A couple of readers have asked for more details on how we Pricks achieved briskety goodness on the weekend. Well, here you go:
- First, you’re going to need a few kilos of brisket. Ask for it boneless, and with the fat cap still on. Ours was sliced into two hunks, the better to fit in the smoker.
- Next, give it a good dry rub (not to be confused with a zipless … nevermind). The recipe we started with called for 2 tablespoons each of onion and garlic powders, 500g of brown sugar and the same again of salt, 3 tablespoons each yellow and black mustard seeds, a lot of paprika, and some dried chili, ancho if possible. Mix it all together and spread all over the meat a good day before you cook.
- Here’s where things get tricky: You need a smoker of some sort. We have a Hark electric number that we picked up from Chef and the Cook in Camperdown; you can also use a Weber kettle grill or any number of other contraptions, but it may not be as precise. We started smoking with applewood chips at about 6:30 am for a mid-afternoon feast, and set the machine to about 115C. After breaking through a “barbeque stall” at around 72C, the meat cruised happily up to 95C and was ready to rest for about half an hour in foil.
All in all, it worked a treat, though the rub was too salty, and next time I think I’ll wind it back to a 2:1 sugar-to-salt ratio. Also, I put the piece of meat with the fattier “cap” up the top, the better for it to melt onto its drier downstairs neighbour. Fairly amazingly, there was a hunk leftover, which was even better the next day warmed in the oven and sliced onto sandwiches with a bit of home-made barbeque sauce.
Also, a mustard sauce — three thinly-sliced onion and a bunch of crushed garlic cloves sweated until golden brown followed by a litre (!) of apple cider vinegar and a half-litre (!) of decent mustard, a shot of paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, and a squeeze of ketchup was ridiculously popular.
Prick With A Fork 
While I would never dream of offering guidance to the Great Prick on matters culinary…
1)To achieve true briskety goodness, you ought also inject it the night before. I use a combination of beer and Butcher BBQ injector, but even just broth works. It makes a very, very big difference in taste.
2)I actually don’t use that much brown sugar in my beef rubs – while critical for pork, for beef I tend to think it obscures the flavour a bit… also, where is your cayanne?
3)Why on earth would you use applewood for beef?
4)I would also strongly recommend the Texas Cruch as a worthy technique that makes a big difference and most people don’t follow (basically once the meat reaches the the stall wrap it in foil with beer (or some other liquid, but I use beer))
5)Can I borrow your smoker one day? I use my weber with a smokenator attachment these days, but oh for the days when I had a proper smoker!!!
Tim (and others FYI)
A former colleague of mine swears by the Aldi smoker. Only available intermittently (like much of their non-food stuff) and about $200. He said for a non-professional it’s hard to justify spending much more, and it “works much better than using your Webber(tm)”.
I haven’t picked one up yet, but expect I will.
Prick, thanks for putting the details up. Stan