simpson bbq

Bluebell the Cow… remember her?

Moo?

Bluebell was kind enough in her passing to leave me a special cut of beef called the Brisket. Thanks!

Brisket is merely one of many delicious Hunks O’ Cow

Besides the two rib steaks we tried on a cedar planked fish night, the brisket is my first real beef treat from Bluebell. It’s a favorite of mine, and I’m super excited to sample some local grass fed beef.

Bluebell beginning her journey to my tummy

I started the brisket not with my usual mustard-based paste, but with something a little milder that will let me taste the grassiness and richness of the beef. The rub was simple: brown sugar, garlic salt, italian seasonings, seasoned salt, cayenne pepper, and paprika.

The brisket began fat side down to try and drip off a few extra fatty bits, though the rural butcher did a really good job of trimming the fat. If I wanted, to baste it instead, perhaps the fat would begin on the upside.

After four-ish hours of smoking indirectly in the Weber 22″ kettle with a bunch of cherry wood chunks, the brisket was ready for its foil wrap.

Smoky goodness!

My son actually wants the family to open a BBQ restaurant, and for us to call it Moo Moo on the BBQ. That’s certainly not happening, but he gave me a clever title. The simple wonders of the mind of a 6 year old.

Foil, do your magic

Within the foil, all over the brisket, is some mild Kansas City style BBQ sauce and a little dash of PBR for steaming and tenderizing. It needed about three more hours, with some 180 degree rotations for good measure, and a probe thermometer inserted.

Though the meat was technically “done” a couple hours into the smoking when it reached 150-ish, the foil wrap brought the meat to a steady 190-ish for the final hour or so.

For good measure, since I am making big brisket sandwiches, I smoked a pound of bacon.

Nearly 2/3 made it inside!

Bacon finished, I prepared to assemble my brisket sandwiches. I have some whole wheat buns, provolone cheese, pickles, the aforementioned bacon, and some spicy BBQ sauce I bought from Ace Hardware that morning when I had to buy a toilet auger (don’t ask; total child-related nightmare).

First, the brisket had to rest for at least ten minutes. The muscle had to relax, and all the excited beef juices needed to remain in the tissue when I cut the meat, instead of spilling all over the cutting board.

Voila!

I’ll state with a little hubris that I am getting pretty good at making brisket on the grill, and this might be my best one yet. Yes, you could credit the cow and/or cattle farmer. And, yes, this would probably pale in comparison to some actual competitive and/or professional brisket, but give me this little victory.

It was delicious, for the record. Thanks, Bluebell (and mom, for the XMas gift)!

I’ve made my own BBQ sauce before, but it has typically been ketchup-free. I would cook a gallon of cider vinegar and a bunch of other stuff down to a thick, peppery, tangy maroon liquid. It’s pretty spectacular if made correctly.With the extra brisket from the recent birthday party BBQ thawed and smoking, I decided to try my hand at a homemade ketchup-based sauce.

Brisket on the smoker... rub nearly dissolved

I made a quick rub for the brisket: 1 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup paprika, a few tablespoons each of cayenne pepper, italian seasoning, garlic salt, Lawry’s seasoning, coarse black pepper. I also carved the fat off of the brisket with a sharp knife to permit the smoke to permiate the meat from all sides. This will enhance the flavor and tenderness. I actually found a wide variety of smoking wood at the local farmers’ market. Today I am using a mixture of peach tree wood and hickory. It’s cut into slices instead of just chunks. Pretty neat. 

On to the sauce: in a medium to small saucepan on the stove, I combined 1 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/2 cup cider vinegar, about 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce, a nice squeeze of honey, a few tablespoons each of onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper. I resisted the temptations to add mustard or molasses, and I’ve heard some people will melt a stick of butter into the sauce. Maybe another time. Everything was mixed in the pan with a silicone spatula and allowed to simmer for a while.

Simmering sauce

Once it’s done and the brisket hits about the 4 hour mark, I will coat the meat with the sauce to finish on the smoker.

Now would be a good time to crack a craft mix pack. How about something from New Belgium? Sounds good to me!

Follow my folly? No problem!

At the two hour mark, the brisket is cooking well and the smoker is holding steady at just short of 200 degrees and the brisket has an internal temperature of 150 degrees. I added more coals and wood, and I won’t be back for a while.

It’s starting to drizzle here… If I can cook in snow, I can cook in some light rain.

Did I mention that it’s Selection Sunday?

Ranger IPA and the ACC title game? Nice.

I hope you spent it in a similar fashion.

After about 4 hours, I gave each side a thorough brushing with the homemade BBQ sauce. This was repeated a few times in the next couple hours, flipping the brisket a few times.

Let's get sauced

After all of the brushing, smoking, and cooking, I pulled it after six hours or so. I did not take the tenderizing step of making a foil boat and steaming the brisket with some juice. I probably should have, as the brisket turned out a little less tender than I liked.

Beef!

In the end, the brisket was still delicious. We cut off the burnt ends and everyone went for those first – at least my family is getting discriminating meat tastes.

The BBQ sauce provided a spicy / sweet flavor and gave the burnt exterior a sticky finish. The sauce absorbed the smoke flavors well. Tomorrow I will make a few sandwiches for lunch as leftovers.

