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I butchered a beef brisket for the first time in my BBQ life. Butchered in all meanings of the word.

For Thanksgiving, my brother wanted to smoke a brisket in addition to the requisite turkey. It was going to be the third meat along with some spiral ham. He said to come over on Wednesday afternoon to help him prep it and throw it on the smoker. Little did I know that he meant for me to be the one to prep it since he still had some work to finish up.

Now, I like trying to smoke meat, and I prefer to do ribs. Ribs is simple. There’s still some trimming to do if you want, but not like there is on a brisket. My brother had purchased it from Walmart, and it was about 13 lbs. It looked okay, but I question whether it was the best cut of meat. I was supposed to trim this up? How?

The first thing you should know is that you need a sharp knife. I did not have the sharpest of knives so when I started trimming, the meat did not come off as buttery smooth as I would’ve liked. Of course, since it was my first time, I had know idea if I was doing it correctly. I relied on my experience trimming ribs to guide me through this. I know to take off as much fat and make it as smooth as possible. I went and did this. It didn’t look half bad after 20 minutes. There were pockets of meat that I didn’t know what to do, but I powered through and had a slab of brisket ready for the smoker.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t fit in the smoker, so I had to cut it down into the ‘flat’ and the ‘point.’ There’s a seam of fat that separates the two. I started cutting it, but after a bit I lost where it went. I just continued until there were two parts. I then seasoned with some rub that my brother had bought. It was standard: salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc. I added some extra salt, which will come back to haunt me, then put it in the smoker.

The plan from here was to start at 200 F for six or so hours, then wrap the meat up in pink butcher paper for another 8 or so hours at 225 F. The meat went in at 5:30 which meant that roughly around 11:30 we want to wrap. I let my brother handle this part of the smoking.

On Thanksgiving morning, my brother called with some anxious news. Even after that overnight smoke, the meat was at 160 F. Since we were targeting 200 F to be done, we were perplexed. He said he was going to raise the temp up to 300 F to get the meat as moist and pliable as possible. I told him that he could also throw it in the oven to finish it off if he needed to use the smoker for the turkey. Eventually, he did for an hour and by the time lunch rolled around he had the brisket out of the smoker and in a cooler for hours.

The moment of truth arrived and he plated it up. Not too bad. Not the greatest, but it was our first try. I have no idea if it was any good given that I am a novice to brisket.

I’ve been watching more brisket trimming and smoking videos. I wonder if I can make it in an oven?