Brisket: When to do Fat Side Up/Down?

cayenne said:

Oh, I'm not talking about not COOKING with a fat cap on....

I'm just saying after it is cooked, I can't eat a big mouthful of wobbly, jelly fat...ugh.

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I know, that's the worst time to cut it off! That's where all the seasoning and smoke has spent 10-12 hours permeating. If there are "big globs" of fat then whoever trimmed the brisket did it wrong. I often see people cut off the 1/4" or so of fat off their brisket slices and just shake my head. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

Fat is your friend Cayenne!

Chomp into it!

:becky:

As others have mentioned it depends on what I'm cooking on... On the LSG offset = fat up. On the Recteq pellet smoker = fat down.

On the fat, I'm a pretty aggressive trimmer but agree with this:

cayenne said:

I'm just saying after it is cooked, I can't eat a big mouthful of wobbly, jelly fat...ugh.

I'm there to eat the meat flavored by fat, just not eat the residual fat chunks at the end.

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I understand exactly what youre saying and agree 1000%.

Honestly, just focus on taking a commodity choice grade brisket and cooking it into an awesome delicious treat. When you can repeat that time and time again then you have skills. Fat cap up/down will no longer matter.

Your number one skill as a brisket cook is knowing when it's done. The jiggle, the butcher paper, the shiny side in or out - it's all nonsense! Just keep cooking. It takes time and experience to be able to call the shots on brisket - especially when things go sideways.

It is really not complicated. If you have an offset stick burner you need to figure out if the heat flow is going under or over the rack you place your place your brisket on. It is not difficult. The fat cap should be trimmed off the point entirely and 1/4 inch should be left on the flat. This protects it from drying out. If the heat flows under the meat, the fat goes down and vice versa.

I can not speak to pellet cookers. I have a BGE XL and have had virtually every type of smoker other than a pellet cooker at one time.

With the hot fast cook method, all bets are off. I think there is a reason that Myron Mixon's smoker more resembles an oven with lots of humidity added.

Fsonicsmith said:

The fat cap should be trimmed off the point entirely

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I would respectfully disagree with this specific point, but I agree with everything else.

You can trim the fat cap off the point if that is your personal preference, but to say you should almost makes it sound like that is the generally accepted practice, which it is not.

I think most people think Texas when they think of brisket, as that is the BBQ region it is most associated with, and I don't belive I've heard of a single Texas top 50 spot that removes the fat cap entirely from the point. Trim to roughly a 1/4" yes, but remove all together, no.

Kevin James said:

I would respectfully disagree with this specific point, but I agree with everything else.

You can trim the fat cap off the point if that is your personal preference, but to say you should almost makes it sound like that is the generally accepted practice, which it is not.

I think most people think Texas when they think of brisket, as that is the BBQ region it is most associated with, and I don't belive I've heard of a single Texas top 50 spot that removes the fat cap entirely from the point. Trim to roughly a 1/4" yes, but remove all together, no.

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Point taken.
But seriously, rub will not penetrate fat or adhere once the fat melts. The point is so much thicker and contains so much fat that there is no reason to leave a 1/4' layer of fat on it. Getting the point covered entirely in rub will pay off more than leaving fat on it.

And I doubt that there is a reliable list in existence of "top 50" BBQ spots in TX but even if there was, what is served up in BBQ joints is not necessarily synonymous with best practice for a backyard cook.

Fsonicsmith said:

Point taken.
But seriously, rub will not penetrate fat or adhere once the fat melts. The point is so much thicker and contains so much fat that there is no reason to leave a 1/4' layer of fat on it. Getting the point covered entirely in rub will pay off more than leaving fat on it.

And I doubt that there is a reliable list in existence of "top 50" BBQ spots in TX but even if there was, what is served up in BBQ joints is not necessarily synonymous with best practice for a backyard cook.

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Agreed that rub will not penetrate the fat, however, I have to respectfully disagree again on the point that rub will not stick to the fat once it melts. By that logic it would not be possible to form a good bark when cooking fat cap up. I do not have any problems in that regard. Once the bark forms, and even after the fat cap has properly rendered, that rub is not going anywhere. I am cooking on an offset though that has a ton of convective heat, so your milage may vary depending on the type of cooker used.

As to the top 50 BBQ spots in Texas, it is based on a very famous list put out every few years by Texas Monthly Magazine. This list is at least partly responsible for Aaron Franklin becoming the face of the craft BBQ movement, because his restaurant Franklin BBQ won the #1 spot on the list several times in a row.

Here is a link to the last edition of the list which was put out in late 2021.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/intera...WUfLk4TPPmrod-Cvr0p6P5eMDSazGcIBoCdLIQAvD_BwE