How to Smoke a Brisket – A Comprehensive Guide

Here’s my complete guide on how to smoke a brisket. Hopefully this helps you on your next brisket cook.

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For this cook, I made my own rub with Morton’s Kosher Salt, Coarse Black Pepper, Granulated Onion, Granulated Garlic and Chili Powder.  Feel free to just use salt and pepper or experiment with other spices to find what you like.  Most BBQ joints use more than just salt and pepper, so don’t limit yourself.

Measure everything out, add to a shaker and set aside.

1/4C Morton’s Kosher Salt, 72g

1/2C Coarse Black Pepper, 66g

1/8C Granulated Onion, 28g

1/8C Granulated Garlic, 24g

2t Chili Powder, 5g

Here’s how I prep to trim a brisket.

Get a big cutting board and secure it to your surface with a silicone mat or wet paper towel (but don’t use wet paper towel with wood cutting board because it will water log it).  You don’t want it sliding around while you are trimming.

Use a cut glove on (at least) your non-dominant hand to protect from slips.  I’m also going to start wearing one on my dominant hand just for an extra layer of protection.  One slip and you are in the ER. 

Use nitrile gloves to cover the cut glove.  I also wear nitrile gloves so my hands don’t smell like beef and to keep my germs off the meat.

Open the brisket by slicing the package along the deckle fat on the meat side.

Remove the package while keeping the juices in it so they don’t spill everywhere.

Pat down with a paper towel.

Get a container to hold the trimmings and a trash can nearby.

Let’s learn about the parts of a brisket.  A packer brisket consists of two muscles, the point and the flat.   The point is at the top of the screen and the flat is at the bottom.

On the fat side you have the mohawk, which is the meat and fat that sticks up. Across from that you have the hump.

On the meat side you have the flat meat and the deckle fat.  

Let’s learn how to trim a brisket.  I start by taking off the mohawk and then rounding off the point.  I square off that long side and round off that corner.  This brisket had a lot of fat on that side, so I carved more of that out.

On the meat side, I shaved off the deckle and then cleaned up that long side.

I’m using a 10” slicing knife for most of these cuts today. I personally like using a longer knife to trim, but I switch to my 6” or 4” knife when I need to be more precise.

I shortened the brisket to 18” so it would fit on my smoker and then cleaned up the corners.

None of this goes to waste, I make burgers, sausage and tallow with it.

I shaved some of the hard fat off the hump.  And then cleaned up the fat on top of the flat. I shoot for about a quarter of an inch to a half an inch of fat there.

Back on the meat side, I carved out the deckle and then cleaned up the fat globs from the flat.

Now let’s slather and rub our brisket. Before you apply the rub you can optionally add a binder to help the rub stick to the meat.  Lots of people use mustard, or mustard plus something to thin it out like Worcestershire sauce or pickle juice.  You could also just use water or rub the meat to make it tacky. 

Starting on the fat side, apply your binder, then flip it over and do the other side.  

Then apply your rub.  Make sure you apply it evenly and get the sides as well.   I like to pat it down to help it stick.  But, do not rub it.

Hold the bottle about a foot about the brisket so it falls more uniformly.  I use the big opening of the bottle and manage the flow with the side to side motion of my wrist.

Flip it back over to the fat side, apply the rub and get the sides.  If the rub isn’t sticking you can apply more binder. 

You can use your left hand as a deflection point for the rough to reach areas.

I usually do 2 briskets per tub, cover in plastic wrap, and then in the fridge for the night.

My slather recipe is yellow mustard with a little worcestershire to thin it out.

We’re smoking 4 briskets, 2 on the pellet smoker and 2 on the Weber Smokey Mountain.  

For the WSM, I lay down two layers of charcoal, add lit coals in the middle and add wood throughout the cook. 

