This is a long read about Meat and Brisket Cooking. I have used their Rub and I like it. If this post is too long, Moderators feel free to remove it. Since I bought their Rub I get this newsletter. I just wanted to share it.
Big Al
“BBQ MADE SIMPLE”
WHAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS ISSUE OF BBQ MADE SIMPLE
1. Understanding what is going on when we cook a piece of meat
2. Cooking Beef Brisket
BASICS OF MEAT COOKING
Some of this is kind of basic, but I feel if we are going to smoke and grill meat we should have some idea about how that piece of meat we are cooking is doing on the grill or smoker what it is doing.
So Let’s Jump Right Into This…………….
MEAT
Meat, whether it be beef, pork, wild game, fish or chicken or any other kind of meat can all be classified as a MUSCLE. Meat is muscle, period.
OK we have established that meat is a muscle. Right!
So what is a muscle? How is it made up? What makes it tender or tough? What makes each piece of meat taste different? What happens when we add heat to the meat?
These are all great questions.
Let’s examine the answers for each of them.
3 TYPES OF MUSCLE
Let me say it one more time. Meat (any kind) is a muscle. So in order for you to understand meat you need to understand muscle.
There are 3 types of muscle: smooth, cardiac, and striated. Smooth muscle is the muscle of involuntary organs such as the intestines. Cardiac muscle is naturally the muscle pertaining to the heart. The heart is a muscle. While we can eat cardiac and smooth muscle what we really are concerned with when we grill or smoke or fry our meat is the striated muscle group. These are the muscles controlled by animals voluntarily and they move the animal around.
Our discussion will be about striated muscle.
Striated muscle consists of three basic parts: muscle fibers, connective tissues, and fat. We won’t dwell on each of these too much but it is the basic understanding of what each of these is which allow us to cook great meats.
Each of the basic parts of the striated muscle we need to understand. Bear with me here for a few minutes and I know you will learn something that will help you cook better meats.
It is very important for you to understand that within the muscle fiber and connective tissue of animals and fish there is a tremendous amount of water. Generally, muscle is approximately 75% to 80% water. Think about that for a minute. Meat is basically 75% water.
So when you add heat, either through frying, broiling, smoking, or grilling what is happening to the meat? More on this in a minute…….
Striated muscle (remember the muscle used voluntarily by an animal to move about it’s skeleton) consists hundreds of thousands of very fine bands of muscle fibers. Each muscle fiber is wrapped in a thin connective tissue. The individual fibers are then bound together into bundles, which are wrapped again in a thicker connective tissue. Within the bundles, in among the individual muscle fibers, are capillaries, nerve branches, and fat cells. These fat cells are what we know as “marbling” in meat. Several muscle bundles are themselves grouped together into a larger bundle which is again covered by connective tissue. This is the entire muscle. Often we find large muscles covered partially or entirely by large fat deposits. Think about a brisket or tenderloin for a minute. See those large fat deposits covering the entire muscle.
The size and length of muscle fibers is one determinant of tenderness and toughness of the meat. Generally speaking, the more a muscle is used by an animal the tougher the meat.
Muscle with its fiber united into small bundles has a fine grain and tends to be the more tender meat. Think of tenderloin for a moment. The grain of a tenderloin is small and compact. The same holds true for a fillet. Small grain usually indicates a tender piece of meat. On the other side of the spectrum is meat that contains thick fibers united into large bundles which has a course grain and tends to be tough. Take for example a brisket or flank steak. You can feel and see the differences between fine-grained and course-grained meats.
Connective tissue in meat usually causes toughness. The connective tissue supports the muscle so it has a rigid structure. So the more connective tissues you find in meat the tougher the meat. And as a side note, the older the muscle, the more rigid the connective tissue will be. Here again we have a tough piece of meat.
Connective tissue is made up of two kinds of protein: collagen and elastin. Collagen is white in appearance and elastin is yellow. Elastin has tremendous tensile strength; which means it can be stretched with great force and not tear. Elastin is not soluble and cannot be broken down by heat. It is made tender by pounding, grinding (ground beef), or slicing into tiny lengths.
On the other hand collagen is broken down by aging, acid, and cooking. Aging is the process of the meats enzymes breaking down the meat. Enzymes break down collagen slower when the meat is refrigerated and more quickly at room temperatures. Acids will also aid in collagen breakdown but the best way to break down collagen is by cooking. Adding heat in the presence of water, the collagen protein losses its structure and becomes a gelatin-like substance. Remember, muscle is 75% water so there is usually water present to convert collagen to soft, gelatin material. (And yes collagen is the primary source of gelatin, you know like in Jello).
Fat
Fat surrounds both the muscle and it is present within the muscle (“marbling”). Fat has no water. The higher the fat percentage in meat, the less water in the meat. And remember we need water to help us break down the collagen when we apply heat.
