Cherry-smoked brisket with Brook's Java Rub

Alrighty - it's brisket time here at the hacienda; I've got a 12.5x-pound hunk of beefy wonder that is going to experience several hours of sweet cherry smoke, but first I need to do a little prep work with it.

First, I'll trim the fat cap down to 1/4 inch, then slather it with a mixture of Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Then, I'm going to give the brisket a generous application of a rub shared by my friend, Brook:

Java Rub

6 tbls finely ground coffee
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbls sea salt
2 tbls brown sugar or powdered honey
2 tbls Hungarian sweet paprika
2 tsp garlic granules
2 tsp black peppercorns*
2 heaping tsp coriander seed*
2 heaping tsp cumin seed*

*Toasted and ground

I made this rub just a moment ago, with a couple of slight variations due to what I have on hand:

Turbinado sugar (in the raw) in place of brown sugar)
Kosher salt in place of sea salt.

The coffee I used is absolutely awesome: Gevalia traditional roast ground coffeefrom Sweden, the land of my ancestors. Since this is going on a beef brisket, I took some advice that Brook gave to me and added a little heat in the form of 2 tablespoons of decent, well-balanced (but not HOT) chili powder.

This rub smells and tastes amazing - I'm looking forward to seeing how it works with the brisket and cherrywood smoke. Brook also shared a coffee-based barbecue sauce recipe that I will probably try with this brisket; if I make it, I'll pass along the details.

More to come.....

Good timing.....for me. I haven't done a beef brisket since going overseas 20 years ago. I had decided last month, after two pork butts in a row that a brisket would be my next project. A brisket used to be standard fare when we had friends over in West Texas.

Looking forward to your cook.

It's going pretty well so far - but of course, being such a huge chunk of meat, I'm probably only halfway through - but it's looking good!

We threw it on at about 10pm last night. Temp control was spotty at first, as the offset found her wings ~ but once she did, she began to run beautifully, a testament to the outstanding and easy modifications that she's been subjected to. Throughout the night, she's held steady between 245 and 255, right where I like her to be.

Most impressive has been the charcoal consumption; if she starts to fall below 245, we simply push over 6 briquettes of Kingsford that have been pre-heating on the "far" side of the charcoal basket, along with a small chunk of cherry that has also been re-heating. Of course, we also add six more new briquettes and a chunk o'cherry back to the far side, so that they can pre-heat for a clean, efficient burn. Then we simply close the lid and watch the temps start to go right back up into range.

Those who are familiar with offsets might be interested in this factoid: When I fired up the pit last night, I used 3/4 of a "regular"-sized chimney (not the big Weber style) of charcoal; when I put the meat to the heat, the 15.7-pound bag was 3/4 full. Now, there's still a quarter of the bag left. Not bad at all, considering it's been 9.5 hours. These mods work, and work pretty well!

More to come - I took a couple of photos when I put the meat on, and about at the 9-hour mark. Will post when I can....

Alright, we're moving along ~ I did go ahead and make the coffee-based barbecue sauce mentioned in my opening post. Brook says that it's based on his mother's recipe and therefore goes back to at least the 1950s, long before coffee was the "hot, new trend" in barbecue. Here's the recipe:

>>>In a pot, over medium heat, combine:

1/3 cup of strong, black coffee
1/3 cup of ketchup
1/4 cup Worcestershire
4 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons molasses
A healthy squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
Several glugs of hot sauce or to taste.

Simmer for 30 minutes until thickened.

Caution: This can go from too-thin to too-thick in a heartbeat. So monitor it closely as the time clicks by. If it becomes too thick (keep in mind, like many sauces, it gets thicker as it cools) thin it out with additional coffee and/or ketchup.<<<

Tasting this sauce as it simmers, i like it a lot! Brook cautioned that this sauce might be more suited to poultry and "too sweet" for beef, but it seems fine to me. The molasses I used was blackstrap molasses, which is much less sweet than regular molasses - so perhaps that made a difference.

The only change I made to the recipe above was due to the fact that I have no Frank's original hot sauce, which I usually use because it has all of the flavour with none of the heat. The "mildest" hot sauce I have at the moment is Tabasco, which might possibly kill my wife, so I substituted with a generous teaspoon of chili powder.

So far, I think things are on schedule - more to come!

