Texas Slow and Low Smoked Brisket

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Thought people might be interested in my current project:

I decided to crack out the smoker this weekend and ordered an 8lb cut of brisket to do a Texas slow and low smoke. Got a load of hickory ready to rock and roll tomorrow.

The cut. Bloody big piece of meat! Totalled just shy of 8lbs in weight and came to £25ish at my local butcher, I often give him trout so he knocked a few quid off! Bargain.

Dry rub consisting of paprika, brown sugar, salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne, garlic powder and onion powder:

Shall post smoking photos tomorrow evening. It's going to be in the smoker for ten hours.

 

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The chimney was lit at 6am this morning and at 7am the brisket was cooking!

8am was the start of basting, so I mopped every half an hour a mixture of white wine vinegar, apple juice, brown sugar, a bottle of San Miguel and salt and pepper. In answer to the question above, I used hickory chips (I prefer blocks of as the chips burn too fast but hey ho), and 10 hours smoking at 225F with Weber long lasting premium coals (totally needed, there's no way you could do this with the express bog standard charcoal, unless you were shovelling like a steam engine crew).

The smoker:

Probably has the world's most retarded thermometer ever... Warm, Ideal & Hot. Ideal for what? According to this thermometer my slow smoke of 225F was just mid-warm half the time! Had my trusty digital thermometer on the opposite side though that inserts into a hole I drilled.

Five hours in:

Mopping/Basting:

Carving, the burnt ends were an explosion of taste! It was crunchy and caramelised from the sugar, and the hickory had penetrated so far into the meat it was full of smokey flavour - but not like an ash tray!

Plated up with homemade coleslaw and corn on the cob:

I may now look like a coal miner (partly due to my own fault - I spilt the drip tray into the coals when clearing up and got Pompei'd by a tonne of ash as it explodes) but this has been one of the most rewarding and honestly challening dishes i've ever made. The taste of accomplishment heightened an already fantastic dish! The brisket could fall apart if it wasn't carved against the grain because it was so tender, pretty much melt in the mouth.

The only problem was keeping it stoked at a stable 225F. It did at one point peak to 270F but I coaxed it down a little bit - went to mow the front lawn and didn't give it enough attention (at least 1 temperature reading every 30 minutes) and the fuel died down to about 160F, it then wasn't hot enough to light other new coals so I had to start a new chimney. Thank God I have that chimney, I could have kissed it if it wouldn't fry my face off.

what smoker do you use?

ive allways fancied getting one.

I honestly have no idea, it's not a particularly fancy one but it does the job more or less. I have to tin foil up the lid seam or it leaks a lot of smoke.

 

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I went to the place he visited on Man vs Food a few weeks ago - The Salt Lick just outside Austin. Absolutely amazing.

I'm going to be in Austin in October, I seriously want to go! How far out of Austin is The Salt Lick? Taxi? Bus? Is it very expensive and is the open pit thing really there still?

 

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It is out in the sticks, about 30 minutes from downtown (although that depends on traffic). The open pit is still there.

Austin is seriously great for food - check out as many of the food trailers as you can. My favourite was Coreano's which is a mix of Korean and Mexican. Also Texas Chilli Parlour (downtown) and Hop Doddy (South Congress) are well worth a visit - the latter has some of the best burgers I've ever had, and the former awesome chilli con carne.

Thanks for the info. I'll look into getting a taxi out to the Salt Lick when I'm over there.

Thats awesome mate, what smoker are you using? i bought one last year and it looked small in the photos but this is what turned up.

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Im looking for something more manageable this year

Cheers. That smoker is insane. Where abouts do you live? If you're looking into getting a different smoker I'd definitely be interested in having that off you (depending on price)! I need a big smoker and something with a bit more complexity. My smoker is simply a metal pan at the bottom with a door hinge for easy access to the coals and for putting chips in. Above that (on the same door) is space for an extra grill and pan for water or lower tier of grill space, then up again for upper grill space.

I'll have that one off you Kimi

Anyone know where I can get smoking wood chips? They do them on amazon but won't post to me in France. Swines.

I'm not sure what the garden centre industry is like in France, but over here in South London there are 3 garden centres near-by that all do the Weber range of wood chips. They get the job done by for example that 10 hour cook used up about 3/4 of a 2 kilo bag of chips! The chips just don't last long enough, I much prefer blocks of wood if I can get my hands on it.

By all means if you can't find them anywhere, I could post you some - but it'd cost you about £15 P&P for international shipping... Bit of a rip off for some wood chips. Unfortunately I suppose the French don't really smoke that much, do they?