However, fat is not all bad in meat. Fat adds to the tenderness in meat. As fat heats, it becomes a liquid or oil and actually lubricates the meat. It is this liquid fat that is a major part of the perceived juiciness of cooked meat. The “marbling” fat contributes to tenderness as it separates the muscle bundle. (Remember the smaller the bundle size the better)
Fat is actually very tasty and is one of the main sources of flavor in meat. So the trick is how to cook meat and retain some of the tasty fat liquids in the meat and at the same time the melting of the fat help us in achieving our ultimate goal of juicy flavorful meat.
Let’s Cook a Muscle
When muscle is exposed to heat at between 104 and 122 degrees, the protein in the muscle begins to break down. Remember this is a good thing. You will notice this as the piece of meat you are cooking begins to change its shape. Between 150 to 170 degrees, the protein losses more of its shape as they begin to shorten and toughen. Also water is being forced out of the muscle tissue. The muscle tissue becomes firm and dry if too much water is forced out. At 160 degrees meat is fully cooked.
When you cook a steak, you can feel the process of the protein compacting. At first you can push on the steak with your finger and it will feel soft and pliable. As it cooks you will feel the steak becoming firmer. You will also notice water being pushed out of the meat as the temperature in the meat begins to climb. The water is escaping the meat as it is being driven away from the heat. You will notice small bubbles of juice on the steak away from the heat source.
The collagen protein of connective tissue reacts very differently to heat than does the meat protein. Between 122 and 160 degrees the collagen shortens and the connective tissue shrinks. Have you ever looked at a brisket and seen it start to draw up and shrink? The collagen in the brisket is beginning to shorten and the connective tissues are shrinking. But at 160 degrees, great things begin to happen to the collagen. The collagen breaks down and becomes a gel. This you will notice in fully cooked brisket.
The Trade Off – BBQ Lovers Paradise
There is a trade off between muscle firmness and complete collagen breakdown. The 160-degree heat that converts collagen to a soft substance also toughens and dries out the muscle fibers in the meat. For these reasons, meat such as tenderloin, which has a low amount of connective tissue, should be cooked rare (130 degrees) to medium rare (140 degrees). That way the cuts from the tenderloin will be most tender.
Meats high in connective tissue, such as roasts or briskets, should be cooked slowly and to a well done temperature of 160 degrees to 165 degrees in order to achieve complete collagen gelatinazation. This will ensure these cuts of meat will be at their most tender stage.
So what do we do? As BBQ’ers (and define that as slow cooking at low temperatures) our success is based on several things going right for us during the cooking process. We will go into this discussion in the next few months’ issues of the newsletter.
Final Thoughts
As fat heats, it becomes a liquid lubricating the meat. Overcooking any cut of meat will cause too much of the fat and water to cook out of the meat. Fat is very volatile and burns easily. Controlled burning of bits of fat enhance flavor, but uncontrolled burning ruins meat.
In short heat kills harmful bacteria (good thing). Heat also turns fat to liquid (a good thing). Heat will also drive out water and fat from the muscle (bad thing). Heat will speed up the breaking down of the enzymes of the meat (good thing). Heat will also begin to aid in the collagen gelatinazation and at 160 degrees we have a complete breakdown of collagen (another good thing).
So we know what heat does to our muscle when they are cooked. The secret is to keep all the good things about adding heat and at the same time eliminate the bad thing does to meat (drive out the liquid fat and water from our muscle).
However, without a protective rub or external basting, heat will in fact drive moisture out of the meat and toughens the muscle fibers and causes liquid fat to leak out of the meat. So we have come up with ways to eliminate all of moisture from escaping in the cooking process.
And the ideas are as follows:
1. Baste the meat while cooking or
2. Add a rub to the meat that will keep some of the meats own juices inside the meat as the meat cooks.
Basting is the process used by many of attempting to not only replenish the moisture escaping the meat during the cooking process but it is also used to try and add some flavor to the meat.
If you think about what we have discussed above and really think about what basting is you will agree the best solution would be to use a quality rub that was developed to retain the meats own precious juices. A rub that has been proven to perform on all types of meats and has a proven track record………
Texas BBQ Rub is that rub.
So let’s get down to cooking………….
SMOKED BEEF BRISKET – A TEXAS TRADITION
I have received a lot of questions about brisket cooking in the last couple of months and since we have added so many new subscribers to the newsletter I thought the article we did on brisket cooking would be good for this month.
Hell, just thinking about cooking a brisket seems to scare some folks. We are going to make this process as easy as we know how to do. It is not hard to cook a great beef brisket. All it takes is time, patience, a great seasoning, cooking long, and cooking at low temperatures. That is it. Need we say more?
It has been said that the real measure of how good a BBQ cook you are can be measured by how good your beef brisket is.
This might hold true down here in Texas…. but in other states the same might be said about pork shoulders or pork butts or pork ribs.
But since I am a Texan we are going to start with brisket. After all Texas is the beef capital of the World.
I get a few emails every month that ask questions about cooking brisket. Let’s start with the basics and go forward.
Frequently Asked Questions Concerning Brisket Cooking
How do you choose a good brisket to cook?
Do I cook the brisket with the fat side up or down?
Should I wrap a brisket during the cooking process?
