OK, so for todays post I am going to talk all about how to make a Smoked Brisket. There’s more to it than just smoking though. We are going to first make a brine, then dry rub and finally smoke the brisket with cheery wood. Feel free to use whatever wood chip flavor you prefer, but I find this works well.
Some people feel this entire process is a little daunting. Well no more then anything else you haven’t done before, believe me. If anything, it is more time consuming than anything. After you get a few items mixed you can sit back and let things marinate, and smoke. No heavy lifting there, right? And once you get this brining and rub down, you can apply it to all different cuts of meat and poultry.
Half the time I keep a portion of the meat for lunch meat. I allow it to cool, refrigerate to firm up and slice it nice and thin for sandwiches or in chunks for a type of corned beef scramble with onions and potatoes. The possibilities are endless.
First we need to fortify that beautifully marbled piece of beef with a brine. This ensures it is well hydrated for that long, low and slow smoke. For my Smoked Brisket – Brined, Dry Rubbed and Cherry Wood Smoked, we also use a dry rub for added flavor and to ensure a delicious crust, or bark.
To finish it off we are using Cherry wood chips for the smoking agent. This imparts a beautiful, subtle flavor of smoke. You can read more about different wood chips for smoking here in a past article post I wrote. Let’s get started!
Make sure to get a beef brisket with a beautiful fat top. This will melt during the smoking process and continuously keep the meat moist when rendering down.
You can keep it whole or slice into pieces. I slice in two for easy submersion in brining and later eating and slicing.
In a saucepan over medium heat toast the spices slightly to bring out their essential oils for several minutes. Don’t burn these, continuously shake the pan and the aroma will fill the kitchen.
Next, add the water, salt and both sugars and simmer for 10 minutes. You can find my recipe for Lemon Sugar in another post here or as an alternative simply use a vegetable peeler and take a 1 inch by 3 inch strip of lemon peel and add that and another 1/2 cup of sugar to the simmering pot.
In a tub that can be sealed, add the cold water and ice. Pour the hot brine liquid in and when cool enough add the meat. Make sure it is submerged and feel free to weigh it down if need be. Cover and refrigerate for 2 or more days. I wouldn’t do more than 5 days.
After the beef brisket has brined for several days remove and rinse under cold water. Dry off cover all over with dry rub mixture. Rub in the spice mixture in a pan, cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. Start your smoker and remove the meat from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature.
Set your smoking chips up per manufacturer’s instructions. Place in the smoker set at 225° for an hour and a half per pound.
There are a lot of opinions on keeping the vent open or closed during the smoking process. For me seeing as the smoker has limited smoke, unless you want to keep re-loading with wood chips, I keep it closed the first hour, then open it up for ventilation and constant airflow. I’ve read that with time and temp the ability of meats to retain smoke diminishes past 140°F. So it’s usually a 2 to 4 hour smoke window for optimum smoke absorption.
Look at that deliciousness! Smoked brisket at it’s finest.
Carefully remove the smoked brisket from the smoker and allow to cool down and rest for 10+ minutes.
Feel free to discard whatever fat cap is still there and not rendered down completely. Slice across the grain and serve!
I served this with some fresh Perfect Grilled Corn on the Cob and baked potatoes.
The remaining sliced Smoked Brisket is great for leftovers, lunch or used to make a hash with chopped potatoes and onions.
- Brine
- 8 cups of hot water
- ½ cup of kosher salt
- ½ cup lemon sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 3 star anise
- 1 tsp celery seeds
- 2 tsp fennel seeds
- 8 cloves
- 5 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp mixed peppercorns
- 5 lbs beef brisket
- 8 cups cold water and ice
- Dry rub:
- 1½ cups brown sugar
- 2 tbsp kosher salt
- 2 tbsp fennel seeds
- 2 tbsp ground black pepper
- 2 tbsp chili powder
- 2 tbsp coriander seed
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1 tbsp onion powder
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp celery seed
- 2 tsp nutmeg
- Toast all seeds lightly in a sauté pan to extract essentials oils and toast slightly. Allow to cool.
- Bring water to a boil and mix all ingredients in a container large enough to allow meat to be covered in brine. Make sure sugar and salt are dissolved.
- Add the ice to cool brine down and submerge the beef brisket.
- Brine for two days or more if desired in refrigerator, covered.
- Mix rub ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Rinse off brined brisket. Shake off excess water and apply dry rub. Press rub mixture on to meat, allow to rest for two hours, covered and refrigerated.
- Soak your wood chips. Bring meat to room temperature. Place dry rubbed brisket in the smoker set at 225°F for an hour and a half per pound. Add the smoke chips or pellets per smoker manufacturer instructions. (See Note 1).
This recipe is really amazing. Thanks!
Thanks so much Ted. Grilling and smoking season is here, right? Cheers!
Hey there, if I have a 14 lb brisket should I effectively triple everything? So triple the brine solution or would double be enough to stick it in? Thanks so much! I’m a newbie to the BBQ arena, I cook and bake a lot but I don’t do BBQ. We are testing this out to do for my brother’s rehearsal dinner in May.
