hemi_newman-
Here is the recipe that I used for my brisket:
For the rub:
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons sweet paprika
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons onion salt
2 teaspoons garlic salt
2 teaspoons celery salt
2 teaspoons coarse salt
For the mop:
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup beer
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon black pepper.
I mixed all the ingredients for the mop and then brought to a boil, reduced the heat and simmered for 10 minutes before using. Not sure if all that was needed.
For the serving sauce I got a little more creative. I ended up with about half of the mop sauce left over, so I used that as my base for the serving sauce.
I kept the fat cap on the brisket while it smoked (some say to keep it, some say to trim most of it). Then after smoking and letting the meat rest, I trimmed the beef into thin strips, going against the grain. These strips then had the fat cap still on them and I did not want all that fat as part of what was being served, so I trimmed it off at that point. I really hated to waste all that flavor in the small strips of fat cap, so I put them in a sauté pan and rendered them down just like you would to make really crispy bacon. I then added most of that rendered, liquid fat to the mop sauce. Took the crispy chunks of the fat, put them into a food processor (a blender would probably work too), ground them up to where they were a paste and added it to the mop sauce as well. I also added any juice that came out of the brisket while I cut it to the mop sauce mixture and then low boiled it for about 10 minutes. I can only imagine how much fat was in that serving sauce, but it was awesome!
Good luck with your brisket. Real low heat (225-235) and real slow
cooking (12-16 hours) is the trick.
Firecatguy- What was wrong with the beef ribs? They looked plenty good to me! So did the brisket. Going to try some pork baby back ribs later this week myself. Maybe a turkey breast over the weekend to use in sandwiches next week.
I'm gonna need bigger snowmobile gear for this next season!
-John