How long and at what temperature do I need to cook a brisket?
My brisket is burned or dried out, what happened?
Do you cook the flat the same as the entire brisket?
Do you mop your brisket when cooking?
How to slice the brisket?
1. How to Choose a Good Brisket to put on the Smoker.
You go into the meat section of the store and look for a good brisket to cook. What am I looking for in a brisket so I can pick out the best one to cook?
Generally speaking, you want to be able to pick up the brisket and fold it in half (or close to it). You want to be able to take the flat end (this is the narrow part of the brisket) and be able to touch the point end (this is the thickest part) of the brisket.
Pick a brisket that has a good color to it. It should be a good red color for the meat and a nice white color for the fat. Older briskets could have a yellowing of the fat and a browning of the meat. These are still within the legal selling age of the meat but not as fresh as you would like.
As for size, you can cook any size brisket you want to, assuming you have the space on the pit to hold the brisket. Briskets usually run from 8 pounds up to 14 pounds for the typical store briskets. You may find some small ones in the 6 to 7 pound range and you may even see some big ones in the 16 to 17 pound range. I like my briskets to be right around 12 pounds each. These seem to work better and are not so big that they take forever to cook. Usually this size brisket is easy enough to find.
2. Fat side up or down when you cook a brisket.
This is a frequently asked question and stirs up some debate in the BBQ community. When you look at the brisket you will notice one side of the brisket is covered almost totally by fat. The other side of the brisket is not covered by solid fat but has a more marbled look to it. The non-fat side, if you will, also is the side that the point of the brisket reaches its highest point.
Now for the discussion. When you place your brisket on your cooker do you cook with the fat side on top or on bottom? Let’s discuss this and then decide.
The conventional approach to cooking any meat on the cooker is to place the fat side of the piece of meat on top. This thinking is driven by the belief that as the meat cooks and the fat begins to break down, the juices of the fat will help marinate the meat as it cooks. This is true with most of the meat we cook. I have no problem with the thought process here. So one vote for placing the fat side of the brisket on top.
Think about a couple of other issues when we cook meat low and slow. Where does the heat we are using come from, the top or bottom of our cooker? That is right the heat source is always at the bottom of the meat. This is true if we cook in the oven, a grill, or a smoker. And we all know that heat rises. So the deal is to have the heat come from the bottom and rise over the food we are cooking.
When you cook, you notice that regardless of the meat we are cooking and regardless of the type of cooker we are using, that when our meat is cooked, and we are serving it, you notice that the bottom (the part of the meat that cooked nearest the heat source) is usually more done than the upper portion of the meat. This makes sense, as the bottom has been closer to the heat source and has been subjected to more heat.
My point is, if we cook with the fat side down on a brisket, we have a barrier of fat protecting the meat from the higher heat source. If we cook fat side up then we have no barrier there to protect the flat portion of the brisket from the higher heat.
If you really study the brisket you will notice there is a layer of fat that runs down the center of the brisket, from a point that begins right after the flat and begins to rise to the point. This flat layer and the fat that runs all thru the brisket will give us plenty of natural juices to keep the meat moist during cooking, if we use a rub that is designed to hold in the meats own juices.
Therefore, I always cook my brisket with the fat side down on the smoker. I want that protection from the heat source. This is even more apparent if you use a grill and don’t have a large space between your heat source and the meat itself.
I have asked dozens of brisket cookers at various contest and cook-offs what they prefer. I have read plenty about cooking brisket. There still seems to be about half of those cookers that cook with the fat side up. So the choice is yours here. Try it both ways if you want to but I have cooked both ways for experimental purposes and find that fat side down is by far the best for me.
3.Wrapping a brisket
Another controversial subject matter here. Do you wrap the brisket in aluminum foil during the cooking process or just cook it un-wrapped. Again, I have done brisket using both methods. My personal choice is to wrap a brisket about 2/3 of the way thru the cook. That is about an internal meat temp of 150 to 160 degrees. That is to say, if you cook for 12 hours, wrap the brisket at around 8 hours. If you cook for 18 hours, then wrap around the 12-hour mark.
At the Houston Rodeo Cook Off I wanted to test the differences in wrapped and un-wrapped brisket. Three days of cooking brisket will allow you the time to do some playing and experimenting. So I cooked some brisket wrapped and some unwrapped in the same batch of brisket. My results indicated that the wrapped brisket was juicier, more tender, and had an even better flavor than the un-wrapped brisket.
With wrapping the brisket you do a couple of things. You first preserve the juices that normally are dropping from the brisket inside the aluminum and they assist in keeping the brisket juicy in the latter stages of cooking. Remember, your brisket has been cooking for a long time and retaining some liquid inside of the aluminum helps self marinate the meat. I use a BBQ sauce (the recipe is in the recipes you received when you signed up for the newsletter), coke, Dr. Pepper or your favorite beer to pour over the brisket when I wrap it up. This adds some flavor and gives the meat some moisture as it finishes cooking. It will also assist in helping bring the internal temp of the brisket up to the 195 to 205 degree internal meat temp of the finished brisket.
