Ground porcini mushroom rubbed brisket?

I was at Cash n' Carry yesterday and picked up some pellets for the MAK smoker, a CAB brisket to cook this weekend, and on a whim a large container of dried porcini mushrooms. I've heard good things about ground porcini powder on steaks and beef. Last night I ground some of the mushrooms into a meatloaf I made and it really kicked up the flavor profile.

Now I am thinking about applying it to the brisket. My quick and dirty brisket rub has been equal parts Montreal Steak Seasoning and chili powder. It's made some really successful briskets. Now I'm thinking about replacing the chili powder with porcini powder and see where it gets me.

Is this a great idea? A terrible idea? Has anyone used porcini powder as a foundation for a rub before? Or will low and slow destroy the flavor? Any thoughts are appreciated. If the porcini brisket is a go I will take pics and report back.

OK update time. No pics unfortunately but I can report back. Thanks everyone for the thoughts- they helped me focus on a plan

I had a full CAB packer. I trimmed her up and made a rub as follows:

1/4C Montreal Steak Seasoning
1T chili powder
2T porcini mushroom powder

Yeah, I've gone down the road of hand grinding a complex rub with 19 different ingredients. Nowadays I take some shortcuts but I am just as satisfied with the results. Having a baby will make you reevaluate where you spend your time :mrgreen:

All combined I ended up with about 1/3C of rub with the above mix, which I find is just the right amount for a packer brisket. I used all of the rub, let it rest for a couple of hours then threw it on the MAK 2-star at 250 with cherry pellets. I like a little more smoke on my long brisket cooks than the MAK puts out so I lit an A-maze-n tube smoker filled with more cherry pellets and let her go overnight.

So how did it turn out? Very well. When I opened the cooker the next day I was greeted by a rich, beefy, smoky,slightly earthy smell. The latter was definitely the mushroom powder. I ended up letting the brisket go a little longer than I wanted, and it was slightly crumbly but still juicy.

The bark was phenomenal, and had the right amount of complexity. The mushroom powder really did the trick and accentuated the beef flavor. That said, I like my rub to be balanced- that is, no one flavor standing up above the rest. I could definitely pick out a slight edge to the mushroom flavor.

What did I learn?

Well the mushroom powder was a resounding success but a little goes a long way. Next time I will only use 1T of the powder.

I would recommend this addition to your beef rubs if you have an opportunity to try it.

Thanks for checking out my thread! Next time I will actually get pics I promise

Bludawg said:

http://tmbbq.com/umami-bomb-pork-butt/

Click to expand...

Interesting link! His conclusion is that a glutemate rich rub doesn't make a difference in the quality of BBQ, but he only tested his theory with pork butt.

I could only guess as to why glutemates didn't add anything to pulled pork, but I definitely noticed the difference mushroom powder added to the brisket in my test- I was peeling off bits of bark to eat and couldn't get enough!

I think beef and porcini just like each other!