The recipes and suggestions differ a lot, some people suggest wrapping your slab of brisket in paper or foil, some cooks and pros think that there is no wrapping needed. Maybe, it is worth trying different ways of cooking this delicious and fatty meat and later come up with a decision which recipe is really perfect for you and your taste.
Tips to Keep in Mind
Obviously, the first step in creating an ideal brisket dish is choosing the best quality fresh meat. Usually, a whole slab of brisket is smoked with the fat side down on the grill and the fat may be trimmed from the lean side of the brisket.
Of course, skills of a nice cook are necessary for creating a delicious smoked brisket, but in most cases with a profound description in a recipe even a real starter can cope with this way of cooking. So, if you are not pretty good at cooking meat, don’t worry, just follow the rules in a recipe or watch a video made by a nice chef and your dish is doomed to be tasty and fresh.
When to Wrap Brisket in Butcher Paper
When you found a recipe description where a meat slab has to be wrapped in butcher paper, you should know that it’s made for letting smoke come into the meat piece and keeping all the juices inside the meat itself.
As a rule, brisket is wrapped in butcher paper when it’s half -finished or two third finished while performing the cooking process. If you do like that, every time the result will be satisfactory and the brisket will turn out to be juicy and tender.
In case you don’t want a complicated plan of cooking this type of meat, just rub the piece with any kind of salt (sea salt, Kosher salt etc.), black pepper, paprika, several herbs or some garlic powder etc. to your taste. It is better to put a meat piece on the smoker when it is not cold any more, but if you are in a hurry, it’s okay to do that.
One more tip is to cook the meat slowly and with low heat. The approximate temp should be 230 degrees Fahrenheit. So, when the internal temp of the brisket reaches about 106-165 degrees Fahrenheit and crust is really visible and beautiful, you take it out and wrap in butcher paper.
This paper may be obtained online easily and it might be pink or brown mainly and you should wrap the meat tight, get three layers of it around the brisket.
Traeger Brisket No Wrap
If you prefer cooking and grabbing no wrap brisket, it is likely to be cooked for a longer period of time, but still, the meat will have the proper moist and tenderness. Cooking in a Traeger grill you may be sure you will end up tasting a really delicious dish.
It depends on what kind of a Traeger grill you have got. If you possess a grill with oak wood, for instance, before cooking the slab you may rub it with the special Traeger rub coating, black pepper, apple juice or some other herbs and then let the brisket get smoked over the wood made from oak.
It’s really hard to imagine how tasty the dish will get.
But if you are a lover of simple cooking and you have got the simple Traeger grill, just take the meat, rub it with seasoning you love, maybe choose some Traeger rub mix (coffee, for instance) and put your slab onto the smoker.
Usually, the meat is smoked for about 10 hours on a low heat to get tender and juicy. But you had better look up for a decent recipe online before the first try.
When to Pull Brisket off Smoker
In general, cooks advice to keep to the following rules when you are cooking a wrapped brisket. The Texas recipe suggests that when the internal temperature of the meat is about 160 or 170 degrees Fahrenheit, take it out, wrap it in a foil or butcher paper, but do it tightly and in several layers (2 or 3 layers, typically).
Then increase the temperature of your smoker up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and wait until the inner temp of the meat is around 200 degrees, take the brisket out again and remove the wrapping. After cooling down for one hour you may start slicing and serving the finished brisket.
Wrap Brisket in Foil and Towel
With a variety of recipes and ways of cooking a smoked brisket, one of the simplest and most popular one is cooking it in foil. When cooking brisket in foil, you get the fastest way of cooking this fatty and good-tasting slab of meat, and, also, you get it tender-smoked and full of incredibly tasty flavor.
You should definitely try to cook it like this at least once. There are several video for you to watch and learn:
Wrapping a brisket in a towel after smoking is an effective way to leave it warm for as long as you can and there is one more useful side effect when using a towel wrap – the meat will get even more tender when staying towel-wrapped for a few hours or even longer.
So, every means of cooking has got its pros and cons and some complications.
You should think over the desirable result of your cooking and then choose which way of cooking to use. If you wish to become a true backyard cook making meat on the pit, search for various recipes online and enjoy wonderful cooking experience in the fresh air.
The brisket is not too easy to make, but it is totally worth all the labor when you taste the tender hot meat cooked by you.