Hope you all had as nice a meal as this tonight

We grilled some broccoli, put some zucchini in the oven, and made a fruit salad. It was a great meal. Anytime the kids eat a ton, we did a good job.

Yesterday, after a week of cleaning, painting, bolting, etc., Big Blue was born.

Today, Big Blue gets its first test: A 7.8 lb brisket for a family birthday party (as opposed to the kid birthday party, which was yesterday). Our attendance list dropped due to a few sick cousins and a cancellation, so the extra brisket, a 4.5 pounder, can wait until another day.

I will use a paste similar to that used on the Super Bowl Brisket.

Beef!

Since this is a much larger brisket, though, I will make a larger batch: one and a half 12 oz. bottles of brown mustard, 3 cups brown sugar, 1 cup paprika, a few generous spoonfuls of garlic powder & cayenne pepper. It gets wrapped up in foil and dropped in the fridge over night.

Dinner is at or soon after 3pm, so that means I had to get up bright and early to start Big Blue. My original plan was 7am, but a long evening of sampling a variety of beers made it closer to 8:30am.

Before I've even had any coffee

Today’s smoking wood is a change of pace – cherry wood chunks. Most grocery or large hardware stores have a mildly amusing selection of wood chunks. I prefer chunks because they last a little longer, sit on the coals easier, etc. Usually all you can find in chunk is Hickory or Mesquite. Not bad, but diversity is good. I found a surprisingly good selection of BBQ wood at my local Ace Hardware store.

After a little while, the thermometer read a steady 200 degrees. I checked on Blue a few times and it has stayed at 200.

With all the time I have to kill, why not work on some other projects around the house? How about taking an old, useless, bound-for-the-trash spice rack and turn it into a Lego shelf? My son is a Lego zealot and relatives / Santa have gifted him accordingly in the past few months, leaving us with many, many minifigures. He picked blue for the paint, similar to the smoker, and we glued on a few Lego boards that we cut to size. It turned out pretty cool.

From the scrap heap to your home

Back to the brisket. After 2.5 hours, the temperature gauge says 190 degrees. The brisket looks good, and the coal basket could use a few more coals and some wood.

Brisket after lots of cherry wood smoke

The thickest part of the brisket has an internal temperature of 160 degrees, so it is technically “done” in the food borne illness sense, but of course it needs plenty of additional slow cooking to tenderize. I flipped it over, put on the lid, and left it alone for another hour or so.

In the course of adding coals and wood, the temperature dropped to 150 degrees in the smoker, but no worries – it was back up to 175 in ten minutes and 200 in thirty minutes. In fact, an hour later it got really hot, up to about 300 degrees. Some of the wood chunks started burning. I pulled some of the extra wood and dropped it into a water bucket. It’s clearly going to take lots of practice to master temperature control on this contraption.

Eventually, after 3.5 hours of smoking, I wrapped it up in some heavy duty foil. As massive as this thing is, it needed a foil boat made out of two large sheets in an X. After adding a cup or so of apple juice, I tightly crimped it and put it back on the smoker. The internal smoker temperature is 250 degrees. I’ll be back in a few hours.

Time for a few hours of steaming

An hour into the foil wrapping, the temperature is still at 200 degrees. I tossed in some more coals, as the ones in the base had really died down. I caution against opening the smoker, though. Quite a bit of heat escaped and the temp dropped to 150 quickly. The great thing about the steel drum with the Weber lid is that, to steal a line from Case Stengel, it “sure holds the heat well.” I anticipated getting back up to 200 or so soon, which happened within the half hour.

When you get your ear close to the wrap, you can hear the apple / meat juices bubbling inside the foil. This is tenderizing in action.

Time to crack open a variety pack of beer.

G'day, Mate! Ok, not really Australian... horrible attempt at a joke.

The people at Dundee Brewery, the people who brought you Honey Brown Beer, came out with this nifty mix pack. I have to say that these are all very enjoyable beers. None is overpowering, each has a distinct taste. For some odd reason, this is a very affordable 12 pack of craft beer, to the tune of $10.99 at Schnuck’s. That’s fine by me!

Finally, at about 3:30 or so, about 7 hours after going on the grill, Mr. Brisket is ready to pull. Remember to let the meat rest for about 15 minutes to the muscle tissue can relax. This allows easy slicing. Sharpen that knife.

Uber-tender

It sliced really well and we made sandwiches. I thought it was really good, just not quite as great as on the Super Bowl. I did not trim the fat from one side of the brisket prior to cooking, which may have prevented some of the paste / smoke flavor to penetrate that side of the meat. In hindsight, I will do that in the future.

I thought it was delicious, but I also felt compelled to add some seasoning at the end in the form of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce and a little provolone cheese on my kaiser roll.

Mighty tender, mighty tasty

Everyone was impressed by the capabilities of the smoker and the quality of the BBQ. In the end, as long as all attendees fill their respective bellies and enjoy themselves, that’s all that matters. This was a solid effort and I was happy to have seconds, then pick at the platter of leftovers. An intimate family party of three kids and eight adults wiped out the nearly 8 lb. brisket. Needless to say, I am up to the brisket challenge going forward.

There was one family member who was happy that I did not trim the fat before smoking:

BBQ beef fat? OMG! NOM NOM NOM NOM!!

NB: The dog ate the paper plate. Idiot.