Blue Sky High » Kickin’ it with Brisket

Kickin’ it with Brisket

May 17, 2010

It was just last weekend we went to our friends Lynn & Christian’s place for a backyard BBQ to kick-off the summer season that prompted a conversation, and on some levels a challenge, about smoked brisket. Smoked brisket is one of the pit master classics. To smoke a good brisket is to play in the upper echelon of BBQ greatness. I think you know where I’m going with this. We were left without much choice…we had to smoke some brisket! JP was on the case. He researched smokers and recipes, and by the following Friday evening, we were assembling a new smoker in his living room.

On Saturday morning, JP got up early to season the cooking grates, prep the brisket with dry rub, and fill the smoker with damp hickory chips and the first of many smoldering hot coals. During which time Lea and I were nowhere to be found. 🙂 We went to Edgewood Park for a morning trail run (brutal but beautiful and totally worth it), and swung by the farmer’s market on the way home.

We eventually made our way over to JP’s after the brisket had already been on the heat for about 4 hours. Once we got there, Lea promptly left to run some errands and JP had to make his house look presentable for his guests (the Knaaks, the Nelsons and the Leopolds), so I took some pictures of his yard while I monitored the heat.

The more I looked around, the more I kept finding interesting plants and flowers.

The bees really love this purple flower. I didn’t see them anywhere else. If you look, you can find one in each of these…

Not a flower, but certainly an indication of what lay ahead for the day…

Allow me to jump back in time to Friday evening for a moment. The key to any good brisket is, of course, a good smoker. I’ve said the the word smoker four times now, so let’s be clear that this is an important element. The beauty of this particular smoker is that, while it’s on the more economical side (some range upwards of $1,500+), it can be used as a charcoal grill for direct heat, or, as was the case for our method, an external “smoker” accessory contains the coals and wood chips which vent into the side of the main grill chamber for an indirect heat. Please appreciate the level of effort that went into this meal… 🙂

Ah ha! The finished product! You can kind of see the ash covering the top of it. The main compartment that pampered our eight pound brisket for eight hours (1 hr / lb of meat) has a cute little chimney stack, and the smoker accessory on the right is the only place that we put both the coals for heat and wood chips for smoke.

Here’s some easy arithmetic.

8 pound brisket!

A couple tips JP learned from the experience was that wood coals burn much hotter than the charcoals. That’s not good when your mantra is low and slow. Use charcoals for heat, and damp hickory chips for smoke. For the golden rule that each pound of meat you smoke requires one hour of cook time, the heat should be around 200 degrees. And at the end of the day, monitor the internal temp of the meat. If the thermometer says it’s done (150 degrees at meat’s center for medium rare), forget the golden rule – pull it off and tent with foil for 5-10 minutes before slicing into BBQ heaven. Just like this…

Yum. Homemade mac’n cheese (thanks, Lynn!), coleslaw, sweet potato wedges, garlic bread, and…brisket. (Not enough space on my plate the first time around for fruit salad). The dollop of dark molassessy sauce on the back of the plate was even homemade. Christian made it the week prior for his flank steak. We couldn’t eat enough of it, so JP set out to recreate it for this dish. It was almost spot on, except that he interpreted the recipe’s direction, one canned adobo chili, as one can of adobo chilis. HOT.

I’m really upset with myself for not taking a picture of dessert. Dana and Kate (the women of Mike Nelson) made a rum cake that made my tongue quake! And I should know! My parents send me a Tortuga Rum Cake for my birthday EVERY year. It is with mixed emotions that I report that Dana & Kate’s cake is far superior. Moist, but not soggy. Sweet, but not hot with alcohol. My mouth is literally watering just thinking about it.

Here’s our little chef, Kate! Can you imagine her Hulk crushing eggs into a bowl? It’s the only way she knows how. It’s kind of hilarious when you look at how cute she is.

Here’s Kate and Mom going around the table reciting each person’s name. I don’t remember how she did, but I know she can say B-ian!

After dinner, we were stuffed to the gills and looking for some easy entertainment. We hadn’t given much thought to what we might do post-brisket, so after a little head scratching, we broke out Guesstures. Like Gestures, but with a timer and point system.

Now, if you had to choose, which one of these crazy people would you have on your team? You may even be able to guess what some of these clues are. (Answers follow)