How many Brethren use injections for Brisket?
 

How many of you use an injection for your briskets and why? The brisket is something I've yet to "conquer". I can smoke chicken, ribs, pulled pork but the brisket is something I still can't get right. I'm hearing more and more people say they use an injection (a beef broth type) for their briskets and are getting good results. Any information from the brethren is appreciated.

Injections help with the moisture and penetrates more intense flavors into the briskie. YMMV

I only inject my competition briskets for the very reason BBS stated above...never my personal or catered. :-P

+1 with JD, inject for comps, not for home.

Brisket is my fav!!

Why don't you do it for personal or catering?

The flavor is too intense for me and not cost effective for catering...I prefer my brisket simple...salt, pepper, paprika, a little cayenne...:thumb: Give it a try...you may like it. :becky:

I also inject for comps, but I sometimes inject for home use. it just depends on my mood. I do use different injections for comps and at home. My "standard" home injection is beef stock kicked up with granulated garlic, granulated onion and what ever rub I am going to use on the brisket. I steep that for a while, cool and strain.

Thanks. First I need to learn to not under or over cook the behemoth cut of meat. I'm still a novice when it comes to brisket.

Mind if I buck the trend?
I don't inject brisket at all, for comp or for home use.
It has been tried, and I frankly did not like the flavor. To me it was "chemically" and I prefered the flavor of "brisket au naturale" (well, rubbed of course!). I do well at comps that way too. Of the three comps I have done we have walked in brisket all three times with 5th, 7th, and 5th.

Have you tried cooking just the flat to get the process down ? It is much smaller and does not require the length of time to cook.

If you are under/over cooking it is a matter of watching your internal temps. Cook to about 190ish and then check for probe tenderness after that, meaning the probe should just fall into the the brisket with no resistance. The term we like to use is "like buttah".

Typically a done brisket will be somewhere between 195 - 203ish. It all depends on the piece of meat.

I inject. Beef broth + Fab B Lite if I want to be fancy. Just beef broth + a little rub otherwise.

Sometimes I'll do naked brisket if I get a good cut like Choice. A lot of times they only have Select so it needs all the help it can get.

No I have not. I've never thought about doing that. You've got my spirits up again about cooking brisket. I know what I'm buying at the grocery store this weekend. Thanks! :thumb:

I too find myself (at times) grasping at the illusive perfect brisket.. I still have some learning to do, which is why I haven't tried injecting.....I feel I should try to get just my briskies right first before using enhancers.....That's just me though....and who knows I might never get it right!....Although I do have a lot of fun trying!!!!!!:thumb:


firecracker jack

For flavor profile I worked quite a bit with chuck roasts as they're less expensive and
less cook time. For non-injected we prefer JD's approach; simple. However, we
did come to find that we enjoy Butchers injection in beef, if done with WATER (not
beef broth) and left mixed overnight before injecting the next morning. The flavor
is there, but subtle, and I do enjoy the moisture in the meat. We now inject everything
beef, comp or not. We're actually getting away from briskets as we dont and probably
wont cook much KCBS any longer (we're focusing on MBN) and at home we prefer
the pulled beef of a chuckie.

+1 for Butchers mixed with water and left overnight, that seems to be the trick with their beef injection.

There's a TON of great threads right here on this site about cooking brisket and THANKS to this site, I think I may have conquered the brisket. Either way, they have VASTLY improved...thanks to this site. One of the hardest things to do I think is knowing doneness and you cant tell by temp alone...it's all in the feel, as was mentioned earlier.