#Overcooked brisket plus#
This is why our theme of low heat plus time is so important. Would that we could just stick a thermometer in the meat and blast it at high heat until it reached 203☏ (95☌)! But getting there in an hour will only give us a brisket that is so rubbery that you could almost dribble it down the street. This connective tissue must be rendered into luscious gelatin so that the meat is tender, not tough and rubbery/chewy.Ĭollagen dissolution is, sadly, not just a factor of temperature but also of time. Brisket is also-thanks to its active position on the breast of the cow-positively packed with collagen. (Spoiler: put it in the flat.) Toughness/tenderness and timeīut the two-muscle problem isn’t the only puzzle the brisket demands we solve. If we cook the point to the standard BBQ pull temp for tough meats- 203☏ (95☌)-the flat will likely be toast.
#Overcooked brisket how to#
Add to this the fact that the point is stacked on top of the flat-well, really, half the flat-and the thermal conundrum of how to properly cook brisket comes more sharply into focus.įor instance, where should we put the thermometer? If we place it in the true thermal center of the meat (between the point and the flat), we’ll overcook the flat. The flat is relatively lean and prone to overcooking, while the point is marbled with fat, which requires long cooking to render properly. They are separated in the brisket by a thick layer of fat (the deckle) and cook at different temperatures. A whole brisket (full packer) is actually composed of two different muscles: the flat and the point. What makes brisket so difficult to cook, though? The very muscle itself. But they have also learned how to be patient. Those that master brisket are great pitmasters, indeed. Put the potato salad back in the fridge and try to think of things to talk about with your brother-in-law for the 2 more hours than you expected to get this thing just right? That’s the price of perfection. Stay up an extra hour to let the bark set before you wrap? Yes. One of the reasons that brisket is known as the king of BBQ meats-aside from the fact that it’s packed with delicious, almost sweet-tasting fat-is that it’s hard to get right. To make perfect brisket, you have to surrender: you do what it says for 8–16 hours. Contentsĭifficulties of cooking beef brisket Two muscles: what is brisket? After all, May is National BBQ Month (did we mention that?). In today’s post, we intend to walk you through the whole brisket process, including some of the methods that are used by amateurs and professionals alike to help you navigate your way to some fantastic brisket. Too much time in the melt zone and you get fall-apart BBQ that can start to dry out and that, while still tasty with a little sauce, isn’t going to win any awards. Not enough time in the melting-zone and you get tough, chewy, regrettable BBQ-the kind your uncle makes that he’s so proud of and that everybody eats out of politeness. In the end, the most important factor in your barbecue success is the final state of the meat’s collagen/gelatin transformation. But now I understand that the placement of the water pan, the time you spritz or wrap, whether you use charcoal or plain wood for heat, or the sugar content of your rub-those are all stylistic differences, flairs and trills on a theme with one persistent beat: low heat plus time, low heat plus time, low heat plus time. At first, it was hard for me to adjust to. You’ll pick up on themes-chord changes, if you will-but not “right” answers. Line up three expert pitmasters and grill them on technique, temperature, smoke, wood, fuel, wrapping, resting, or bark and you’ll get three different answers. (Read: “western European cooking.”) But then there is barbecue, which is-more than any other mode of cooking-improvisational jazz. This personal reliance on rules and direction has caused no problem for me with “classical” cuisines in cooking. Music was the same: follow the conductor, play the notes as written, remember the rules of harmony and music theory.
You can do the math a few different ways, but even within those varied pathways, there are rules that point the way forward. You see, in physics there is a right answer. Music, science, and food are still my great loves in life, but that initial training has made some things in cooking more difficult. In my earlier life, I was a musician and a physicist.