Cooking Brisket Using a Pellet Grill

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Hey guys, it’s Matt with Meat Church and welcome back to my outdoor kitchen. Today I’m going to show you guys how to make a killer pellet grill brisket.

But when it comes to smoking a brisket, there are lots of ways to skin a cat. Lots of different cookers. You know me, I’m a traditional Texas barbecue guy. I’ve got lots of brisket videos on our channel, including briskets on offset smokers and pellet grills. But we haven’t done a brisket on a pellet grill for a video in a long time, and I thought it was time to update it, put some new stuff in it, some new twists. And you know, pellet grills have become extremely popular lately for lots of reasons. Most of the world champions in the world have a pellet grill. Some people don’t want to mess with a fire, some people have super busy lives, you know, they’re out running around with their kids, they have busy jobs, whatever the case may be. A pellet grill will allow you to cook outside more often than you otherwise would be able to because not many of us can light a fire in our offset stick burner seven days a week. So this is a great option in your cooking arsenal.

So what we’re doing today, we’re starting out with a prime brisket that I’ve already trimmed for you guys. And I’ve got a trim video on the channel. I’ll put a card up above to link you to that. But what I did basically was, I’ll show you on the meat side. I did not remove a lot of fat off of that because I cook my briskets fat side up. So the fat on the bottom on the meat side will render. I cleaned up the edges, rounded them out, took the mohawk off here, and I did take a big section off here where the flat gets really thin because when you do that, it enables you to get much thicker slices here and a lot more amazing brisket when it’s sliced. But I’m going to show you something real quick. Here’s all the trim. I just trimmed this brisket, here’s all my fat. And here is the meat and fat which I’m going to grind all of this up and I’m going to use, I put it in my freezer and then when I’ve got a bunch of it, I make burgers, do all sorts of stuff with it. But with the fat here, I’m going to throw this in the smoker and I’m just going to let that go while we’re cooking this brisket. And every so often, as it renders down into what I call liquid gold, I’m going to pour it through a filter into a jar and I’m going to make beef tallow that has lots of uses. So 100% utilization of the brisket. So it might look like I trimmed it aggressively, that’s okay because we’re going to use every bit of it. Let’s get into this and how we’re going to prepare this today.

Sometimes I use binders, sometimes I don’t. But here’s some the 4-1-1 on how a lot of people in Texas barbecue will put a binder on their briskets. There are guys that put mustard, very well-known reputable places that just slather their briskets in mustard. There’s folks that put pickle juice and mustard together, there’s a little bit of Worcestershire sauce. You don’t have to use a binder at all, but I am today. I’m going to use the W sauce, friend of mine, W sauce here which is a great Worcestershire sauce. And I’m just going to slather it on with my hand and it’s going to run kind of thin and that’s okay. It doesn’t really affect the flavor profile. It’s a way for the seasoning to adhere. And if you remember back on our prime rib video at the holidays, we did the same thing and it was great.

Alright, so we’re going to start seasoning on this side first. Now, I told you don’t stress leaving this fat right here because that’s thin and it’s going to render out. So here’s how I’m going to season today. I’m going to start with coarse black pepper, this is 16 mesh pepper and I’m adding this in addition to my seasonings, my Meat Church seasonings. And I’ll explain that in a second. But I kind of season up high here so I get a good, even application and I always put my pepper on first. We like a lot of pepper here in Texas. You certainly can skip this and season however the heck you want. This is just how I’m seasoning today. So you put the pepper on first, that way if you have other seasonings on first and then you put the pepper on, the pepper could bounce off. But the pepper is important because it will help catch smoke and build bark. Now mainly, I’m going to season with my Meat Church Holy Cow. This is our Texas barbecue rub. It’s mostly salt and pepper with just a little bit of garlic. So this is 70-80% of how we’re seasoning this brisket today. And you could stop at that stage, but I’m going to come across with just a little bit of my Holy Gospel. And I learned this from a lot of competition friends. It’s just a light application of that. Like I always tell people, you can season how you want.

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A lot of people think that Texas barbecue is solely salt and pepper. That’s actually not true. That’s the basis for Texas barbecue. However, I can tell you that I don’t know many barbecue joints, hardly any that season solely with salt and pepper anymore. There are some, don’t get me wrong. But on the famous Texas Monthly Top 50, not very many of them are just salt and pepper. You can use whatever your favorite brisket seasoning is. It doesn’t have to be Meat Church, you might make one, you might buy one, whatever you do is fine. Make sure you get the edges, a little bit of Holy Gospel. Alright, now if you’re doing this at home I tell folks a lot of people cooking briskets on the weekend, if that’s the case then do this on a Friday night. It won’t hurt your brisket to allow the seasoning to adhere for quite a while. But you want to let it sit at least 30 minutes, if not an hour. If you can. Since we’re making a video, we’re not going to let it sit that long. I’m going to give this a good 20 minutes so I’m going to leave and let this adhere, so when it’s nice and kind of sweated out I’m going to be ready to put it on. And when we come back, I’ll talk to you guys about how we’re going to cook it.