Again, there are many who do not wrap a brisket during cooking. I always ask at cook-offs and my unofficial survey would say at least 2/3 of brisket cookers wrap their briskets.
Another side point here, when you unwrap your brisket the juices you have left in the foil are fabulous to add to beans or to a sauce if you are serving one. There are so many flavors in that liquid it is great to use on everything. So use it.
4. How Long and at What Temperature Do I Cook a Brisket
The art of cooking a great brisket involves time and temperature and patience. Low and slow. I cook brisket at 200 degrees for up to 24 hours. Usually the cooking time is around 14 hours, but sometimes weather and cooking situations dictate a longer cook.
Some will say you can cook a brisket in 5 or 6 hours. And yes you can. But you have to raise your temperature to say 275 to 300 degrees to get there. And the meat does not have time to really absorb all of the smoke flavor it will on a longer cook and it does not have time for the collagen to break down completely. So typically these briskets are tough, burned on one side or the other, and dried out. Remember that cooking at temperatures above 225 degrees can boil out the internal juices of the brisket.
If you don’t have the time to keep the brisket on the grill or smoker for 14 hours or so you do have an alternate plan. Put your brisket on the grill or smoker and cook it at a low temperature for as long as you can, then simply finish the brisket off in the oven at 200 degrees for the remaining time needed. This way you cook the brisket and break down the collagen completely. You will get the smoke flavor from the grill for the time it is left on there.
Remember, be patient. Don’t keep fooling around with the brisket. Every time you open the grill or smoker to peak in you just added more cooking time as the temperature and all that great smoke just went out of the pit.
5. Dried Out and Burned Brisket – What Went Wrong?
Well two things have probably lead to this. First, your temperature was way to hot, and second, you cooked the brisket too close to the heat source. These are the typical problems associated with dried out and burned brisket. Too much heat and a brisket is just not very forgiving especially if your brisket is very close to the heat source. Again, cook low temperature for a long time.
To correct the problem move the brisket as far from the heat source as possible and cut down on the temperature you are cooking with. If you have a small off-set cooker the heat coming directly out of the fire box is really hot so move the brisket back as far from the heat as possible and place the brisket with the tip facing the heat source. Get that fat layer on the bottom and that will help protect the meat also.
6. Do You Cook a Flat the Same as a Whole Brisket
The answer here is yes. Don’t change up the way you cook a brisket. But the flat will cook much faster than a whole brisket. The flat also does not have a large fat cap to help protect it from the heat. So you really need to cook low and slow for this type of meat and add a rub that will keep the meat moist during cooking. A typical brisket flat will weigh in the 4 to 7 pound range and will cook in 4 to 7 hours. Again about 1 to 1 ½ hours per pound of meat.
7. Do you Mop Your Brisket During Cooking
The answer is no. Some use mopping during cooking. Their idea is that mopping a brisket will add juices to the brisket that have been cooked out of the meat and it will also add flavor to the meat. Have you ever tried to add moisture to meat when the meat is hot? What happens? The liquid you are trying to baste with just rolls off the meat. It does not penetrate the meat it simply rolls off. So I personally don’t believe mopping accomplishes anything other than to give someone something to do during the long cook process.
And remember, every time you open up the lid of the smoker or grill to mop you just let out all of the moisture, smoke, and heat in the smoker. You just added more cooking time to get to the final product. If it takes you a minute to mop the brisket, it will add 15 more minutes to the cooking time. This seems to be self-defeating.
Add your flavor before the meat goes on the smoker with a great rub. A rub that is also designed to help maintain the moisture inside the meat. A rub that will make cooking a brisket a more enjoyable event for you.
8. Slicing the Brisket
Before you slice the brisket, let it stand and cool down for at least 30 minutes before you begin. It makes the meat easier to cut and lets you maintain perfect slices. Slice the brisket in ¼ inch thick slices. Slice across the grain. Start at the flat end and work down from there. The brisket has grains that run in different directions so you will have to move the position of the brisket at times to continue slicing across the gain.
Final Thoughts
OK now get out there and cook that great brisket. Don’t be scared to tackle that big old chuck of meat. Go on…. You can Do It…
If you have a comment or want to send us your testimonial please feel free to do so. Send it to Bill@texasbbqrub.com and we will feature you in an upcoming newsletter or on our site.
A GLANCE AT THE NEXT ISSUE OF BBQ MADE SIMPLE
Well that ends this month’s newsletter. As we slide into the middle of summer we want to bring you a series of articles and recipes dealing with beef and next month we are going to talk about prime rib.
Cooking is a great way to get the family interested in doing something together. Kids make great helpers around the grill and let them feel like they made a difference. Always include your children when cooking (if they are old enough). They will grow to love it and they will always want to help you out. Ask them to help and give them important jobs to do, like rubbing the meat, be the fire attendant, or running errands for you. PASS ON THE ART OF COOKING TO YOUR CHILDREN…..YOU WILL BE GLAD YOU DID AND SO WILL THEY.