I used to put wood chunks under the charcoal, but found it never combusted and just smoldered. Instead, I keep wood chunks on the middle grate to keep them warm, and then feed them to fire throughout the cook. It’s more work during the cook, but I’ve found the smoke to run cleaner that way. 

For the pellet smoker, I put both briskets on the upper rack, a water pan under them, and a tallow pan over to the right.  I set it to 180 and super smoke and use oak pellets.

I insert my probes through the sides into the middle of the point and the flat.  You don’t want to poke a probe through the fat cap as it will mess with your bark.

For these types of smokers it helps to start low and work your way up to 275, so the smoke has time to penetrate the meat.  I also use a fan to help keep the temps steady.

I smoke for 2 hours at 180, 2 hours at 225, and then 250 until I wrap, and finish at 275.  You’ll need to experiment and find what works best for your smoker as they are all different.

I like to spritz my briskets with an apple cider vinegar and worcestershire sauce mix every 30 minutes during the first 4 hours.  A moist surface helps attract smoke particles, the sugars help with bark formation, and it helps control the temps so the outside doesn’t cook faster than the inside.  

It’s optional, so if this is your first time smoking a brisket I recommend trying it and seeing how it goes.  If you don’t like the results then don’t spritz your next one.

There’s no one way to do bbq.  You experiment and find what works for you.

My spritz recipe is: 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup vinegar, 1T Worcestershire sauce

Now let’s make some tallow. I take all the hard fat that I trimmed off the brisket and render it down to tallow in a pan while I smoke.  A few times throughout the cook I’ll strain that rendered fat into a glass jar.  Tallow is pure fat that can be used as a cooking fat, butter substitute, soap and even candles.  I use it when I wrap briskets to help keep it moist as it rests.  I also make tallow cubes to put in my vac seal bags when I portion out my leftovers.  That way there’s plenty of fat in there when you reheat it. Just don’t keep the tallow on there too long as it will burn.  You shouldn’t need to grind it before rendering.  I just put in big chunks and empty the fat every hour or so.  Also, make sure you cover the jar if you leave it outside while you are smoking

One of the issues you may run into when smoking is a brisket is a dried out flat and an unrendered fat cap.  To combat that you can put the brisket in a boat to protect the flat and keep the fat side exposed so it can continue to render and build a better bark.  

When you boat, you will sacrifice some of the bottom bark because the brisket will sit in the collected fat and it will wash some of it away.  

I typically boat with foil, but I’ve been wanting to cook with less foil, so I tried to make a paper boat for this cook.

I like the idea of a paper boat, but even though I spritzed the paper with water, I couldn’t get it to form well enough around the sides.  I may continue to experiment with the paper boat or just go back to using foil.  Let me know if you have any ideas for how I can make a better paper boat.

When I foil boat, I criss-cross two sheets of foil and then crimp up the sides, put in some tallow, add the brisket and then touch up the foil edges.

Boating is an optional step, but if you find your flats are dry and your fat cap isn’t rendered then you may want to give it a try.

Wrapping briskets completely in foil or paper is optional. You’ll want to wrap to help speed up the cook or to prevent your bark from getting too dark.  Don’t wrap if your bark isn’t as dark as you like it.

Lately I’ve been wrapping in paper because I feel better about my meat resting in paper versus foil.  

When wrapping with paper lay down two sheets of 18 inch butcher paper, spritz with water to make it more pliable, add tallow, place the brisket, and then more tallow on top.  The tallow helps keep it moist while it rests.

Fold the bottom up and over and tuck it under the brisket. Then fold over the sides and crimp the long edges. 

Flip the brisket. Square off the paper’s top edge. Then flip one more time, so it is back to fat side up.

Lots of Texas barbecue joints wrap with foil and a lot wrap with paper. I recommend you try both ways and see which one you like best. I found that paper is the way to go if you want a crunchier bark and foil if you want a more moist bark. I did a side-by-side blind taste test with a bunch of my friends and they slightly favored foil over paper, but would’ve been happy with either.