Truthfully I feel doubling all would be good enough Megan. Just make sure brine covers all the meat and weigh it down to completely submerge with a plate or something. I also think you’re smart to test first instead of doing that day for a big event. Lots of factors and it’s good to be comfortable first with the process. Let me know how it turns out Megan, please! 🙂
Sorry I’m just now reporting! Our first run was okay, we made note of areas we wanted to improve (brine longer, cook longer), and now I’m gathering the ingredients for the real deal! Wish us luck, we are smoking on Saturday and the rehearsal dinner will be the next Wednesday. It’s not ideal but I hope it will be yummy just the same!
See, it’s always good to do a taste test run prior to doing the real deal for a big event. Wishing you the best of luck on Saturday smoking and the dinner! Excited for you.
I am waiting on a new smoker to be delivered and this will be a first one to break it in proper. 🙂
I’m kind of late to the game here but I need help!! I have a small catering job for 20 people tomorrow. It’s the city Council of my local city .. Huntington Beach.. in California,
They requested corn beef and cabbage. Im going to skip the explanation of my neglect and pure stupidity, and jump right to the issues I have created for myself. I have 2- 15 pound prime brisket’s that have been in a brine for only three days. Also I may have put the briskets in the brine while the water was still warm to slightly hot. What am I looking at, and What are my options to save this? Should I be going to the grocery store right now…?
Joseph, sorry I was not able to answer prior to this but had out of town guests over. My concern is the brine was not iced and there lies an issue with the meat possibly cooking. The health and safety issue is to keep a brine 40°F and under so bacteria doesn’t start and the meat will not be tainted. Not sure how hot that liquid was when you started the brine, and I am not a health expert. To be safe I’d hit the store up or go to the market and tell the butcher the situation and get their feedback. Let me know!
My 11# brisket is brining now and is going on the tregger Christmas Eve for a Sunday feast bout 3 pm. I really like the wrap tight in foil to keep moist on the slow cook. Thanks for sharing. Frank P.
Hey Frank thanks for stopping by and the kind words. We’re doing a dry rubbed and smoked turkey for Christmas! All the best, cheers!
Just made last weekend with a 6 lb brisket. This recipe was awesome. I brined for 48 hours. I made a thai pepper cranberry sauce for some optional flavor. Friends at the tail gate offered many many compliments on the taste….thanks! Tim
Now this sounded like a great brisket dinner Tim. Thanks for sharing and letting me know!
Question- I read that the beef brisket should be thick. How many inches thick and average weight when ordering/buying the brisket?
Hello! Well you want the brisket to be as even in thickness as possible. I trim the tapered and less than 1/2 inch parts off. You can grind and use for a burger or whatever else you’d like. I usually pick up a 5 pound brisket, uniform in thickness – around 2 1/2 to 3 inches in thickness. Larger, like 9+ pounds can be 4-5 inches in thickness.
This is one of the most excellent brisket recipes I have tried. Some next-level BBQ. One note: meat selection is key with this thick and potent rub. Thicker is better. I had a cut that tapered thin on the end and the rub was a bit overpowering. However, the choice part of the cut was the best brisket I have ever tasted. Thus, pick a thick cut of meat that does not taper at the end. Great job Kevin, this is some serious stuff!
Also a couple of notes: The rub and brine are superior, by far. However, I recommend wrapping in foil at 145-150F internal temp to lock in the moisture so the rub does not pull it out. Remove at 170F internal temp vs 180F as recommended by Masterbuilt Smoker directions. Brisket is hard to get right and can be dry if you aren’t careful. Apply these NC BBQ tips to perfect this outstanding recipe!
Will do, thanks again David. I’ve yet to have a dried one, but that would be disappointing after all that salivating waiting. 🙂 Will add to recipe notes. Cheers!
Really appreciate you letting me know David, so glad you enjoyed it and great tip on tapering thickness of meat. Smoke on!
What a recipe! Last week Monday I stumbled across this recipe read through it like a storybook and could not stop salivating! The seed was planted. On Tuesday I read it again. Wednesday morning I headed out to buy all the supplies. On Thursday I started the prep and invited my family over for lunch as it was my grandmothers 80th birthday.
My family cannot stop talking about the interesting flavours of the brisket, thank you so much we all loved it! I cannot wait to try this exact recipe with a pork belly!
I love to get and read these kind of emails from satisfied followers of tasty food and this site! So happy you gave it a go and the entire family enjoyed it Quinton. The pork belly sounds like wonderful idea, I gotta do that, too. Cheers!
Just put the brisket in the brine can’t wait to taste it I’ll get back to you
A delicious labor of love. Can’t wait for you to enjoy. Keep me posted Richard, it’s a tasty one!
Kevin – Great recipe! My wife and I loved it the first time and I’m making it again today. I like to wrap the dry chips in perforated foil and set them on coals instead of soak. This time I’m experimenting with adding small amounts of ground cloves and cayenne to the rub. Thanks for your article.
Hey there Jeff, thanks for letting me know! The clove cayenne addition sounds very good. Lately I’ve made 2 recipes for making homemade pastrami. More on that soon, keep an eye out! The smoking technique in foil is a good one. Let me know how this turns out.