Keep on Cook’ in
Bill
July 2008
bill@texasbbqrub.com
Big Al
“BBQ MADE SIMPLE”
WHAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS ISSUE OF BBQ MADE SIMPLE
1. Understanding what is going on when we cook a piece of meat
2. Cooking Beef Brisket
BASICS OF MEAT COOKING
Some of this is kind of basic, but I feel if we are going to smoke and grill meat we should have some idea about how that piece of meat we are cooking is doing on the grill or smoker what it is doing.
So Let’s Jump Right Into This…………….
MEAT
Meat, whether it be beef, pork, wild game, fish or chicken or any other kind of meat can all be classified as a MUSCLE. Meat is muscle, period.
OK we have established that meat is a muscle. Right!
So what is a muscle? How is it made up? What makes it tender or tough? What makes each piece of meat taste different? What happens when we add heat to the meat?
These are all great questions.
Let’s examine the answers for each of them.
3 TYPES OF MUSCLE
Let me say it one more time. Meat (any kind) is a muscle. So in order for you to understand meat you need to understand muscle.
There are 3 types of muscle: smooth, cardiac, and striated. Smooth muscle is the muscle of involuntary organs such as the intestines. Cardiac muscle is naturally the muscle pertaining to the heart. The heart is a muscle. While we can eat cardiac and smooth muscle what we really are concerned with when we grill or smoke or fry our meat is the striated muscle group. These are the muscles controlled by animals voluntarily and they move the animal around.
Our discussion will be about striated muscle.
Striated muscle consists of three basic parts: muscle fibers, connective tissues, and fat. We won’t dwell on each of these too much but it is the basic understanding of what each of these is which allow us to cook great meats.
Each of the basic parts of the striated muscle we need to understand. Bear with me here for a few minutes and I know you will learn something that will help you cook better meats.
It is very important for you to understand that within the muscle fiber and connective tissue of animals and fish there is a tremendous amount of water. Generally, muscle is approximately 75% to 80% water. Think about that for a minute. Meat is basically 75% water.
So when you add heat, either through frying, broiling, smoking, or grilling what is happening to the meat? More on this in a minute…….
Striated muscle (remember the muscle used voluntarily by an animal to move about it’s skeleton) consists hundreds of thousands of very fine bands of muscle fibers. Each muscle fiber is wrapped in a thin connective tissue. The individual fibers are then bound together into bundles, which are wrapped again in a thicker connective tissue. Within the bundles, in among the individual muscle fibers, are capillaries, nerve branches, and fat cells. These fat cells are what we know as “marbling” in meat. Several muscle bundles are themselves grouped together into a larger bundle which is again covered by connective tissue. This is the entire muscle. Often we find large muscles covered partially or entirely by large fat deposits. Think about a brisket or tenderloin for a minute. See those large fat deposits covering the entire muscle.
The size and length of muscle fibers is one determinant of tenderness and toughness of the meat. Generally speaking, the more a muscle is used by an animal the tougher the meat.
Muscle with its fiber united into small bundles has a fine grain and tends to be the more tender meat. Think of tenderloin for a moment. The grain of a tenderloin is small and compact. The same holds true for a fillet. Small grain usually indicates a tender piece of meat. On the other side of the spectrum is meat that contains thick fibers united into large bundles which has a course grain and tends to be tough. Take for example a brisket or flank steak. You can feel and see the differences between fine-grained and course-grained meats.
Connective tissue in meat usually causes toughness. The connective tissue supports the muscle so it has a rigid structure. So the more connective tissues you find in meat the tougher the meat. And as a side note, the older the muscle, the more rigid the connective tissue will be. Here again we have a tough piece of meat.
Connective tissue is made up of two kinds of protein: collagen and elastin. Collagen is white in appearance and elastin is yellow. Elastin has tremendous tensile strength; which means it can be stretched with great force and not tear. Elastin is not soluble and cannot be broken down by heat. It is made tender by pounding, grinding (ground beef), or slicing into tiny lengths.
On the other hand collagen is broken down by aging, acid, and cooking. Aging is the process of the meats enzymes breaking down the meat. Enzymes break down collagen slower when the meat is refrigerated and more quickly at room temperatures. Acids will also aid in collagen breakdown but the best way to break down collagen is by cooking. Adding heat in the presence of water, the collagen protein losses its structure and becomes a gelatin-like substance. Remember, muscle is 75% water so there is usually water present to convert collagen to soft, gelatin material. (And yes collagen is the primary source of gelatin, you know like in Jello).
Fat
Fat surrounds both the muscle and it is present within the muscle (“marbling”). Fat has no water. The higher the fat percentage in meat, the less water in the meat. And remember we need water to help us break down the collagen when we apply heat.
However, fat is not all bad in meat. Fat adds to the tenderness in meat. As fat heats, it becomes a liquid or oil and actually lubricates the meat. It is this liquid fat that is a major part of the perceived juiciness of cooked meat. The “marbling” fat contributes to tenderness as it separates the muscle bundle. (Remember the smaller the bundle size the better)
Fat is actually very tasty and is one of the main sources of flavor in meat. So the trick is how to cook meat and retain some of the tasty fat liquids in the meat and at the same time the melting of the fat help us in achieving our ultimate goal of juicy flavorful meat.
