World Championship Barbecue Competition Brisket

Pitmaster: G-QUE
aka
Chef Gregory Kalatsky

Instructions

1. Keep your brisket in the refrigerator until you’re ready to prepare. A refrigerated brisket is much easier to work with than room temperature. If your brisket is vacuum packed then removed from package and rinse in cold water *, let drain for a moment and then pat dry with paper towel placing on your cutting surface. Flip the brisket over so the point is on the bottom side. Remove any sinew or silver skin or excess fat from this side of the beef. Trim down the large crescent shaped fat section until it is smooth between both part flat and point. Trim off excess fat or loose meat. At this time. Square the edges and the ends of the flat part, Note that not all briskets are created equal and you may not have to trim any of this to square it off. Now flip the brisket over and trim the cap to approximately ¼ inch and no more than ½ inch of thickness across the surface of the brisket (The point). When it comes to the flat part of the brisket I primarily do not like to trim any of the fat off of this part of the brisket. The point side is going to have a lot of extra fat and the deckle fat on the underside which has an extremely deep cup that will go down maybe 3 to 5 inches pending on the size of the brisket, if it's a 20 LB brisket it will go down a good 5 inches deep and you're going to have to create a reverse cone cut on the deckle side of the brisket which is the bottom part where the point is.

2. Take Chef Gregory’s Competition seasoning and lightly sprinkle over entire brisket and proceed to rub it into the meat and let it set for at least 30 minutes on the counter and cover with plastic. Next, take the garlic powder and sprinkle over entire brisket top and bottom then take out your rubber gloves and rub the brisket down entirely prior to the next step. Now take Chef Gregory’s Southwestern Flair Seasoning and sprinkle over entire brisket liberally. At this point with your dominant hand and use it to pat the seasoning into the meat after you have sprinkled on the last layer of Chef Gregory’s Southwestern Flair Seasoning. The reason for the glove is to ensure that the seasoning does not get all over your hands. Since this is a low sodium product and will not liquefy like most other rubs. **

3. At this point prepare to place the meat in your smoker and turn it on. Now this is going to be different for many people because we all have different types of cookers. For example, you may have a pellet fed cooker or, you may have a large machine that requires lots of sticks or chunks of wood or, you may have a cook shack that has an electric element with the smoker box that requires only several ounces of wood to cook the entire brisket. Whichever the case is: now place your brisket in the smoker and start it up and continue to cook your brisket at 225°F using indirect heat and dare I say this only use hardwood to smoke with such as: hickory, oak, cherry, pecan, etc. do not use pine of any sort. It is a softwood and is toxic for consumption.

   So at this point put your large end towards the heat source because it can handle more heat than the flat part. Now close the lid and don’t forget to place your temperature probe inside the meat and cook it to approximately 165° for stage I. This potentially can take upwards of 8 hours. Some cookers may do it in as little as 5, it all depends on ambient temperature, wind, and if your cooker is insulated lots of factors figuring that’s why we always use the internal temperature as our constant.

4. Once you’ve hit the 165° remove it from the smoker and place in the aluminum foil container or your stainless steel hotel pan with a 16 ounces of apple juice and cover with foil and throw it back in the cooker until your temperature on the large part of the brisket reaches 202°F. This is the thickest part of the meat and potentially can take anywhere from 6 to 8 hours. Now the reason being behind this versus wrapping it with butcher paper are two different schools of thought in this case here, this will not only help put moisture back in to the product but it will also help break down the collagen tissue. Not to mention the phosphoric acid in the cherry coke also helps denature the proteins as well.

5. After reaching your internal temperature of 202° remove from the smoker and allow to rest for three or 5 hours before slicing (Keep it in 140° oven or 150°F). Always remember to slice cross the grain and for best results, use a sharp knife and serve immediately.

Happy smoking,
Pitmaster Chef Gregory Kalatsky / G-Ques

* Chef's notes on rinsing versus patting dry.

Depending on the meat I personally prefer to pat down with paper towels or blot for that matter to get any moisture off of the meat without using water. The reason I don't like to use water is because it rinses all possible flavor that you have off the meat the aging will stay of course but the truth is I'd rather not use water when possible of course when it comes to chicken I rinse it off because sometimes it has a little bit of a film to it that we want to get rid of and then at that point we're going to have to pat the chicken dry anyways unless you have something that has been well maintained and packaged properly as far as vacuum packing is concerned immediately after it was butchered then most likely the product is going to be sitting in a vacuum packed bag with possible blood in it, and if there is you definitely want to rinse this off and pat it dry. If there is no blood or extremely little which you will probably find very little in a properly packaged brisket from the manufacturer that has been vacuum packed and never frozen this should just be patted dry with paper towels that do not leave lint. Do not use any towels in the kitchen that leave lint.

** chef's note on seasoning proteins

Now whenever possible you should do this with any type of roast regardless whether it's for competition or for family enjoyment in the backyard or your dinner guests they will all thank you because it tastes so good and it is so much more tender and juicy than it could have been without doing this. Take that piece of meat that you seasoned whether it's the brisket from up above or a steak for the grill and put it in the refrigerator now for 12 hours before you smoke it. This will allow the salt to penetrate the meat for one it will retain moisture while cooking for two. Now You're ready for the smoker.