Alrighty, at 430 pm, after 18.5 hours, we removed the brisky from the heat, double-wrapped it in heavy duty foil, double-wrapped it further in two towels, and dropped it into a cooler to rest for at least 1.5 hours.

The brisket looks incredible, and the small piece that "fell off" (with a little help from yours truly) tasted really, really good. It is great to see that after three "brisket-less" years, I can still barbecue one; indeed, this could be my best brisket to date!

Plain, ol' potato salad - using our family recipe and home-canned dill pickles - will be served on the side, with iced tea and lemonade for refreshment and carrot cake for dessert. If I think about it, I'll get a picture ~

Bottom line: I know these bad boys are getting expensive, but do yourself a favour and enjoy one, before summer is over!

your recipe sounds good to me.. checked todat at HEB ( local texas grocery store chain)... briskets were over $50... and a trimmed one was close to $40... ive still got a boston butt to cook, so I passed.... I'm gonna try your recipe on pork.....

Jim - I haven't ried these coffee-based recipes for pork, but they should work very well for it - give it a shot and let us know how it goes!

Well, after 2.5 hours of resting in foil/towels/cooler, it was time to serve our eagerly-awaited supper. One note of correction to my previous post: our potato salad was NOT my wife's time-honoured method; rather, it was my oldest son's interpretation of my wife's way of making potato salad. It was quite good, but the photos will look different from my wife's potato salad.

Anyway, the first thing I did was to open up the brisket and separate the point from the flat; this is easily done along a very clear separation between the two different muscle groups that make up a whole, "packer cut" brisket, and a properly-cooked brisket should almost come apart on its own along these lines. I then commenced with slicing (the flat) and dicing (the point).

The flat sliced very nicely; thanks to a sharper-than-usual knife and the fact that I was fortunate enough to do a very good job at barbecuing this brisket' I am also convinced that proper resting contributes to success in slicing as well. I sliced it as thinly as my limited skills allow and was pleased to see that it was tender and juicy, with a great bark and an adequate smoke ring that could have been better - a goal to shoot for next time. I couldn't resist snatching a couple of pieces off the end and really enjoyed the way that the rub-encrusted bark worked with the beef - very nice!

Once the flat was sliced and set aside, I turned my attention to the point (also called the deckle). If I would have been thinking, I would have converted this into "burnt ends," but no worries; instead, I sliced it into cubes and served them "naked," so that my diners could choose a sauce (or not, as they pleased). The point is of course usually more "fatty" than the flat, so it could have stood to cook a little longer in order to render some of this out (hence the reason that the point is usually made into burnt ends); however, mine was rendered pretty well, and the cubes served as a good, hearty foil to the delicate slices from the flat.

Finally, I plated generous amounts of sliced flat, diced point and sloppy (yet delicious) potato salad and served supper to my famished family, along with iced tea and lemonade for beverages. As I mentioned above, I left the choice of sauce to the folks who were eating; for myself, I drizzled my brisket with my preparation of Brook's coffee-based sauce and really enjoyed it. It had an intriguing, piquant quality that in my opinion went very well with the beef flavour and the rub/bark. I know that Brook expressed concern that the sauce might be a little sweet for beef, but I must disagree; rather, I found it to serve nicely in balance with the other flavours that were part of the whole, with the robust coffee profile providing a solid, earthy foundation that tied meat and sauce together. Perhaps it is a result of my slightly-different preparation of his recipe, but it worked very well for me, and I recommend it whole-heartedly.

All-in-all, this was easily my most successful brisket yet, and the only brisket I've made that has turned out almost flawlessly. Fork-tender, bursting with juiciness and mouth-wateringly delicious in every way, with an incredibly-delightful kiss of smoke from the cherry wood, I have absolutely no complaints about it. If every brisket that I barbecue from now on turns out this good, I will be happy; however, I hope that I can exceed this effort and do an even better job in the future.

Thanks for following me on this journey - a few photos will be posted as soon as I can get them prepared.

Ron

That 18 1/2 hour cook will back me off, but my piece of meat will probably be about 8.0 pounds, and hopefully drop the cook back to about eight hours.

My problem with my offset "stick" smoker, I don't use charcoal, is the temperature fluctuations. That thing seems to know when I'm standing there watching it, and when I've just walked-off.

