tommykendall
Quintessential Chatty Farker
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2003
- Location
- Long Beach, CA
I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks. When in Bakersfield I met a guy from Tyler TX who swears his uncle's method for doing brisket is "the method". The method is somewhat like what we have seen Emeril do. His uncle I think used to own a meat market in Tyler and frequently cooked hundreds of pounds of brisket on enormous cookers. Here's what they do (he did this one on a weber kettle but the concepts are the same):
The WHOLE brisket is separated between point and flat and further cut into chunks - about 5 total chunks per brisket. The chunks are marinated in a solution (as best as I could remember) of water, vinegar(?), garlic, lotsa lemon juice, pickling spices, salt, pepper, and small pieces of fat. He fired up the kettle with some lump charcoal and small commercially bought hickory chunks. I supplemented that with a couple nice chunks of mesquite and hickory. Because of time he was not too concerned about the kettle temperature although I bet his uncle does on the big pits. I surmise they generally cook at higher temps because of what you will read next. He (Rusty is his name) added water to a large aluminum roasting pan, placed in the briskets until pretty much submerged, added some of the marinade. So he's gonna steam the farker I thought. And he did - about every hour going out to turn the meat in the pan until it got fork tender about 5 hours later. There was a lot of smoke and steam coming from the kettle the entire time. Rusty then cooked the remaining juices from the roasting pan into an au jous of some sort, sliced the brisket and poured the juice over the top.
So how was it? Not farking bad given the time crunch. It was moist, tender, had great smoke flavor, no smoke ring I suspect from the water. He understands fully that its not the method by which many of us cook, but it got the job done. I'd be certainly willing to do this method in a crunch.
The WHOLE brisket is separated between point and flat and further cut into chunks - about 5 total chunks per brisket. The chunks are marinated in a solution (as best as I could remember) of water, vinegar(?), garlic, lotsa lemon juice, pickling spices, salt, pepper, and small pieces of fat. He fired up the kettle with some lump charcoal and small commercially bought hickory chunks. I supplemented that with a couple nice chunks of mesquite and hickory. Because of time he was not too concerned about the kettle temperature although I bet his uncle does on the big pits. I surmise they generally cook at higher temps because of what you will read next. He (Rusty is his name) added water to a large aluminum roasting pan, placed in the briskets until pretty much submerged, added some of the marinade. So he's gonna steam the farker I thought. And he did - about every hour going out to turn the meat in the pan until it got fork tender about 5 hours later. There was a lot of smoke and steam coming from the kettle the entire time. Rusty then cooked the remaining juices from the roasting pan into an au jous of some sort, sliced the brisket and poured the juice over the top.
So how was it? Not farking bad given the time crunch. It was moist, tender, had great smoke flavor, no smoke ring I suspect from the water. He understands fully that its not the method by which many of us cook, but it got the job done. I'd be certainly willing to do this method in a crunch.
