Smoked brisket

Cook it at home: Central Texas smoked brisket

Texas brisket is mostly patience: a whole packer brisket, a coarse salt-and-pepper rub, steady smoke at about 250F and a long rest. You need a smoker or a kettle grill set up for indirect heat, and a full day. Start the night before.

Pans and tools

• Offset smoker or kettle grill set up for indirect heat
• Instant-read or leave-in probe thermometer
• Long slicing knife
• Cutting board with a juice groove
• Dry cooler and old towels for resting

You’ll need

• 1 whole packer brisket, 12 to 14 lb (5.5 to 6.5 kg), point and flat together
• 1/4 cup (40 g) coarse kosher salt
• 1/4 cup (25 g) coarsely ground black pepper (16 mesh if you can find it)
• 1 tbsp granulated garlic (optional, the InterStellar way)
• Post oak or other oak wood, splits or chunks
• Unwaxed pink butcher paper, about 4 ft (1.2 m)
• To serve: white sandwich bread, dill pickle slices, thin white onion

Steps

1. Trim the brisket cold from the fridge: cut the hard fat on the fat side down to about 1/4 inch (6 mm), remove the silver skin on the meat side, and round off thin edges so they don't burn.
2. Mix salt, pepper and garlic. Sprinkle it evenly over every side from about a foot above, so the coating is even but you can still see meat through it. Rest uncovered on a rack while the smoker heats, about 1 hour.
3. Bring the smoker to 250 to 265F (121 to 129C) with clean, thin blue smoke. Put the brisket in fat side up, with the thicker point toward the fire.
4. Smoke without opening the lid for the first 3 hours. Then check every hour; spritz dry edges with water if they look parched.
5. After 6 to 8 hours the bark will be dark and set and the inside around 165 to 170F (74 to 77C); this is the stall. Wrap the brisket tightly in two layers of butcher paper.
6. Return it to the smoker, seam side down, and cook until a probe slides into the thickest part of the flat like into soft butter, usually 200 to 205F (93 to 96C), another 4 to 6 hours.
7. Rest the wrapped brisket in a dry cooler or a 150F (65C) oven for at least 1 hour, up to 4.
8. Unwrap. Separate the point from the flat along the fat seam. Slice the flat across the grain into pencil-thick slices; turn the point 90 degrees and slice it a little thicker. Serve at once on paper with bread, pickles and onion.

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