Generally within a half hour of getting the fire started, I'm at my designated temperature, and can put my meat on. After another thirty minutes the temperature has quit fluctuating very much, and I can relax a little with the vent manipulations. That is usually when the smoker starts sensing my presence. If I turn my back on that devil and walk away, the temperature will either soar, or die. If I stay right there with it, the temperature stays rock solid in my desired range.

I usually find that if I'm smoking in the 250 range (225 to 275) it takes an hour per pound of meat, for beef or pork.

I seems like the bigger diameter pieces of wood I use, the less temperature fluctuations I notice.

My habit now is to check the meat and spritz each hour until my bark color looks like your photos, then I wrap it in foil, and continue on until I get the internal temperature I'm looking for. I'm probably about a month away from doing my brisket, but I'm ready.

I think you're definitely on the right track, Ken - I personally don't foil my barbecue during cooking, but this is a personal choice and either way is perfectly fine.

I know exactly what you mean about the pit being able to tell when you walk away - it is something I also struggle with. If we had decent wood up here to use, I would struggle as little more, but with no really good "barbecuse woods" avaialble, I end up with charcoal - the trick then is knowing the good stuff from the crap. In other words, you are in a great position being to use wood, even if it is a little trickier to manage - practice, practice, practice!

For this brisket, I started in the low range of 220 or so and over time gradually raised the temperature in increments until I was doing 255-260 at the end. This explains much of the reason why the cook took so long, along with the fact that the thing was over 12 pounds. Your estimate of 8 hours is probably solid, considering your higher temperatures, but it might be worth it to allow yourself a couple of extra hours for unforseen things.

The check/spritz each hour is a good way to go - I think kthat when the time comes for your brisket, you'll be in good shape!

Kensco, I have a offset smoker that I made. 55gal drum with a fire box with a damper between the fire box and the drum. I have been playing with it since 95. I feed it oak logs about 12 to 16 inches long. With said I come to the conclusion thats its alot of work to run. I find feeding the wood at set times once the coals are established works to control temps. I also have learned to except swings in temperature, I use to to fight it by always adjusting. This year I had the best results by foiling and following the Franklins BBQ video's on youtube. If I get around to it I would like to change to a larger drum because I feel the fire box is a little to large for the drum. My theory is if I could run the fire box hotter I would get smaller temperature swings. In my quest to add to my waste line I bought a Big Green egg this year. It is so easy to control temperature with. Load it with charcoal and a few oak logs get the fire established and the temp does not move once set. I did a boston butt started at 7pm and took it off at 4pm the following day. No foil and no playing around adjusting. I feel like I am cheating now.

From what I've found, the smoke only penetrates so far in so much time (about 3 hours) so, to me, burning through charcoal is an unnecessary effort. I usually run my brisket or shoulder for 3-4 hours on the bbq, then set my electric oven for 200F and put it in there for however long I want to finish it.

Did a brisket and pork shoulder last Thursday. Started them at 7 pm, into the oven at 11 pm for overnight, then wrapped in foil and took them to work to finish in the kitchen at my office.

Served them at noon (17 hours cook time) to a happy staff.

It's the idea of a 12 to 17 hour cook time that drives me crazy. I can't stay interested that long.

I've done two 7 to 8 pound pork butts in the past month. Both turned out great in about 7 1/2 hours. (The bone slipped-out with two fingers, and the meat was separated with a pair of tongs.)

My briskets used to all be finished-off in the oven. I couldn't seem to get it right otherwise, but I'm going to stop that, or give-up smoking brisket.

I like Aaron Franklin's videos a lot. He's the foundation for everything I do with my smoker.

To me beef or pork is much easier to smoke/grill/BBQ than chicken. Seems like chicken doesn't look done until it's overdone, and dry. A soon as I get a brisket that satisfies me, I'm moving to chicken. Franklin does a turkey, but not a chicken.

First things first. I have to nail a brisket.

Tas, thanks so much for all you have posted. My wife loves when I get off here and tell her I have another recipe for us to try. We especially love the detail you go into to insure that the job is done right. Thanks a ton.

X2 on what Jeff SN said.

Thanks, everyone - I truly appreicate the kind words and enjoy sharing what I do. If it benefits some folks, then that's a bonus.

Well, I'm kinda bummed-out. I tried my brisket this past weekend, with mixed results. First, I couldn’t find a small, full packer brisket, so I settled for a 7 lb. flat.