Dude this looks absolutely perfect, love the flavoring!
Thanks so much Matt, hope things are well. As Summer approaches and that fog gloom lifts it’s grilling and smoker time. This one is a definite crown pleaser.
Looks good. Did you bother wrapping it in foil after it started peaking, or did you just leave it be? Also, did you spray the brisket with anything “every hour” as other recipes call for? Thanks!
Hi David! I did not wrap it or spray the brisket with anything. I left it alone to work it’s magic and it turned out perfect. Super tender and a great bark on the exterior, too.
Thanks! I’ve only done a brisket a couple of times in my (electric) smoker. Both times I sprayed it with apple juice every hour and wrapped it with foil eventually. Both times it came out pretty dry 🙁
I am going to give this a shot on Sunday. Do you use an electric smoker? If so, do you leave the vent open, closed, or halfway?
I like that spritzing idea with the apple juice, can’t imagine why it came out dry? Maybe the heat was too high. Low and slow works for me.
My electric smoker is like a small refrigerator called the Masterbuilt Electric Smokehouse.
There are a lot of opinions on keeping the vent open or closed during the smoking process. For me, seeing as the smoker has limited smoke, unless you want to keep re-loading with wood chips, I keep it closed the first hour, then open it up for ventilation and constant airflow. I’ve read that with time and temp the ability of meats to retain smoke diminishes past 140°F. So it’s usually a 2 to 4 hour smoke window for optimum smoke absorption.
Ah we have the same smoker! I am not sure why it has come out dry in the past. Maybe I am not letting it rest long enough after removing it from heat.
I have heard the same thing about the smoke absorption. I will give this a try. Going to brine for two days, then try injecting some beef stock into it. I’ve never brined or injected so I hope this works!
Of course if I just read the actual article part of this page instead of just the recipe portion, all of my questions would have been answered 🙂
No worries, how did yours turn out?
This recipe is really amazing. All my guests are astonished by how great this brisket was. Until now my great aunt was the only one who perfected brisket, now I am armed with the perfect recipe.
Thanks, that’s awesome news, so glad I was able to assist! There’s plenty of other great grilling recipes here, so I hope you check them out, too.
I’ve done a few brisket recipes but this takes the cake. Just down right friggin awesome. Can you say orgasmic?
It’s been an hour since we’ve eaten and I’m still tasting it. So It’s no good and don’t make it. I followed the recipe to a T. Brined for 2 days, rubbed and smoked it on the grill with Cherry wood. Wrapped it in double foil at 154* and cooked to 205*, put it in cooler for an hour. Sliced some of it for dinner and rewrapped. Put back in frig to cool and tomorrow will slice, separate to meals, vacuum seal and freeze. Just awesome!!!
Thanks for stopping by and the kind words. It’s definitely one we do quite often. Great for leftovers like you stated. Have a great weekend!
Oh boy! Pass me the fork and knife! Cherry is one of my favorite woods to smoke with!
Fall apart deliciousness! Thanks Kecia.
Question for you, do I need to worry about the wood chips lasting throughout the cooking time or once I put the brisket in my smoker do I close it and let it go?
I just place the soaked wood chips in the smoker box container and let the meat smoke away. Some wood is stronger than others and you have to play around with different varieties to see what you like. You can read more about different wood chips for smoking here in a past article post I wrote. Thanks for stopping by the site Tarik!
How juicy and spectacular does that look?! I definitely need to get my smoker out after seeing this. Great post Kevin.
Thanks Amanda! It was gone pretty quickly around here. Plus there was plenty for sandwiches sliced really thin on rye bread. Brine and smoke some, let me know how yours turns out.
I am going to make this recipe this weekend in the smoker that I am using for the first time. I have a webber smoker. But have never smoked anything before.
Any tips? I have about 10 people coming over for dinner amd I want to knock them off their feet. How is this eaten? Just alone with some sidedishes? Or on bread? Also what sidedishes go well with brisket?
Hi Kathleen and thanks for stopping by. This is a superb smoked brisket and I think you will highly enjoy. I have a post on smoking with wood chips here, but please follow your smoker’s directions and tailor to suit your needs. Just remember to brine first, dry rub it and then a low and slow smoke process. Not a lot of work, the smoker does all the heavy lifting for you. 🙂
I serve this with a bunch of sides like Hasselback Potatoesand Broccoli Tarragon Salad with Golden Raisins, Marinated Red Onion and Pepitas and leftovers make fantastic sandwiches – if there are any. Have a great day Kathleen and let me know how yours turns out.
Interesting recipe. I’ve smoked many briskets to great success, but never brined them. I think I will try it the next time I smoke one.
Regarding the last comment on WSM, I suggest looking into the Minion Method. Maintaining even heat on WSM is the most challenging part. This method helps, but you need to use natural lump wood charcoal as the fuel with cherry wood to add smoke flavor. Stubs, Cowboy, Royal Oak are all good.
I’ve been looking into electric smokers. How long have you had the Masterbuilt Electric Smokehouse? I’ve heard the heating element can fail after repeated use.
Thank you, and I enjoy your post!