Brisket

This recipe is adapted from a Bernard Clayton recipe in "Cooking Across America."

It's "Uhl's Brisket" and he wins bbq cook offs where ever he competes with this recipe. There are no shortcuts.

This is a two day deal:
Day 1: Make the seasoning and the marinade and rub the brisket
Day 2: Cook it.

Day 1

• Brisket: get a about a 10 pounder chunk. Have the butcher remove the fat and the glob of fat from the middle so you have two pieces. All up you'll end up with about 7 or so pounds of brisket.
• Seasoning: equal parts of coarse kosher salt; (fresh) coarsely ground pepper; garlic granules; and paprika. I usually go about 1/4 cup each. Then add a touch of cayenne.
  Rub the seasoning all over the meat. Use all of the seasoning. Put the meat in a plastic bag, dump all the seasoning in there and store it tightly for at least 12 hours (24 hours is better)
• Marinade: mix all the following together and refrigerate over night --
• 4 cups beef stock
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon crumbled bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic granules
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Tabasco

Day 2

• Plan on eating 12 hours after you start the fire. I typically start the fire at either 5 am for a dinner time deal, or midnight, for a lunch deal.
• Get your fire going. I typically start with about 50 briquettes. You want indirect heat, so after they grey, bank them on both sides of the grill. You're aiming for a cooking temp of about 225-250F.
• Lay out a bunch of bacon.
• Lay out a double sheet of cheese cloth



• Pile the brisket halves on top of each other, then wrap them in bacon, then wrap in double or triple layer of cheese cloth. Tie the whole thing together with cotton kitchen twine. You should end up with a big ball of meat wrapped in bacon wrapped in cheesecloth. Give your marinade a stir and then saturate the cheese cloth with about 1/3 of the marinade.
• Put the brisket on a rack in the Weber. The brisket, wrapped in cloth, should be kind of soggy. Since you've banked the coals, you shouldn't get any too wet. The idea here is really to slow braise this sucker. It's moist/wet heat for a long ass time.



• Throw a small handful of hickory chips on the coals, open the vents on the lid, and orient the lid so the holes draw the smoke over the brisket.
• Add coals about every hour, keep an eye on your temperature -- really try to keep it over 200, but under 250. When you add the coals, give the brisket a quarter turn and a fresh basting of marinade. Make sure it stays moist. Every other hour, toss another little handful of hickory on the coals.
  The brisket should cook like this for at least 9 hours. Aim for 10 hours. You're looking for an internal temp of 145 or so. But you need to maintain that temp for a while to convert the collagen to gelatin. That's what makes the brisket tender. So, peaking at 145 doesn't mean to pull it. After about 10 hours of cooking, pull it off the grill and wrap it tightly in foil and then wrap that in a paper sack and let it sit for an hour off the heat.
  Unwrap and enjoy. If it doesn't just basically fall apart, then you took a short cut somewhere along the line. :)

Text file recipe for printing here.