I injected and put a good rub on it. I wrapped it in foil after four hours and smoked it another three hours. (I was smoking it between 200˚ and 225˚.) At the seven-hour mark the brisket was up to an internal temp of 195˚. I called it done. Unfortunately, it was ready quicker than I anticipated, three hours before time to eat, so I kept it wrapped and rested. When it came time to eat, I had two issues. One, for the life of me I couldn’t confirm with certainty the grain direction believe it or not so I could cut cross-grain. Two, some cuts were tender, some weren’t. It was most tender towards either end. The thicker center was not tough, but not pull-apart tender either. The brisket looked good.

If you have any thoughts on what I should have done differently, feel free to comment. I hear people saying an internal temperature between 185 and 200 is OK. I was afraid of cooking it longer, although I had the time, for fear of it drying out, and getting tough.

I'm scratching my head over this.

It sounds like you needed to cook it longer. It won't dry out if you've foil wrapped it.

when I do a brisket, I usually trim the heavy fat off,,, but keep it to use later.... i use a rub that has a lot of brown sugar and cayenne in it...after i get my cooker going, i brown the brisket on high direct heat first... then set it off to the indirect heat.. and let it start smoking.... after a couple hours of smoke, i wrap it in foil, with some of the fat I've cut off previously, dope it again with either sauce or rub... and maintain the heat...till its done....i might even finish it in the oven inside if i have to do something else...i usually cook for about 3-4 more hrs...

My thoughts, cooking too fast at too high a temperature and not reading the grain right. Just my two cents.

I've been there many times with a fire hotter than expected. been on the other end too, when everyone is sitting around waiting on dinner and well, it ain't ready yet.

Ken, I sincerely apologise for missing your post about your cook. It sounds to me (and I am no expert on brisket, so I could be wrong) as though the issue might have been a cooking temperature that was a bit too low - but then again, the flat is so darned lean that I wouldn't want to go much higher, maybe 240 at the most.

One thing that helps with recognising the grain at the end of the cook is to cut a slice off of the brisket at one end across the grain before cooking - kind of a mark so that you know where to start slicing when it is done. A toothpick (or two) at one end would probably accomplish the same goal as far as setting a mark goes.

Brisket doesn't need to be pull-apart tender - and considering how lean the flat is, it might never get to that stage unless it is cooked with a LOT of moisture. Most times, the flat is simply sliced (as thinly as possible) and the point is either sliced the same, or cut into cubes and then returned to the smoker in a covered pan with sauce for a few hours in order to produce "burnt ends," which is definitely a treat that belongs in Heaven itself.

Hope this helps - give it another shot, and see what you end up with!

Alright, I know it's been a while, but I finally have the photos formatted and uploaded from this cook, just in time for some spring barbecuing action!

Note - If you haven't already, go back and read through the thread in order to get the idea behind this barbecue, along with detailed recipes for the Java Rub and Sauce, the method by which this brisket was cooked etc.

Anyway, here we go ~

Here's the rub, after mixing all of the components together:



As you can see, there are a lot of nice things going on here!

For this brisket, I applied a Worcestershire-and-mustard slather prior to the rub that worked really well:



It's almost as if the combination was made for beef!

Here's the brisket, all ready to go; after taking this photo, I wrapped it in saran wrap and put it in the fridge for a few hours in order to give the slather and rub time to get acquainted with the beef:



Here's a shot right after I put the brisket to the heat:



At first, I put it fat-cap up, but then immediately flipped it so that the fat-cap could be on the bottom in order to protect the meat from the heat a bit. As a result, I hash-marked it a bit, but no worries.


Here is the brisket after about 9 hours over sweet cherry smoke:



And here's the finished brisket, which I pulled from the heat right at 188-190 degrees internal temperature; after taking this photo, the brisket got swaddled in foil for a nice resting period:



Separating the flat from the point after resting:



These slices might be just a bit thick, but it had been quite a while since I had barbecued a brisket, and it took me a few minutes to get myself back in the saddle. The good news is that thickness wasn't really an issue anyway; this brisket turned out so tender that it was all good - juicy, flavourful and just right:



How about that smoke ring? Things really came together well for this brisket, and I found myself very impressed with it before I even tried it!