Let’s Cook a Muscle
When muscle is exposed to heat at between 104 and 122 degrees, the protein in the muscle begins to break down. Remember this is a good thing. You will notice this as the piece of meat you are cooking begins to change its shape. Between 150 to 170 degrees, the protein losses more of its shape as they begin to shorten and toughen. Also water is being forced out of the muscle tissue. The muscle tissue becomes firm and dry if too much water is forced out. At 160 degrees meat is fully cooked.
When you cook a steak, you can feel the process of the protein compacting. At first you can push on the steak with your finger and it will feel soft and pliable. As it cooks you will feel the steak becoming firmer. You will also notice water being pushed out of the meat as the temperature in the meat begins to climb. The water is escaping the meat as it is being driven away from the heat. You will notice small bubbles of juice on the steak away from the heat source.
The collagen protein of connective tissue reacts very differently to heat than does the meat protein. Between 122 and 160 degrees the collagen shortens and the connective tissue shrinks. Have you ever looked at a brisket and seen it start to draw up and shrink? The collagen in the brisket is beginning to shorten and the connective tissues are shrinking. But at 160 degrees, great things begin to happen to the collagen. The collagen breaks down and becomes a gel. This you will notice in fully cooked brisket.
The Trade Off – BBQ Lovers Paradise
There is a trade off between muscle firmness and complete collagen breakdown. The 160-degree heat that converts collagen to a soft substance also toughens and dries out the muscle fibers in the meat. For these reasons, meat such as tenderloin, which has a low amount of connective tissue, should be cooked rare (130 degrees) to medium rare (140 degrees). That way the cuts from the tenderloin will be most tender.
Meats high in connective tissue, such as roasts or briskets, should be cooked slowly and to a well done temperature of 160 degrees to 165 degrees in order to achieve complete collagen gelatinazation. This will ensure these cuts of meat will be at their most tender stage.
So what do we do? As BBQ’ers (and define that as slow cooking at low temperatures) our success is based on several things going right for us during the cooking process. We will go into this discussion in the next few months’ issues of the newsletter.
Final Thoughts
As fat heats, it becomes a liquid lubricating the meat. Overcooking any cut of meat will cause too much of the fat and water to cook out of the meat. Fat is very volatile and burns easily. Controlled burning of bits of fat enhance flavor, but uncontrolled burning ruins meat.
In short heat kills harmful bacteria (good thing). Heat also turns fat to liquid (a good thing). Heat will also drive out water and fat from the muscle (bad thing). Heat will speed up the breaking down of the enzymes of the meat (good thing). Heat will also begin to aid in the collagen gelatinazation and at 160 degrees we have a complete breakdown of collagen (another good thing).
So we know what heat does to our muscle when they are cooked. The secret is to keep all the good things about adding heat and at the same time eliminate the bad thing does to meat (drive out the liquid fat and water from our muscle).
However, without a protective rub or external basting, heat will in fact drive moisture out of the meat and toughens the muscle fibers and causes liquid fat to leak out of the meat. So we have come up with ways to eliminate all of moisture from escaping in the cooking process.
And the ideas are as follows:
1. Baste the meat while cooking or
2. Add a rub to the meat that will keep some of the meats own juices inside the meat as the meat cooks.
Basting is the process used by many of attempting to not only replenish the moisture escaping the meat during the cooking process but it is also used to try and add some flavor to the meat.
If you think about what we have discussed above and really think about what basting is you will agree the best solution would be to use a quality rub that was developed to retain the meats own precious juices. A rub that has been proven to perform on all types of meats and has a proven track record………
Texas BBQ Rub is that rub.
So let’s get down to cooking………….
SMOKED BEEF BRISKET – A TEXAS TRADITION
I have received a lot of questions about brisket cooking in the last couple of months and since we have added so many new subscribers to the newsletter I thought the article we did on brisket cooking would be good for this month.
Hell, just thinking about cooking a brisket seems to scare some folks. We are going to make this process as easy as we know how to do. It is not hard to cook a great beef brisket. All it takes is time, patience, a great seasoning, cooking long, and cooking at low temperatures. That is it. Need we say more?
It has been said that the real measure of how good a BBQ cook you are can be measured by how good your beef brisket is.
This might hold true down here in Texas…. but in other states the same might be said about pork shoulders or pork butts or pork ribs.
But since I am a Texan we are going to start with brisket. After all Texas is the beef capital of the World.
I get a few emails every month that ask questions about cooking brisket. Let’s start with the basics and go forward.
Frequently Asked Questions Concerning Brisket Cooking
How do you choose a good brisket to cook?
Do I cook the brisket with the fat side up or down?
Should I wrap a brisket during the cooking process?
How long and at what temperature do I need to cook a brisket?
My brisket is burned or dried out, what happened?
