The Grillin Fools are big fans of the high heat method of smoking pork butts/shoulder, brisket, and ribs. It’s a bit of a misnomer in that instead of doing it low and slow at say, 200-225 for many hours, we kick up the heat to between 300-350 and cook these things in much less time with great results. It’s more like medium heat method, but that doesn’t sound as good as high heat. Let me hand it off to Arthur Aguirre as he took a combination of a couple of brisket recipes on our site and made this at my suggestion for a party he was having where he didn’t want to get up at 4:00 am to have a brisket ready by 3:00 pm.
On a warm mid-October weekend, I was chillin over at Scott’s house for some grillin and college football thrillin. He smoked some awesome chipotle pork tenderloin and a meatloaf. The Original GrillinFool was even kind enough to let me take some leftovers home to make some tenderloin sammie’s. He wasn’t at all like the pompous imbecile his buddies painted him to be (they don’t read this right?). Anyway, I told him about a brisket I’d be doing for the first time on my son’s birthday and I needed a good recipe. He recommended the combination of two recipes from this site. A couple days later, he sent me this modified recipe. I was psyched to try it and knowing it comes from the OGF himself, these recipes are tried and trusted methods.
Grillin Fool’s Brisket:
Ingredients:
5lb trimmed brisket (flat)
Trimmed side:
Fat Cap side:
Marinade:
Mustard – Dijon and sweet & hot stone ground:
Rub:
Plowboy bovine bold and Montreal seasoning (But you can use your favorite rub or rubs):
Mop:
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup beer
1 tbsp garlic salt
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp black pepper
Instructions:
Marinade in mustard for 2 days:
***Editor’s note ~ You can extend the marinade time to 4 or even 5 days. The longer it marinates, the longer the vinegar in the mustard can work its magic***
Apply rub.
Set smoker for 300-350 and put in some apple wood.
Put the brisket in a disposable aluminum pan (fat cap down):
***Editor’s note ~ There is a lot of debate on fat cap up or fat cap down. I don’t think there is any difference unless using a mop sauce. The mop sauce will not penetrate the fat cap. It will only run over the short sides of the brisket and thus have very little impact if the cap is up. Go fat cap down and let the flavored mop sauce baste the meat***
Smoke for an hour before mopping so the rub sets and sticks before mopping. Brisket at the 1 hour mark:
Be careful with the first mopping that you really only drizzle on the sauce as you will wipe the rub right off at this point if you really pour it on thick – if you do, reapply more rub. Mop every 30 minutes.
At the 2 hour mark:
At the 3 hour mark:
At about 4 hours, mop liberally and cover with foil to steam in the mop sauce and its own juices:
After 5.5 hours of total cook time, it got to 200 degrees internal temp, I pulled it, wrapped it tightly in foil, then placed it in the oven to rest for at least an hour. I waited an hour and a half before I started to slice it:
I started slicing from the right side of the smoked beef. While slicing the brisket with my electric knife, the teeth marks of the blade were seen on the meat. Also, tiny fibers of meat were shredding off and not much liquid was oozing out of it, my first thought was the brisket was dry:
One third of the brisket was this way, I ate a slice and my thoughts were confirmed. However, as I kept slicing I saw more liquid coming out of the meat. When I reached just short of halfway through the beef, it was all money from there. Juicy, tender slices of smoked brisket ecstasy was achieved:
I used the reserved juice at the bottom of the foil pan to re-hydrate the tougher slices of meat. Nobody even knew the difference.
I don’t know what I could have done differently to prevent that small portion from drying out. The thing about BBQ is that it may never happen the same way twice. I could do the exact same recipe and get a different result. I’m not discouraged at all. In hindsight, I could have pulled the meat off a little earlier or let it cook longer, but would the other side been just as tender and juicy? Maybe or maybe not…that’s BBQ.
***Editor’s note ~ Maybe rotate the pan ever hour to try to make sure it cooks evenly? Maybe pull it a little sooner? Maybe that dry section of the brisket was much leaner than the other side? Just a couple of thoughts. Brisket is a fickle beast***
The brisket turned out fantastic. For as much food that was at the party, only a few slices of brisket were leftover to make a pot a chili. In addition, the whole process was an absolute time saver. I have to admit, I was skeptical of this hot and fast BBQ theory, but it works. There would have been no way to get all that work done for a party and tend the grills had I done the low and slow method. With that said, I still want to try the low and slow method when I have a day to do nothing but BBQ, and do it with a bigger brisket.
I don't HH any more...but I may give it a go again soon. I have some things I want to try.