Some more slices here - a bit thinner once I got the hang of it:



No burnt ends this time around, due to the already- long, long cook and the fact that I wanted to get an honest evaluation of the Java Sauce; instead, I simply piled the platters high with a mix of wonderfully-tender slices from the flat and cubes from the point:



And here we are, plated alongside some potato salad that was also pretty darn good:



That's what I have, folks - as I said, the rest of the details can be found in the posts above - if anyone has any questions, please let me know - but in the meantime, I strongly recommend giving this a try for your next brisket or chuckie barbecue. It was impressive, to say the least, and quite easily my best brisket so far.

Enjoy!

Ron

Tas

You're killing me.

I promised myself never to try a brisket again, and now you've resurrected this thread, which is one of my favorites. All the answers are there. Every response seemed to have a neat little trick I hadn't thought of.

I'm going to give it one last shot. If it isn't perfect this time, I'm tracking you down.

I've used many of the recipies that Mr. Tasunkawitko has posted over the years and I can tell you this dude knows more than a thing or two about satisfying your palate!

I will certainly use some of these suggestions on my next brisket.

quote:

Tasunkawitko

Set Here reading this and when the pictures showed up MAN slobers runnin down my chin. I used these coffee recipes on steaks before and it was very good. I like the burnt ends with a little bit of that sauce to dip it in.

Fantastic!

Bringing this back up to the top, as I will be making it tomorrow.

I plan to make it pretty much the same as before, focusing on improving technique. The planned side dish will be "Cauliflower Tots" - here's the recipe:

quote:

Cauliflower Tots

Ingredients

2 cups cauliflower florets, steamed
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/4 cup chives, chopped
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a large baking sheet with cooking spray and set aside.

In a food processor, pulse steamed cauliflower until grated. Place grated cauliflower on a clean kitchen towel and squeeze to drain water.

Transfer cauliflower to a large bowl with egg, cheddar, parmesan, Panko, and chives. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon about 1 tablespoon of mixture and roll it into a tater-tot shape with your hands. Place on the baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the tots are golden.

Well, I had intended to use a 3.x-pound brisket, and the package (wrapped in butcher paper) said brisket, but when I opened it, it was a very large rolled-up chunk of flank. No worries, I'll give it a go, and see what happens....

I made the rub pretty much as before, except I used coconut sugar in place of brown sugar. I am loving this unique sweetener more and more for applications such as this, and it really adds a nice touch. Also, as before, I added two tablespoons of good chili powder, since it really makes the rub sing for beef.

After slathering with a German mustard/Worcestershire mixture, I liberally coated the flank with the rub. A few minutes ago, it went into the smoker. I expect results to be pretty much the same as before; hopefully a little better, as I have aim to improve on the technique. As before, I'll make the sauce according to the recipe; I have Frank's Original this time, so it will be added as per the recipe.

Tas, you have me drooling here. I keep trying to get up enough courage to do a packer. I got rid of my Traeger and went to a Weber Genesis 3 gasser, but have had wonderful results with my smoke tube from Southern BBQ.

I've got about a month before my Tennessee cousin and his wife arrive; and my constitution gets used to being absent a gall bladder, then it's brisket time.

My brisket cook is 7 1/2 hours at 250. Sounds like yours was 18 1/2 hours at an average of maybe 240. I can't get through my head what the extra 11 hours accomplishes. One day I'm going to waste a good brisket, stay up all night, and cut a piece of meat every hour for 20 hours to see what happens in terms of tenderness and moistness.

That rub sounds excellent. I think I'm going to put my wife in charge of that.

My smoker being a stick burner, do you think I'm going to have to use 100% cherry wood to get the right result? That sounds like two or three bags of cherry wood for five hours of unwrapped smoke penetration.

I may have to change the name from Cherry-smoked Brisket with Brook's Java Rub, to Smoked Brisket with Brook's Java Rub, and hope for the best.

FWIW, typically fruit wood does not give as strong a smoke flavor as hickory, oak, or mesquite. Pecan is fairly mild as well.

OTOH, Mike Mills of 17th Street Grill, who won a potful of world championships swears by apple.

Holey shit, I damn near shorted out my computer with saliver after seeing the pics !

"Brisket" is not a common dish here in Aus, although a no doubt better know secret amongst some people.

Sounds like a big commitment, lots of hours in prep and cooking but the results look sensational.

One day !

Give it a shot, Paul...you know that you want to!