Do you cook the flat the same as the entire brisket?
Do you mop your brisket when cooking?
How to slice the brisket?
1. How to Choose a Good Brisket to put on the Smoker.
You go into the meat section of the store and look for a good brisket to cook. What am I looking for in a brisket so I can pick out the best one to cook?
Generally speaking, you want to be able to pick up the brisket and fold it in half (or close to it). You want to be able to take the flat end (this is the narrow part of the brisket) and be able to touch the point end (this is the thickest part) of the brisket.
Pick a brisket that has a good color to it. It should be a good red color for the meat and a nice white color for the fat. Older briskets could have a yellowing of the fat and a browning of the meat. These are still within the legal selling age of the meat but not as fresh as you would like.
As for size, you can cook any size brisket you want to, assuming you have the space on the pit to hold the brisket. Briskets usually run from 8 pounds up to 14 pounds for the typical store briskets. You may find some small ones in the 6 to 7 pound range and you may even see some big ones in the 16 to 17 pound range. I like my briskets to be right around 12 pounds each. These seem to work better and are not so big that they take forever to cook. Usually this size brisket is easy enough to find.
2. Fat side up or down when you cook a brisket.
This is a frequently asked question and stirs up some debate in the BBQ community. When you look at the brisket you will notice one side of the brisket is covered almost totally by fat. The other side of the brisket is not covered by solid fat but has a more marbled look to it. The non-fat side, if you will, also is the side that the point of the brisket reaches its highest point.
Now for the discussion. When you place your brisket on your cooker do you cook with the fat side on top or on bottom? Let’s discuss this and then decide.
The conventional approach to cooking any meat on the cooker is to place the fat side of the piece of meat on top. This thinking is driven by the belief that as the meat cooks and the fat begins to break down, the juices of the fat will help marinate the meat as it cooks. This is true with most of the meat we cook. I have no problem with the thought process here. So one vote for placing the fat side of the brisket on top.
Think about a couple of other issues when we cook meat low and slow. Where does the heat we are using come from, the top or bottom of our cooker? That is right the heat source is always at the bottom of the meat. This is true if we cook in the oven, a grill, or a smoker. And we all know that heat rises. So the deal is to have the heat come from the bottom and rise over the food we are cooking.
When you cook, you notice that regardless of the meat we are cooking and regardless of the type of cooker we are using, that when our meat is cooked, and we are serving it, you notice that the bottom (the part of the meat that cooked nearest the heat source) is usually more done than the upper portion of the meat. This makes sense, as the bottom has been closer to the heat source and has been subjected to more heat.
My point is, if we cook with the fat side down on a brisket, we have a barrier of fat protecting the meat from the higher heat source. If we cook fat side up then we have no barrier there to protect the flat portion of the brisket from the higher heat.
If you really study the brisket you will notice there is a layer of fat that runs down the center of the brisket, from a point that begins right after the flat and begins to rise to the point. This flat layer and the fat that runs all thru the brisket will give us plenty of natural juices to keep the meat moist during cooking, if we use a rub that is designed to hold in the meats own juices.
Therefore, I always cook my brisket with the fat side down on the smoker. I want that protection from the heat source. This is even more apparent if you use a grill and don’t have a large space between your heat source and the meat itself.
I have asked dozens of brisket cookers at various contest and cook-offs what they prefer. I have read plenty about cooking brisket. There still seems to be about half of those cookers that cook with the fat side up. So the choice is yours here. Try it both ways if you want to but I have cooked both ways for experimental purposes and find that fat side down is by far the best for me.
3.Wrapping a brisket
Another controversial subject matter here. Do you wrap the brisket in aluminum foil during the cooking process or just cook it un-wrapped. Again, I have done brisket using both methods. My personal choice is to wrap a brisket about 2/3 of the way thru the cook. That is about an internal meat temp of 150 to 160 degrees. That is to say, if you cook for 12 hours, wrap the brisket at around 8 hours. If you cook for 18 hours, then wrap around the 12-hour mark.
At the Houston Rodeo Cook Off I wanted to test the differences in wrapped and un-wrapped brisket. Three days of cooking brisket will allow you the time to do some playing and experimenting. So I cooked some brisket wrapped and some unwrapped in the same batch of brisket. My results indicated that the wrapped brisket was juicier, more tender, and had an even better flavor than the un-wrapped brisket.
With wrapping the brisket you do a couple of things. You first preserve the juices that normally are dropping from the brisket inside the aluminum and they assist in keeping the brisket juicy in the latter stages of cooking. Remember, your brisket has been cooking for a long time and retaining some liquid inside of the aluminum helps self marinate the meat. I use a BBQ sauce (the recipe is in the recipes you received when you signed up for the newsletter), coke, Dr. Pepper or your favorite beer to pour over the brisket when I wrap it up. This adds some flavor and gives the meat some moisture as it finishes cooking. It will also assist in helping bring the internal temp of the brisket up to the 195 to 205 degree internal meat temp of the finished brisket.
