NEW RECIPE: Texas Style Smoked Brisket (BBQ Weekend Special, Part 3)

© Constantine William Spyrou

Smoked meat has always been of interest to me ever since I started looking into the barbeque scene a few years ago. I love the intense flavor it adds to meat and the bark that accumulates on the outer surface, which has the most amazing flavor (and therefore makes me a gigantic fan of burnt ends). Out of all of the cuts of meat that can be possibly smoked, my favorite has to be Texas-style brisket. It's got an amazing, meaty texture but is still incredibly tender. This comes from the long periods of time it spends on the smoker and the rendering of the fat cap on top that just adds so much flavor back into the brisket. 

I've played with a couple of brisket recipes in my head, and tried this one out on my family about a year ago. It was a huge success, so I've kept it as a mainstay for my barbequing recipes. This is a classic Texas approach to beef brisket, utilizing my dry rub recipe from earlier as well as basting with apple juice. 

For wood choices, I like hickory the best for this particular recipe, because it helps inject a little more sweetness into the meat. However, apple, cherry, oak, and even mesquite all work great for smoking brisket. Try playing with it to your style and see how it turns out! 

Recipe will serve up to 20 people.

Ingredients:

1 6-pound cut of beef brisket, fat cap left on
2 cups apple cider vinegar
3 portions of Texas Dry Rub
2 cups of apple juice

Cooking/Assembling:

1. Combine the apple cider vinegar and Texas Dry Rub together, then add to your brisket, massaging everywhere generously with the marinade. Let sit in the fridge for at least 12 hours to marinate.
2. Assemble/prepare your smoker and set it to a medium-high setting, about 200-225 degrees Fahrenheit. Place in the wood of your choice once the fire is started inside.
3. Place your marinated brisket into the smoker, and cook at the 200-225 degrees setting for 8-9 hours, or roughly an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half per pound of brisket. Check up on the smoker regularly to keep the temperature constant, and add in more wood as needed.
4. Every 2-3 hours, make sure to baste the brisket with your apple juice.
5. When the brisket is done, let it rest for 20 minutes. Remove the fat cap, carve into 1/2 inch-thick slices, and serve!

This brisket has a great level of sweetness to it from the basting of the apple juice that helps create an amazing bark. The complexity of spices makes it truly taste like barbeque, as does the intense flavor of the hickory smoke that penetrates through a good portion of the meat and gives it a unique flavor.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! Let me know what you think and what you would change. If you make it at home, let me know how it turns out! Enjoy! =)