Briskets roasting on an open fire

Posted by johngl

About a year and a half ago, I showed y’all how to do some brisket on a basic Weber grill.  This time around, I thought I might break out the old Brinkman and do a couple of full-sized briskets on a larger scale smoker since the 4th of July is right around the corner and you may need to feed a lot of people.

Not pretty, but fifteen years of heavy smoking takes a toll

Shall we begin?

The nice thing about brisket is that at $1.79/lb. you can afford a bunch of it.

I wanted to do some experimenting, so I only opened one package and seasoned it beforehand.  The other wet-aged for another week. I was testing the seasoning blend to find out which way it worked better.

On the left, the pre-seasoned. On the right, the wet-aged unseasoned. I applied a little more rub to the pre-seasoned one then applied some rub to the unseasoned one. Out to the Brinkman they went:

To get things going, I used natural lump charcoal, then threw on a nice-sized hunk of white oak.  I carefully adjusted the temperature by closing down the vents and got it to stay between 225-250:

Three hours later, some good color was setting in:

At six hours, they were getting darker:

At eight hours:

At eleven hours:

It was finally time to give it a go:

Check out those bands of pink!

We have a winner!

I liked the pre-seasoned one a little better, but in reality, both are pretty darned good.

The recipe for the dry rub (T=tablespoon, t=teaspoon):

3 T kosher salt (Morton’s)

3 T dark brown sugar (C&H)

1 T hot Hungarian Paprika

1 T sweet Paprika

1 T black pepper

2 t brown mustard seed (whole)

1 t onion powder

1 t granulated garlic

1 t coriander (whole)

1 t cumin seeds (whole)

1 t dried thyme

1/8 t pequin powder

Put the whole seeds in a spice grinder and break them up a little bit. Then add the rest of the items and whir them up until you have a fine powder. Place in a large shaker.

The mix smells a bit like chili powder when you’re done, but don’t let that deter you.

Make sure you aren’t skimpy with it:

This would be a fine feed for a Fourth of July gathering, but get started early or the night before. Time is the only way to get this right.