texas style bbq brisket in montreal

During a perfect Saturday morning of lazing around and procrastinating, we watched an episode of America's Test Kitchen. Usually we are not fans of this overly precise, inflexible cooking show, however today's episode showed a method of cooking a brisket that caught our attention.

Back in April, we purchased an ultra large brisket that was cut in two. We cooked 1 of the pieces and froze the other. After watching today's episode, we decided it would be a great opportunity to try cooking the brisket on the good old bbq.

The brisket was defrosted and marinated in a dry rub of cumin, chili flakes, garlic powder, thyme, salt and pepper. After a few hours in the fridge, Mony prepared the smoke packet. He took hickory wood chips and soaked them for 30 minutes. After the time elapsed, he placed the chips in a foil package and put them on the bbq coals. We cooked the brisket on indirect heat, fat side up, for about 2 hours. After the 2 hours were up, we placed the meat in a tighly sealed foil package and placed it in the oven for 1 more hour.

Notice the beautiful pink tint to the meat? That is known as a smoke ring made by the wood chips and is highly sought after by bbq experts. Once the hour in the oven was done, we sliced the meat, against the grain, and poured a mixture of homemade bbq sauce over the top.

I enjoyed the slices of brisket with a simple salad, but Mony made a bbq brisket sandwich with his that looked delightful. The brisket was tender and flavourful, but not as moist as I'm used to compared to the oven method. Mony says I shouldn't even compare since it is a totally different method of cooking brisket, and was very happy with the end result. I, for one, think that it needed another hour or so in the oven to produce that succulent, moist brisket that I am used to. This was good but not great. Maybe next time I should try it in a sandwich form the way Mony did. He was very happy with his dinner and is looking forward to this week's work lunches.