Brisket - Was I expecting too much?

No Steve you are not asking too much. Tasting the perfect brisket can be a make your knees weak, near orgasmic experience.


Unfortunately those experiences are few and far between. It happened to me once and it was not at a restaurant.



Even in Texas the majority of BBQ joints are mediocre at best.

That's not to say that I haven't had awesome brisket from a restaurant.


Franklin in Austin has really good brisket (You don't have to stand in line. You can order a whole brisket online and pick it up at the little trailer they have out back).



The original Salt Lick in Driftwood also is very good.


Desert Oak BBQ in El Paso consistently delivers top notch "Q".


There are several others, but I can personally vouch for these three.

Agree with most. That brisket doesn’t look too good and it’s tough for a restaurant to serve killer brisket unless they r turning it over as fast as they can slice it (since it dries out so fast).


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gtsum said:

Agree with most. That brisket doesn’t look too good and it’s tough for a restaurant to serve killer brisket unless they r turning it over as fast as they can slice it (since it dries out so fast).


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Which is why places like Franklins do so well. People line up before the briskets for that day are ready to be served it seems. They are pretty much sold ahead of time. He wraps them and holds them so theres no chance of them drying out because each one is sold before it even gets unwrapped.

Hie thee to Texas if you are interested. I have never had brisket better than my own outside of that state.

This is more like what you should be looking for.
A whole different world from what you had.

Cooking one brisket perfectly is tough, lots is VERY tough. At restaurants i find it's usually best to request point or "wet" depending on what they call it. It's fattier, but to make that dry means the rest of the brisket is a brick