Slow Smoked Texan Beef Brisket

Who doesn't love a perfectly cooked smoked beef brisket? Mastering the skill of smoking an amazing beef brisket is the pinnacle of every pitmaster. Cooking such a large piece of beef for such a long time is no easy task and often results in serval failed attempts. If you're trying to cook competition style, you'll remove the point from the flat. If you're just cooking for home, you'll probably just keep them together.
Ingredients – Serves 12:

Cape Grim Beef Brisket – 6kgs
Mallee root charcoal
Vegetable Oil
Mesquite/Hickory /Redgum/Ironbank chunks
Rub (brown sugar, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, coriander seed, salt pepper, cumin, thyme, mustard powder)

Procedure:

Prepare the Beef Brisket. The night before, trim excess fat off the brisket so there is an even ¼ thick fat layer. Also, remove any extremely hard fat chunks.

Rub the brisket with a light coating of vegetable oil and massage into the meat. Apply dry rub generously to the brisket ensuring that each surface area of the meat is covered. Wrap the brisket tightly in cling wrap and store in the fridge overnight.

Take the brisket out of the fridge two hours before you want to cook so it comes to room temperature slowly.

Prepare the smoker for indirect heat. If using an offset smoker, build a small fire with charcoal and mesquite/hickory/red gum/ironbark/ to ensure even indirect heat and smoke throughout the BBQ.

Place the brisket fat side up in the BBQ to allow the rendering process to drip the fat into the meat and keep it moist. Cook the brisket at around 120°C.

Many variables affect cooking time and temperature such as how many times the smoker is opened, how close the brisket is to the firebox, the type of smoker you are using, the weight and thickness of the brisket, etc. 120°C for 2 ½ hours per kg puts you in the ballpark for a well-cooked brisket.

Use a thermometer to monitor the internal temperature of the brisket as this will indicate how far along the cooking process you are.

After around 5 hours of smoking and continuing to avoid wood chunks, wrap the brisket in foil and put back into the smoker. After this point, it is not necessary to add more wood chunks to the fire. Just maintain the temperature using charcoal.

Continue to monitor the internal temperature until it reaches around 93°C. At this point, you can take the brisket out of the smoker and allow it to rest for 1 hour before carving.

HOT TIP:
Take the brisket out of the fridge two hours before you want to cook so it comes to room temperature slowly.