Help! Got a bone-in brisket piece, need to decide what to do in the next hour...


 
J

Jukka V

New member
So this is Finland and brisket is not really appreciated here.. and it seems to be also cut very differently from anything I see on the web. And it's actually my first brisket (piece) on a WSM.

My wife bought a "piece of brisket" which turned out to be a 4kg (9 lbs) "slice" of one with the bone in and all (about 2.5 ribs worth). And now I should serve that tomorrow :cool: The 22.5" WSM is standing by but I can't make up my mind what to do.

It's a Hereford cattle cut and very very nice looking. But it's got all the fat in the middle with the meat and the ribs sandwiching it.

i-DdjdxxL-XL.jpg


It's now 9:30pm here and I'm thinking how can I serve this for lunch or dinner tomorrow?

  • Do I go at it caveman style and just rub & chuck it in the WSM? This is what my heart tells me to do but the brain is not in on it yet :)
  • Or do I separate the rib & meat side.. but that's an awful thin piece of meat where it tapers out..
  • .. and how long is it all going to take? Overnight or start early in the morning?

If I'm going to put it in overnight, that's going to be fun. It's freezing temps here and they're promising heavy snow so I'll have to protect the smoker.. but being so late I need to make the call in the next hour or then just leave it with the rub overnight and wake up 6:30'ish. But dinner needs to be around 7 pm and I'm not sure if this will make it in 12 hours even if I crutch it (I've succesfully crutched pork butts).

Heeelp :)
 
I wish I could help but I've never seen anything like that. Clearly you have some ribs so you could cut it up and cook the ribs as one piece and cook the other piece like a brisket. The problem I see is that the meat on the top looks pretty lean. I can't say how that will cook or how it will do in a low and slow cook. I will say one thing - that little round piece surrounded by fat on the right side of the pic - I bet that will be gooooood!.

If that fat runs all the way through, I think I would separate the meat leaving a fat cap on both sides, and cook them like ribs and brisket. I'd cook the "brisket" like a flat. It's really hard to say, but I'd think 9 to 12 hours and be prepared to foil.

Good luck.
 
Dwain...

Per your link "... and the distinct and almost offaly flavours are released in full."

:confused:

Have never ever had a brisket taste like offal !
Makes me wonder about this particular cut...
 
Thanks for pitching in guys, I actually read your comments last night and even replied but apparently I didn't get that through right.

Anyway, in the end I fired up the WSM late at night and went all in on the caveman style, beef rub + in it goes whole. After inspecting the meat more closely I found that there were actually 2 fat layers there that twist and overlap somehow inside so taking it apart would have resulted in something more suitable for sous vide or braising in a shallow le creuset. But that just won't do right now so I just went for it.

I have to say the WSM did wonderfully in the snowfall, we got 5 inches of snow in flurries it was right at 230°F when I woke up at 6:30. I just let it run with all the vents 90% open and a gallon of almost boiling water went in the pan. Of course it might have done major ups and downs during the night but somehow I don't think so.

It's been in for 13 hours now and I foiled it for about 3.5 hours of that.. now it's nekkid and I'm hoping it'll exit the stall soon as it's up to just 172°F so far.

And no, it's not going to taste like offal :D
 
Bob Bass said:
Dwain...

Per your link "... and the distinct and almost offaly flavours are released in full."

:confused:

Have never ever had a brisket taste like offal !
Makes me wonder about this particular cut...
Click to expand...

No. But then again I've never had a bone in brisket either. LOL

Keep us posted Jukka.
 
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Bob Bass said:
Dwain...

Per your link "... and the distinct and almost offaly flavours are released in full.":confused:
Have never ever had a brisket taste like offal !
Makes me wonder about this particular cut...
Click to expand...

i think the reviewer had his thesaurus out trying to sound sophisticated ....I would bet the word he was looking for was gamey. You know how you get pork chops sometimes that have that dark meat in them and other cuts that are nearer the bone? They have that strong taste? I can believe that this cut , with the ribs attached , might contain some meat with a stronger flavor.
 
Ok.. 18 (eighteen!) hours later the mystery meat cut is done!

Right off the bat let me report that it was wonderful in most places, but a bit crumbly overdone in some. Even though it looked like it would dry out, and even in the pics it may look a bit dry but you could have eaten the thing whole without a trace of chewiness or stringiness. I have no idea which way the grain went in this one so I just sliced it pretty much randomly but it was like slicing paté and didn't matter one bit.

So after about 15 hours in the WSM I transferred it to the kitchen oven because I needed to refuel & get a load of ribs in the WSM with the accompanying heavy apple smoke. It stayed in the kitchen oven for the last 3 hours on a low rack with a cup or so of beer in the pan.

And out it came when the Thermapen said 94°C (around 200°F), looking like this:

i-pkJhtbJ-XL.jpg


I let it rest just an hour before slicing the briskety part and pulling the meat around the ribs as it was wonderful but hard to get at.

Here's one end of the briskety bit (look at the knife, it's not a dry cut for sure!)

i-pRTWNtH-XL.jpg


.. and some pickings from around the ribs & cartillage on the bottom:

i-Wt2XQGn-XL.jpg


So we ate it as is and inside some pita breads I baked on the Genesis gasser at full steam. A bit unorthodox but we don't get any appropriate buns here and my wife makes a mean pita dough...

i-WtPRf8n-XL.jpg


So in the end, all's well but I'm so happy we had all kinds of other food at hand for the party, got the stress out of making the brisket and everyone was happy with the "it's done when it's done" timetable. But I think next time I'm going to seek out a brisket myself and see if I can get anything closer to a U.S. packer cut...
 
Looks great. Glad everything turned out good. I'm betting that meat around the ribs was very good.

Not offal at all from the looks of it. :D
 
Jukka;
Looks like you did a fine job even when presented with a near impossible task. Good man!!!

That looks "more than edible" to me - it looks delicious. I might have "thrown in the towel" if it had been me faced with this challenge.

Congratulations on a good cook (and with less than perfect meat:p).

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
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