Looking for a Texas-style Brisket recipe

Cafe Society
1

I grew up on Jewish beef brisket, and while I enjoyed it (especially my Aunt Doris’s) I was never a huge fan. I much prefer a Texas style smoked brisket, but I don’t have a smoker. Working from home I have the ability to tend to an oven for many hours so I thought I’d try one in the oven but there are lots of techniques and recipes, so I’m looking for some direction from the Teeming Masses.

I found two recipes/instructions that seem to be in line with what I’m looking for. I’ll probably make the dry rub a little less spicy since my wife really can’t stand cayenne pepper, but otherwise a pretty standard rub. My local supermarket has a great butcher so I should be able to get a 4-5 lb brisket, unless there’s any advantage to getting a bigger cut.

I also have a slow cooker, but the oven seems a better bet to get the results I’m looking for. Thoughts and suggestions?

2

If you have no way to smoke it, I don’t see how it can ever be called Texas-style brisket.

3

It would help to have a smoker but you can still do a great brisket in the oven. Before I bought a house and my offset smoker, I had to do briskets in the oven, the only thing they really missed out on was a good smoke flavor (and burnt ends) as liquid smoke just not the same. Even today, I’ll start briskets on the smoker for about 6 hours and then wrap them in foil to be finished inside.

The two recipes look reasonable, but there are a few quibbles. If you want a real Texas brisket, start with a whole untrimmed brisket, usually in the 12-14lb range. Trim the fat down to about 1/4 inch to help form a nice bark on the outside as it cooks. A full size brisket will fit into most ovens and isn’t more work (more time, not more work) as doing a small one. Of course, I can’t imagine cooking only a partial brisket, that’d just be wrong. Keep in mind that cooked brisket freezes nicely.

At 4-5lbs, the briskets in the recipes are likely only the flat. Whole briskets consist of two separate muscles, the flat and the point (aka the deckle). The flat is the leaner tougher part, the point the fattier more tender section.

Fix the rub to your liking, at minimum you will want to use salt and black pepper. A lot depends on how much of the flavor you want to cook into the meat or if you want to let your sauce do the talking. I like the rub to carry most of the flavor and I use a homemade mix of brown sugar, salt, paprika, and black pepper. I’ll rub the brisket down the night before and wrap it tightly to let the spices set.

Cooking time: Texas cooking is low and slow. If I were to do a whole brisket in the oven, I’d use a similar temperature pattern as I do on the pit, start at about 300 - 350 for about 2-hours then let the oven cool and cook at about 210-220 for the remainder.

A whole brisket takes about 45 minutes to an hour per pound to cook. You want the internal temp to about 190 so that the collagen and other tissues are properly broken down. Keep in mind your brisket temp will rise pretty steadily to around 160 or so, but then you will hit the stall, the temp just stays there and won’t go up. Be patient, after several more hours it will start climbing again.

I’d recommend potato salad and pinto beans on the side, maybe some fried okra, too. Enjoy!

4

Personally, I feel like brisket is more about timing than recipe. If you can get the timing so the brisket is tender, but not so tender if falls into a stringy mess when you try to slice it, you did good.

5

You can speed through the stall with a Texas crutch if you need to shorten the cooking time. All it means is wrapping it in foil once the stall happens. Purists pooh-pooh this, but since I’m using an electric smoker I’m a Philistine anyway, and do it every time. The only thing I’d add to txtumbleweed’s excellent post is adding a little apple juice or wine in the foil wrapped brisket before you return it to the oven.

Oh, and I’d strongly recommend a meat thermometer with remote readout (usually blue-toothed to phone). This takes a lot of the guesswork out of it.

Best of luck!

6

I’m a fan of this sous vide brisket recipe:

7

At the store they only had a 2+ lb brisket flat, which I picked up. I’ll try something with it tomorrow, not sure what yet, but I was hoping for something bigger. I’ll use this as a practice brisket. :wink:

8

I find doing flats on their own to be difficult. For some reason, I always have a much easier time dealing with a full packer cut (brisket & point), but that’s like 12-15 pounds and enough for a decent sized party. I’ve had little luck with flat on its own – all my best flats were when they were part of the whole cut – but I definitely would use the Texas crutch there.

9

I too have problems smoking flats only, and trebly so small flat pieces. Best was injecting with beef stock and wrapping, but the extra fat cap from a whole flat makes a difference. I wouldn’t even try it in an over that is not convection - no bark.

10

Yeah, I’m not going to spend a full day working on a 2 lb flat. What would the Teeming Masses suggest I do with it instead?

11

Boiled Beef & Carrots?

Jewish pot roast?

Hell, strip it and make fajitas out of it.

12

That’s the thing, I grew up with Jewish briskets and it’s just not my thing. I’d like to avoid boiling it as well. Maybe I can use the slow cooker.

13

I’ve not done the flat on its on, but it certainly won’t take a full day to cook a 2-3lb piece of meat. You are still looking an hour or so per pound for it to reach done.

With the flat, you don’t have as much intramuscular fat as you do with the whole brisket. Much like a prime rib or rib eye, it is the intramuscular fat that provides the extra juiciness and flavor to the meat, not, as often claimed, the fat cap. (I was raised that the fat cap helped to self-baste the brisket, but I believe the accepted argument is the cap’s job is to act as an insulator that protects the meat from direct heat. Which means, now that I think about it, while fat side up would be correct in my offset smoker, my oven heats from the bottom. Maybe I will try fat side down when I move them to the oven and see if it makes a difference.)

All that aside, you are essentially cooking a 2-3lb roast. The second recipe you linked is more along this line. I would consider marinading the meat or using an injector to add some flavored fat but otherwise rub it down and wrap in foil. I’d start with high heat and then finish at moderate just as if I was doing a full size piece on the smoker. It’s all about the temperature when it comes to tenderness. Cook it to 180-190 and you are going to be fine.

Good luck!

14

Brisket Carbonnade

I’ve done it both in the oven and in the slow cooker. Oven definitely better.

15

That looks like a good meal. I’ll try that.

16

Carbonnade is one of my favorites. I’ve never tried it with brisket, but I imagine it would work fine. For type of beer, it’s a Belgian dish (specially Flemish), so a Belgian beer is traditional. A Flanders/Frlmeish red ale or Oud Bruin, I believe, is the traditional beer, which gives it also a characteristic sour flavor, but I also like using Belgian dubbels for it. I’m not generally a fan of New Belgium beers, but their Abbey, which is a dubbel, is pretty decent, and a six-pack is normal craft beer prices, like $10 a six-pack, cheaper than your import Belgians. That’s my beer of choice for carbonnade. That recipe has some cider vinegar in it (in addition to the mustard), so it’ll hit the sour note, too.