Let’s talk about how we’re going to cook this brisket. When I teach barbecue, I often tell people don’t be so stuck in the recipe. Saying, “This is probably a 12-pound brisket.” By the way, that this 12-pound brisket is going to take x amount of time. Here’s the deal, it’s in the evening right now, and I’m going to have this for supper tomorrow night. So we’re going to cook this overnight at 200 degrees, super smoke. It’s going in at 7 pm, and we’re going to check it at 7 am. Since we’re cooking at 200 degrees, it’s not going to finish, it’s not going to overcook. I’ve done this a million times. It’s going to build bark and be great. Tomorrow morning when we wake up, we’re going to wrap it in butcher paper and we’re going to increase the temperature to 250 degrees. When the brisket finishes, then we’re going to pull it off and we’re going to rest it all afternoon and we’re going to eat it for supper tomorrow night and it’s going to be great.

We’re running the brand new Traeger Timberline XL which I love. It’s filled with Meat Church pellets, which is a blend of oak and hickory. It has three shelves, I took the top one out. So for you traditional guys, a lot of people think that you have to cook a brisket on a pellet grill fat down. Well, I’m going to put it on the middle shelf, actually I’m going to turn it around the other way. Let’s do this, pits are convection ovens, the heat is doing this. So I’m getting away from the bottom down here, that way I can cook it fat up, my preference, the what I call traditional Texas way. Now if you like it meat up, that’s fine. Do it meat up, you guys cook it however you want to cook it, that’s how I like it. So we’re going to let this roll. I’m not going to insert the integrated wireless meat probes only because I don’t need it yet. I don’t need to monitor it, I know it’s going to be okay. But when we wrap tomorrow morning, I’m going to put a probe in so that I can monitor this cook from my phone know what’s going on, because I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Anyway, we’re going to leave this alone, I’m not going to touch it, not going to spritz it, I don’t have to do a thing. I’m going to hang out with my kids and I’ll see you guys tomorrow morning.

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Good morning guys, it’s 8:35 am at the Meat Church Kitchen. We’ve been smoking this brisket for 12 hours and 5 minutes at 200 degrees, super smoke. And as promised, I have not touched it, I have not spritzed it, I’ve not done a thing, and it’s already looking pretty good. It’s starting to bark up, it looks really good to be honest with you. You can start to see a little juice here, so at this point, I’m deciding, do I want to wrap or not? I don’t completely have the color I want to wrap. So let’s check the internal temperature right here in the flat. We’re in the 160s with my instant-read thermometer, so I usually wrap in the 170s. I didn’t think we were quite there, so I’m going to put it back in and I’m going to slightly increase the temperature, let it keep cooking. I’m going to go up to 225, still with super smoke rolling.

Obviously, I could have cooked a little higher and it might be a little further along, but this temperature works good. So let’s check on our fat that we’ve been rendering. So you can see even at a low temperature of 200, a lot of it has started to render into this liquid gold. And we are going to do this all day. You can put a coffee filter here, but I’m not a coffee drinker, so I’m using a paper towel, and I’m just going to pour this into this jar, strain it. I just don’t want any of those bits in there and we’re going to strain this all day long and make beef tallow, which there’s lots of uses for. We’ll discuss that as this video goes on. You know we’re actually going to use a little bit of this later in our cook, and you don’t have to do that, but I’ll explain the pros and cons to that. I will continue to pour this in, I’m going to put this pan back in the Timberline XL, and we’ll just render this all day. And we’re going to come back when this brisket’s about 175, which is going to be the wrap stage for me. At that point, we’re going to wrap it in our unwaxed butcher paper, and then we’re going to increase to 250 and keep cooking. so we’ll see you in a little bit.

Alright guys, we’ve been cooking this brisket for just over two hours at 225. So let’s check in on it and it looks awesome. So you can see, the bark has developed further, the entire brisket is really pretty wet at this point. So, I’m going to wrap it, I’m going to increase the temperature for the rest of the cook. I’m using my unwaxed butcher paper, this is 18-inch paper so I overlap it and then I’m going to spritz it. This makes the paper more more pliable, help it wrap around the brisket better. This is a mix of cider vinegar and water that is not important, you can just use water.