You’ll do a very similar approach with foil. Two sheets of foil, put down some tallow with the brisket, and then fold the long edges, followed by the short edges.

It goes back on the smoker until the internal temps hit at least 195- 203+ and it is probe tender throughout.

Now that the briskets are at least 195-203+ degrees and probe tender, we’re going to move them to our food warmer, set at 150 degrees, until the next day – which ended up being about 12 hours for this cook. But, I’ve gone as long as 17 hours without a problem.  For the extra long holds, I’ll pull my briskets at 195-200 because I know they will continue to render for that extended period of time. If I’m only smoking one brisket, I’ll put it in my smart oven or regular oven, but I often need it for other things, like sides, which led to getting the food warmer.  If your oven doesn’t go down to 150 degrees then check your manual as most ovens allow you to calibrate to a lower temp.

Just make sure that you are monitoring the brisket temps while you are hot holding or resting.  Keep them above 140 to be safe.

Then when you need to transport your briskets from your house to the party, you’ll move them from the food warmer to your cambro or cooler lined with towels or blankets.  The briskets will stay a good serving temp for at least 4 hours.

We’re now ready to slice and serve our briskets.  

After unwrapping briskets, I like to pat on some of the tallow from the paper with my hands.  I used to pour it on, but I prefer to pat so I can control how much gets on there.

I’m wearing cotton gloves under my nitrile gloves so the hot brisket is easier to handle while slicing.

Start by slice it down the middle right where the point meets the flat.

Then take a look at the middle.  You’ll want to see a smoke ring around the bottom.  That pinkish ring tells you that you ran a good clean fire.  Don’t stress if you don’t have a smoke ring, but think about how you can apply cleaner smoker during the beginning part of your cook.

You also don’t want to see any thick white fat on top or between the two muscles.  I have some here because I didn’t trim enough off.  Again nothing to stress about, just trim it out now before you serve it.

I then cut off the end of the point that was the “hump”, trim off the flat muscle, and then serve that to the party VIPs or anyone hanging around the table.  Those are known as burnt ends and are one of the best bites in BBQ.

Then continue slicing the point in the same direction and only slice what you need to serve because you don’t want the slices to prematurely oxidate.

A good indication that the brisket was cooked just right is the bend and pull test.  A slice should easily fold in half and it should pull apart with ease.  If it falls apart here, then you overcooked it.  Next time try to remove it from the heat right when it hits probe tenderness.

You’ll slice the flat muscle along the same cut you made at the beginning.

Aim for #2 pencil thin cuts on the flat and carpenter’s pencil width on the point.

Any remaining meat can be chopped up for the folks that want brisket sandwiches.

Here’s my 3 day brisket schedule.  Some people give me a hard time for spreading it out over 3 days, but I’ve found this is the best way to get a good night’s sleep.

On or before Day 1 I will buy the briskets.  I keep them in the fridge until Day 1 and try not to put them in the freezer unless absolutely necessary.

At 5:30pm I’ll put the briskets in the freezer so the fat is easier to cut.  I’ll make a custom rub and then trim, slather, rub, and put them in the fridge.

Day 2 starts at 9am.  I start smoking at 180, bump to 225 after two hours, and then 250 after two hours.  Spritzing every half hour-ish as needed.

I render the tallow throughout the cook and strain it before I boat so I can include some in the boat.

I wrap around 6pm but only if the fat cap is rendered and I’m happy with the bark.  The brisket is usually 180 degrees at this point.

I then bump up the smoker temp to 275 to help accelerate the cook.

When the briskets are at least 195 and probe tender, I’ll pull from the heat and hot hold them in my food warmer overnight.

On Day 3, I’ll pull them from the food warmer, transport them if necessary, and then slice and serve.

Hopefully this brisket series has been helpful for you.  Let me know if you have any questions – and join my patreon if you’d like 1:1 help with your cooks.

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Jonny