tug and it comes right apart great moisture content to the point so last we have our unwrapped brisket and this one has got some mean bark on the outside i mean that's got texture for days well that's definitely the driest of all three of them but that's to be expected when you talk about cooking it open all the way through and boy that's dark look at the bark on that thing so they hang about the same as well the tug pretty nice so it should be no surprise that this is the smokiest of all three of the briskets with the most texture but the least amount of internal juiciness even cooked to that kind of perfect doneness where everything's melting out so there's that point meat that fatty stuff nice little tug to it you can see that it's plenty juicy oh man that's got incredible flavor i love the way the bark is so pronounced on this one but you can't deny that there's a little trade-off when it comes to the moisture content on the brisket throughout i think for me the foil wrapped is probably the winner i mean you just can't deny that juiciness and the bark is still really nice just not the same crunch you get on an unwrapped brisket so when it comes down to it i think it's really about personal preference each technique has its own trade-offs advantages disadvantages it's really about what's important to you and choosing the technique that matches that so for me i love a juicy brisket and that's a big piece of meat with two very different kinds of mussels in it i want to make sure it's going to be juicy every time i'm probably going to continue to roll with the foil but if it's more important to you to have a really crunchy nice bark on the outside you want that dark crunch to it go unwrapped if you want to pick up some of the elements of both of those paper wrap's probably the way to go well thank you guys so much for watching if you have any suggestions for future tips and techniques let us know in the comment section down below and let's be good to one another for more recipes tips and techniques head over to atbbq.com the sauce all things barbecue where 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Channel: allthingsbbq

Views: 98,306

Keywords: atbbq, all things bbq, allthingsbbq, all things barbecue, bbq, barbecue, brisket, wrap, foil, crutch, paper, butcher paper, yoder smokers, pellet grill, ys1500s, ys1500, beef, whole brisket, the sauce, chef tom

Id: vxMUiA5UCQM

Length: 9min 39sec (579 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020