Smoked Brisket on the Pellet Grill

The hubby and I have a favorite new restaurant… SMOAK! They have the BEST smoked brisket in town. We used to go to a chain to get out BBQ and I had never had real smoked brisket before. I didn’t know I LOVED brisket till I had it at SMOAK. We love going out. I don’t have to cook or clean. Smoking your own brisket takes time and effort. But it’s SO much cheaper to smoke your own. We also buy a half cow from a local farmer every so often so we have a huge brisket each time. We save tons of money smoking our own. It’s great for hosting or if it’s just our family… leftovers for days! woohoo!

It’s pretty simple to smoke a brisket. But it’s near impossible to time it perfectly. It can take 1 to 2 hours per lb of brisket. So we often start it SUPER early in the morning or smoke it the day before we want to have it for dinner because it’s amazing reheated as well as fresh.

Here is how we smoke our brisket on the pellet grill.

Prep the Brisket:

1. I find that it’s easier to work with the brisket when it’s still a smidge frozen so I like to prep the day before and let is sit 12-24 hours.
2. Figure out which side of the brisket is the fat side (the side with the most fat) and trim off some of that fat. We like to leave about 1/4 inch of fat. I save the fat and I’ll tell you what we do with that in a minute.
3. Flip over your brisket over and trim off all the fat from the side without the fat cap and trim off the fat and silver skin.
4. This is when most people add lots of seasoning. SMOAK uses just salt pepper and garlic. I use JUST Redmonds Real Sea Salt. I find that smoking the meat gives it all the flavor it needs. I don’t even eat it with BBQ sauce (my hubby does). I sprinkle salt over the brisket and rub it all over every part of it. You can do the same with whatever seasoning you like if you feel it needs more than just sea salt. We buy our Redmonds Sea Salt at Thrive Market.
5. Cover or wrap your brisket and let it sit in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours. I cut the excess fat that I cut off into strips, season with sea salt and let it sit as well in a glass Pyrex container for smoking separate next to my brisket the next day.

Smoking in the Pellet Grill:

1. I like Hickory Flavor pellets best but you can use any type of pellet to fill up your pellet grill. Most bags have little charts on the outside to show which complements which type of meat best.
2. Preheat your pellet grill to 225. This typically takes 15 min. I have the meat sitting on my counter while I preheat the grill.
3. Once preheated, place your brisket on the pellet fat side down. Next to the large brisket I set my fat slices on a small stainless steal pan on the grill. I then put my pellet grill probe into the center of the brisket to keep an eye on the meat’s temperature on my Grilla Grill app.
4. When the internal temperature of the brisket reaches 165 degrees, wrap the large brisket in butcher paper and place back onto the grill fat side up. I let the fat strips sit and cook without being wrapped. They turn out nice and crispy on the outside this way.
5. Now, reduce the pellet grill temp to 215 degrees.
6. Cook the brisket at this temperature until the internal temperature reaches 205 degrees.
7. Now you can remover both the brisket and fat chunks and let them rest for at least an hour. Many people wrap theirs in foil at this point. I just throw it all in our unheated oven to rest.
8. Once it has rested, slice against the grain and ENJOY! I love the crispy fat chunks and will cut them into slices to eat with the less fatty cuts of brisket.

Just FYI: The best brisket we ever made we cooked at 200 degrees for the majority of the time. We knew we had a LONG time to cook it before we wanted to eat so we cooked it SUPER slow. We ended up bumping it up to 215 degrees for the last hour or so, but it was cooked at 200 for probably 10 plus hours.

Like I said before, there is a science to cooking in that you will want to wrap and change the temp after the internal temp is 165… but how long that will take has been different every time we’ve made a brisket. It can take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours per lb of brisket. So we usually cook it when we are not wanting to be rushed, and don’t have a specific eating deadline.

I hope you love your smoked brisket as much as we do. It’s by far my favorite cut of beef.

If you live in the Rochester area and would like to know where we purchase our local grass fed beef, shoot me an e-mail at livingcleanandfit@yahoo.com

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