When it comes to cooking beef brisket, one of the most popular cuts of meat to prepare on a pellet grill/smoker there is a lot of debate within the BBQ community on the best method. Should you place it in the grill/smoker fat side up or fat side down for instance? There is also the debate about whether to wrap or not. Well, each approach has its pros and cons, this recipe shows that a no-wrap brisket can still be a juicy brisket.
Tap/Click above to watch the recipe or scroll below for the steps: Video – PitBoss-Grills.com
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Step 1: The recipe starts with a full-packer brisket of Prime grade, which, ideally if you can afford to you’ll want to get a Prime/Wagyu brisket for the best fat marbling/flavor.
Step 2: With every brisket, you’re going to need to do some trimming. With a sharp knife, you’ll want to trim the fat on the sides of the brisket to around a quarter of an inch.
Step 3: It’s important to note that trimming a brisket is a whole lot easier (trust me on this) when the brisket is cold from the fridge and with a sharp knife of course.
Step 4: The finished trimmed brisket will have the fat reduced along with any odd thin flappy bits of meat cut off from around the edges as these will burn before the brisket has finished cooking.
Step 5: When it comes to seasoning a beef brisket if you want to develop a bark with a deep color you’ll want to apply a rub that contains Paprika such as the Pit Boss Lone Star Rub used in this recipe.
Step 6: But you don’t need to limit yourself to one rub. For additional flavor and texture, the Pit Boss Smoky Salt and Cracked Pepper Rub was applied on the top as well.
Step 7: This large full-packer beef brisket was then placed in the Pit Boss Austin XL running at 225 degrees fat cap up. At this temp, the pellet grill is pretty much at an ideal temperature for maximum smoke production.
Step 8: While this brisket was not wrapped at any point during the cook, it was sprayed every hour (for 14 hours) with Lime Juice and Worcestershire Sauce.
Step 9: After 14 hours on the pellet grill, the brisket had reached an internal temperature of 195 and was ready to come off the grill. Note though, that after resting the internal temperature will be over 200 degrees.
Step 10: I cannot emphasize this enough, proper resting, 2 hours in this case, is essential if you want to get the best end result with your brisket, or any meat for that matter you cook on your pellet grill/smoker.
Step 11: As you can see the end result is a nicely cooked juicy brisket with a decent smoke ring. It did involve spraying it every hour for 14 hours as opposed to wrapping during the cook to retain moisture. Therefore, its not really a lower-effort approach to cooking a good brisket.
Hi, I’m Chris Scott. I started PelHeat.com back in 2007 and I have a background in pellet manufacturing. PelHeat.com is an educational resource on BBQ pellets, pellet grills & smokers. Check out our Pellet Grill & Smoker Database.
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