I’ve had a Traeger smoker for a couple of years now and done a bunch of pulled pork, ribs, pork chops and some steaks but hadn’t done any brisket yet. A couple of friends recommended doing a Dr. Pepper marinade for the meat so I started looking around.
At TheSmokeRing I found:
Ok, I marinated a 6-7 pound brisket in 2 cans of Dr.Pepper, teriyaki, worchestershire sauce. I marinaded it for 2 days. Took it out poured the marinade in a sauce pan and added pomegranate juice and simmered for about 45 minutes. I should have used it to inject but I didn’t used it for spritz. Anyway, I put Montreal Steak blend and cooked the brisket at 235-250. Spritzed it every hour, cooked for 6 hours to 165 degrees, foiled it and took off at 195. Used a bunch of hickory wood chunks. About 8 hours total. Double wrapped with foil, put it in cold oven and let it stay for 3 hours. It is the most awesome meat I have ever tatsted. The meat came from a butcher that has been competing for years and he really knew how to cut it right. Wished I had done a pictorial like Roxy. But I am not as good as he is. What do you think of the recipe?
Later on they mention that it was actually 1/2 cup of teriyaki, 1/2 cup of worchestershire and about a cup of pomegranate juice.
I sort of followed the marinade directions (except I added a couple of tablespoons of minced garlic and some black pepper). Bought a brisket from Cash and Carry ($1.79 a pound, hard to beat), it was around 12 pounds brisket (although I probably trimmed over a pound of fat off since it was pretty thick, left a bit of fat on top). I needed to cut in half to fit into the 2 1/2 gallon ziplocs and then marinated for 1 1/2 days (turning occasionally to mix up the marinade). Next time I should put them in two separate bags since the inner surfaces didn’t get as much marinade. Put it on the traeger at 225 degrees (originally apple since it was in the hopper and then switched to mesquite).
6:30am, Brisket onto the grill
9:30am, Temp @ 110 degrees
Put the brisket on @ 6:30am (temp 45 degrees, there is a bunch of disagreement on if you should get the meat to room temperature first, on the one hand it cooks faster but on the other the smoke only penetrates the meat below 140 degrees so slower to get to 140 means more time for the smoke to go in, it seems that most people who’ve tried to do any real test just decide it doesn’t matter).
@9:30am after about 3 hours @ 225 the internal temperature was up to 110 degrees. I tried to baste using the simmered marinade but it was too thin and was just washing off the rub, decided to switch to injecting (note to self, filter the marinade before injecting so the garlic doesn’t clog the injector). Also decided that it was cooking fast enough that I could lower to smoke for a little while to get some more flavor.
@11am temp @ 118 degrees, did some more injection and set it back @ 225 degrees.
@12:30pm 140 degrees (small one @ 148 degrees)
@12:30pm, large one @ 140 degrees, small one @ 148. Did a little more injection (did I mention I need to strain the marinade next time)
@2pm, small one @ 165 degrees
@2pm, small one @ 165 degrees, wrapped in foil with a couple of ladles of the marinade. Larger one @ 150 degrees, will leave uncovered for a little longer.
@4pm large one finally hit 165 degrees, wrapped in foil with some marinade, increased temperature to 250 so we can eat before midnight :).
@5:30pm, large one hit 190 degrees (smaller one was probably much more). Took them off and set them on a cookie sheet in the oven (turned it on for a few minutes first) to let it slowly rest for 60 minutes.
Finished brisket (smaller one)
@6:30pm took the smaller one out to cut. Extremely tender, sliced easily and was trivial to shred some up for the kitties to taste. Combination of the injection and the foil (with marinade) made it very moist. I’ll let the larger one cool and then try my new slicer in the morning. Added some BBQ sauce to the last of the marinade to make a sauce.
Next time I’ll probably make a slightlier spicy marinade.
Some other references
- Virtual Weber Bullet (Brisket selection and preparation)
- Red Wine Marinade (haven’t tried yet but maybe next time)