Need brisket bark!!!

[WineMaster]

All the Innovative ways people have come up with making bark on their meats outside of the simple Salt + Meat + heat + time = Bark. I think some of them are cool. And years and years ago, when there was no internet, BBQ, esp competition BBQ was taught face to face. The internet and the new techniques that have arisen in order to teach it to people without the benefit of touch, smell, taste, look and even sound... have made new methods. Thing is... most everyone is now using those methods, which make the old methods... well, less utilized on the circuits. It is easier to think you can mix up something that will make your bark better than learn a technique.

Its a big business...and the economic forces in control know they can simply make quicker coin by persuading a greenpea to buy a "secret concoction of spices" or Rubbs or injections other than learn the technique. Don't believe me... google the amount of Rubbs available and compare them to DVDs that teach you the techniques for sale.

Eventually, it comes down to technique... you have to learn those skills sometime... its unfortunate that now that usually comes after wasting tons of meat. I leraned it, forgot it or rejected itm then had to learn all over again.

Take me for example, trained by arguably the best in the biz... then I broke away... tried to mix things up... create too complex a rub, lower my temps too much, and was somewhat lost to the art for a period of years. Then one day I was showing a friend how the old schoolers used to make it and realized, hey... no one hardly cooks like this anymore... the Billy Walls are slowing down, the Milroys, all of them... slowing down, well maybe not Bill and Barb but mostly to promote their sauces. Bill's ribs are stupid simple and I think some of the best.

Anyway... had to come back. I thought I had nothing to offer in pushing the envelope for all those years only to find that I am pushing the envelope by seemingly not doing anything ground-breaking.

I liken it to - well - watching Bryan Setzer or Prince perform these days. So... my artifical comment was a compliment... frankly, if we stuck only to traditional recipes, we would simply not need the forum at all... someone could post "use salt, pepper and 270 or above" and that would be it.

But we all know from my videos that I don't JUST use salt and pepper. Hee hee hee. Even I can't resist.

This reminds me of the movie Billy Madison.

 

[barbefunkoramaque]

in brisket - anything other than

dry heat + Salt* + Time

* sugar is not really a bark aid even though it burns and makes a black crust
and notice I said Dry Heat - no wrapping


I am not excluding spices but Salt carries those flavors in and there is a myriad of spices to use so I omitted them. How these spices tend to burn or crust also is not considered bark... but they can be interesting and delicious as well as win contests so I am not knocking them either.

I can put it this way... we all know that many of the traditional resturants that have been serving brisket for eons do not use foil. BUT in competition where every fraction matters sometimes you have to reach for it... but by using it... you sacrifice the bark UNLESS you create it some other way... thereby through innovation you arrive at something like the same thing... which... for the most part few judges care about because they are judging by the cubic inch and not the whole thing.

That would be cool huh? a brisket judged by the WHOLE brisket wrapped in butcher paper with no garnish. Every judge would get their favorite piece. It would be neat to watch too... 6 or so pairs of hands tearing apart your sample. Of course then the last guys would suffer because the judges were full. LOL

Once again... like the fly said walking over the mirror, that's one way of looking at it.

 

[nikinik]

We are using a marinade and also injecting it...we make our own rub...i try to keep it between 225-250 for the first five hours, then wrapped it in foil and used a mop for a crutch for another 3 hours to get the internal temp up to 195 then took out the mop juice and wrapped it again and let it sit in a cooler for 2-4 hours...the taste was awesome, it was tender but could have been more tender and the bark was soft. I am thinking of trying to keep the temp lower like 225 and cook it longer but it is so hard to keep the temp the same with my grill...someone also mentioned that when i wrap it in foil to kick up the temp to 300, it didn't do that.

 

[barbefunkoramaque]

nix the marinade, bump the temp, use your rub (only as much as the meat will hold naturally without any slurry) but add a large grained salt (lots of it) just before you plop it on the grill, do not mop, do not foil, try fat down, nix the foil and instead simply pan fat side up (maybe some beer but not needed) and you will have a true bark that incidentally will not suffer much from wrapping and resting, vacuum packing, freezing or reheating. Oh and ignore internal temps... brisket is done by feel. I have seen 165 and 195 with the same tender flats


That's my 4 cents.