Alright, so the important thing on wrapping a brisket, you want to make sure it’s nice and tight. Lots of ways to do this, but here’s how I do it. I like to wrap in paper. I’ve got a video on my channel what are the differences in wrapping in paper versus wrapping in foil. You certainly can wrap in foil, it will speed up the rest of your cook, it’ll steam the bark just a little bit. But you can remove the foil at the end, you can get that bark back. You can check out that video and it’ll kind of show you the differences. But here in Texas, this is how we do it. If you’ve ever swaddled a baby, it’s basically what you’re doing. Pull it tight. It’s already nice and tight. There we go. Perfecto. Alright, we’re going back in, I’m going to increase the temperature to 250 and we’re going to cook it until it’s probed tender.

Alright guys, it’s just after lunchtime here at the Meat Church. We’ve been cooking for a little about two more hours at 250 and I know the brisket’s done because I’ve actually probed it in a couple places. As you can see here. I’ve actually probed through the paper with my Thermapen. It’s also now, I can feel here where the two muscles come together and it’s nice and tender. It’s looking really good. By the way, here was that tallow I poured in earlier, and I’m still rendering even more. So, I’m going to show you guys something. I like to do this is a long rest. I’m going to rest this until dinnertime. I’m going to pour a little tallow on the paper now. Remember, I seasoned this brisket pretty heavily. So this will help mellow that. Be careful, tallow’s not a magic answer. It will mellow out your seasoning but this I just do this for the rest, just a little bit.

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Now what I’m going to do, I’m going to set this on the counter out here at ambient temperature for an hour to fully stop the cooking process. By the way, you can leave this out safely for two or three hours on a warm day and it’s springtime in Texas, it’s good weather to do that. But I’m going to stop the cooking process and then after that hour, I’m going to put it in a Yeti and I’m going to let it ride until suppertime. See you all then.

Alright guys, this brisket has been resting for three hours. It’s 5 pm here in Texas, so we’re getting ready for dinner. Let’s roll this thing out. Let’s see how we did. The big reveal. Oh yeah. You always want to, you know, any of your…anything comes off the paper, put it on there. Not going to hurt. Actually, it’s going to help. What we’re resting on here in the pan. Heck, we’ll use that, too. How much of that you use, that’s up to you but, I’ll tell you, I like to do this at the end of a cook because it’s good to have tallow on the block when you’re slicing. You know, brisket, I always say, dies a pretty quick death when you start slicing it. So only slice how much you need. And if you’ve got a big section left and you go to cut some, you can put some tallow on the end of it, and that’s kind of a Texas barbecue thing at the end of a cook.

But first and foremost, let’s talk about this brisket. I mean, man, it’s got epic bark. The Traeger Timberline XL, the Meat Church pellets, amazing bark. Obviously, with that super low and slow cook, you know, I’m going to go ahead and say this again. I said at the beginning, lots of ways to skin a cat, but this was super convenient. So you can’t really argue with that, man, looks good. I’m going to get into it. Let’s see here…Well, clearly super juicy, the juice is just running down out of that. I’m going to take a couple slices off here. Let me tell you something about cooking in an outdoor kitchen in Texas this time of year. The flies know what’s up so they’re out here. Well, that’s all right.

So there’s our lean. I’m going to get into some of the fatty here. They want some burnt ends, I’m pretty sure none of y’all are going to argue with that. That’s tender. Man, look at that, just falls right down. Where to start? Well, I’ll go in on a little bit of the lean here. Oh, I didn’t cut all the way through, got hung up on the end. Nice and tender. I made that cut slice too big, but nonetheless, smoky and delicious. Well, the lean is good, but you guys know me, I’m not here for the lean. I save that for my neighbors. I’m here for that fatty. Just give me a little piece of that with all that bark and that smoke on there. Now that’s where it’s at. Damn, that’s good. Success that’s all I need.

But I have a little burnt end action. Alright, dang that’s good dude. You gotta love you gotta love a brisket that was that easy. Not a lot of interaction with it, cooked it all night, wrapped it up, increased the temperature a little bit, rested it for a long time. Man, we’re good to go. I was so, so, so good. If you guys like what we’re doing, please like and subscribe to the channel. But this video is part of our famous hardcore barbecue series where we’ve got tons of barbecue recipes so there’s a playlist for this on our YouTube channel. You guys be sure to check it out. We’ll see y’all next time. [Music]

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