Delicious beef brisket takes special nurturing
It took eight hours or so, but beef brisket cooked in a kamado grill turned out
I have never had a baby. But now I understand.
I have spent the last several months of my life looking after a small, constantly needy child — actually, it has only been a few hours, but it feels like several months.
It’s a healthy 6 1⁄2 pounder, and I have been tending to its every need, worrying about it, checking on it every few minutes to make sure it is doing fine. I don’t want its temperature to rise above 200 degrees.
I am speaking here about a beef brisket. I thought that was obvious.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I indulged myself for a recent significant birthday by purchasing one of those expensive kamado outdoor grills that do everything for you except walk your dog.
One reason for getting it is that I wanted to use it to smoke a brisket. I lived in Texas for three years, and I acquired a permanent hankering for barbecued beef brisket. Brisket is easy to find now at just about every barbecue restaurant in the country, but I wanted to make my own.
On at least two occasions, I had smoked briskets on my old Weber grill. They were fine. A little tough, perhaps. But not notable enough to try it more than twice.
And that is why I wanted to cook a brisket on a grill that cost as much as a bad used car. This grill can cook at a low temperature all day long without adding more coals and, best of all, can maintain a desired temperature just as long.
In the south-central part of western east Texas, which is where I lived, the only wood used for barbecue is post oak, a smallish and unusually straight type of oak tree that grows all over the place there. It produces just the right flavor of smoke for an excellent beef barbecue.
But I could not find any post oak wood chips, so I ended up using mesquite — another very Texan wood, though it has a distinctly different flavor.
My grill came with a heat deflector shield that keeps whatever it is you are grilling from scorching or burning on the bottom. One month after I bought the grill, the heat deflector cracked from the heat.
I wrote to the company — it was just a month old, the deflector was still under warranty — and they said they would happily send a replacement.
I waited. And waited. And waited. OK, I only waited for a month, but I was eager to make my beef brisket. I wrote to them again and finally they said they
Makes: tablespoons brown sugar teaspoons onion powder teaspoons dried basil
Note: Begin this recipe the day before cooking. A heat deflector or the ability to set up a grill for indirect heat is necessary for this recipe.
1. Trim 2. In a small bowl, mix together the salt, brown sugar, 2 teaspoons of the dry mustard, onion powder, garlic powder, basil, coriander, 1 teaspoon of the black pepper and cumin. Reserve cup of this mixture and rub the rest over brisket. Store brisket well-sealed overnight in a shallow pan or large bowl.
3. The next day, 4. Light a fire in one place only, along the side of the grill closest to you. Be sure to use a heat deflector if you have one. If you have the option of different levels for your grate, place it on the highest level. Bring the grill to 225 degrees. Meanwhile, bring the beef to room temperature.
5. Place 6. Meanwhile, in a small pot mix together bay leaf, the reserved brisket rub, onion, garlic, celery, beer, remaining teaspoon of dry mustard, remaining teaspoon of black pepper, zest, lemon juice, soy sauce and cider vinegar. Bring to a simmer and cook about 30 minutes.
7. After 8. At about 150 degrees or so, the rising internal temperature of the meat will stall. Don’t panic; the temperature will rise again. When the beef reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees — after a total cooking time of 4 to 5 hours or more, depending on the size of the brisket — double wrap it in aluminum foil and return it to the grill.
9. Cook they would deliver the new one on a specific day. As it happens, that day was the very day I had planned to make the brisket.
If the heat deflector had arrived in the morning, everything would have been fine and I could have used it. It arrived in the afternoon.
Still, somehow, the brisket was cooked. I lovingly, if not obsessively, checked the temperature of the grill every 10 or 20 or 30 minutes for eight hours. And finally it was done.
I let it rest for another 45 minutes, then sliced it and ate it.
My little boy was delicious.