Again, there are many who do not wrap a brisket during cooking. I always ask at cook-offs and my unofficial survey would say at least 2/3 of brisket cookers wrap their briskets.
Another side point here, when you unwrap your brisket the juices you have left in the foil are fabulous to add to beans or to a sauce if you are serving one. There are so many flavors in that liquid it is great to use on everything. So use it.
4. How Long and at What Temperature Do I Cook a Brisket
The art of cooking a great brisket involves time and temperature and patience. Low and slow. I cook brisket at 200 degrees for up to 24 hours. Usually the cooking time is around 14 hours, but sometimes weather and cooking situations dictate a longer cook.
Some will say you can cook a brisket in 5 or 6 hours. And yes you can. But you have to raise your temperature to say 275 to 300 degrees to get there. And the meat does not have time to really absorb all of the smoke flavor it will on a longer cook and it does not have time for the collagen to break down completely. So typically these briskets are tough, burned on one side or the other, and dried out. Remember that cooking at temperatures above 225 degrees can boil out the internal juices of the brisket.
If you don’t have the time to keep the brisket on the grill or smoker for 14 hours or so you do have an alternate plan. Put your brisket on the grill or smoker and cook it at a low temperature for as long as you can, then simply finish the brisket off in the oven at 200 degrees for the remaining time needed. This way you cook the brisket and break down the collagen completely. You will get the smoke flavor from the grill for the time it is left on there.
Remember, be patient. Don’t keep fooling around with the brisket. Every time you open the grill or smoker to peak in you just added more cooking time as the temperature and all that great smoke just went out of the pit.
5. Dried Out and Burned Brisket – What Went Wrong?
Well two things have probably lead to this. First, your temperature was way to hot, and second, you cooked the brisket too close to the heat source. These are the typical problems associated with dried out and burned brisket. Too much heat and a brisket is just not very forgiving especially if your brisket is very close to the heat source. Again, cook low temperature for a long time.
To correct the problem move the brisket as far from the heat source as possible and cut down on the temperature you are cooking with. If you have a small off-set cooker the heat coming directly out of the fire box is really hot so move the brisket back as far from the heat as possible and place the brisket with the tip facing the heat source. Get that fat layer on the bottom and that will help protect the meat also.
6. Do You Cook a Flat the Same as a Whole Brisket
The answer here is yes. Don’t change up the way you cook a brisket. But the flat will cook much faster than a whole brisket. The flat also does not have a large fat cap to help protect it from the heat. So you really need to cook low and slow for this type of meat and add a rub that will keep the meat moist during cooking. A typical brisket flat will weigh in the 4 to 7 pound range and will cook in 4 to 7 hours. Again about 1 to 1 ½ hours per pound of meat.
7. Do you Mop Your Brisket During Cooking
The answer is no. Some use mopping during cooking. Their idea is that mopping a brisket will add juices to the brisket that have been cooked out of the meat and it will also add flavor to the meat. Have you ever tried to add moisture to meat when the meat is hot? What happens? The liquid you are trying to baste with just rolls off the meat. It does not penetrate the meat it simply rolls off. So I personally don’t believe mopping accomplishes anything other than to give someone something to do during the long cook process.
And remember, every time you open up the lid of the smoker or grill to mop you just let out all of the moisture, smoke, and heat in the smoker. You just added more cooking time to get to the final product. If it takes you a minute to mop the brisket, it will add 15 more minutes to the cooking time. This seems to be self-defeating.
Add your flavor before the meat goes on the smoker with a great rub. A rub that is also designed to help maintain the moisture inside the meat. A rub that will make cooking a brisket a more enjoyable event for you.
8. Slicing the Brisket
Before you slice the brisket, let it stand and cool down for at least 30 minutes before you begin. It makes the meat easier to cut and lets you maintain perfect slices. Slice the brisket in ¼ inch thick slices. Slice across the grain. Start at the flat end and work down from there. The brisket has grains that run in different directions so you will have to move the position of the brisket at times to continue slicing across the gain.
Final Thoughts
OK now get out there and cook that great brisket. Don’t be scared to tackle that big old chuck of meat. Go on…. You can Do It…
If you have a comment or want to send us your testimonial please feel free to do so. Send it to Bill@texasbbqrub.com and we will feature you in an upcoming newsletter or on our site.
A GLANCE AT THE NEXT ISSUE OF BBQ MADE SIMPLE
Well that ends this month’s newsletter. As we slide into the middle of summer we want to bring you a series of articles and recipes dealing with beef and next month we are going to talk about prime rib.
Cooking is a great way to get the family interested in doing something together. Kids make great helpers around the grill and let them feel like they made a difference. Always include your children when cooking (if they are old enough). They will grow to love it and they will always want to help you out. Ask them to help and give them important jobs to do, like rubbing the meat, be the fire attendant, or running errands for you. PASS ON THE ART OF COOKING TO YOUR CHILDREN…..YOU WILL BE GLAD YOU DID AND SO WILL THEY.
Keep on Cook’ in
Bill
July 2008
bill@texasbbqrub.com
