For barbecue aficionados, brisket is the gold standard, a tough piece of beef that when done right is richly smoked, tender and full of moist flavor.
But brisket is challenging to cook and when you screw it up, it’s unlikely that it can be fixed.
“I have had good days and bad days cooking brisket. There are some days when I wonder who the hell cooked this, and I just give it to my dog,” chef Dan Prestridge, of Bethel, said last week during his class on smoking brisket at Bethel University.
“It’s a cut that requires a lot of practice and a lot of patience. If you get in a hurry, you will have wasted a good deal of time and a lot of money.”
Prestridge, a 45-year-old Texas native who, along with his wife, Kim, and two children, moved to Bethel from Memphis, Tenn., almost three years ago, has been cooking brisket for about 20 years. He’s also competed as a team member in barbecue contests across the country and spent his career in the restaurant business. He’s currently the kitchen manager at the Applebee’s in West Lebanon.
He knows barbecue, and he’s trying to spread the word through Bethel U., a community “pop-up” university that holds free classes in town — from belly dancing to economic theory — every March.
Last Thursday, Prestridge’s toughest challenge, perhaps, wasn’t just preparing a delicious smoked brisket. He had to demonstrate the art for the dozen people attending the class in the dark.
It was the night the lights went out after a pick-up truck hit a key utility pole and plunged the town into darkness for about three hours, including the basement kitchen in Bethel Town Hall, where the class was being held.
As the emergency lights faded and students pointed flashlights and cell phone lights onto his large white plastic cutting board, Prestridge carefully trimmed fat and meat from a 13-pound brisket.
A very sharp knife is key to trimming the brisket, but “I really don’t want to cut myself in the dark.
“When I’m done, I will have trimmed about three pounds of fat and meat that I don’t want to use,” he said, adding that the trimmings could be used to make sausage and some of the fat could be used as suet for birds.
A brisket is one of two cuts — there’s a right and left brisket — from the breast of a steer. A full brisket contains a thin part called “the flat” and a thicker part called “the point.” Both have long strands of muscle fiber, but the point is tougher than the flat, which has a thick layer of fat on one side.
Brisket has a place in culinary history throughout the world, served from Thailand to Great Britain and in traditional Jewish cooking where it’s braised for holiday meals. In this country, it was originally poverty food, set aside with other cuts of meat considered inedible, such as organ meats and intestines, and given to poor folk who made a cuisine out it.
In the North, brisket became popular as corned beef. In the South, particularly in Texas, it was cooked slowly over a low fire for stretches of time measured in portions of the day, rather than hours, author Steven Raichlen says in his cookbook The Barbecue Bible.
In barbecue contests, brisket is the most challenging category, and cooking a great brisket can raise pit masters to star status.
The popularity of barbecue nationwide, in cooking contests and television food shows, has caused a dramatic price increase for brisket, Prestridge said.
When shopping for brisket, Prestridge recommends buying the meat at a discount store where it sells for about $3 a pound. Top quality briskets can go as high as $8 a pound, but if you know what you’re doing, it’s worth the extra cost, he said.
Grass-fed beef might yield a brisket too lean to smoke and slow-cook without drying it out, and brisket with the fat trimmed completely also won’t work, he said.
After trimming the fat to about half an inch, Prestridge begins by rubbing the meat with equal amounts of salt and pepper. “Beef needs a lot of pepper.”
The brisket then is coated with beef bouillon paste and then with a dry spicy rub. “We’re just layering flavors.” Then it’s covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated to marinate.
Brisket can be cooked fat side up over indirect heat on a charcoal or gas grill with a lid and using chips or chunks of maple, hickory, pecan or apple to create the smoke.
The best method is to use a smoker that can be kept at about 225 degrees. As it cooked, the meat will begin to stall with an interior temperature of 155 degrees, but in six to eight hours, it will finally reach 165 degrees and will have absorbed as much smoke as it needs. More smoke could cause a bitter or too smoky taste, he said.
At that point, Prestridge takes the meat out of the smoker or off the grill, wraps it in butcher paper rather than aluminum foil, and puts it back on to cook until the interior temperature reaches 185 to 195 degrees. The butcher paper allows moisture to escape and won’t turn the crusty black exterior, known as bark, into mush.
When he removes the meat from the smoker, Prestridge places it in foil, pours about a cup of au jus or beef bouillon over the brisket and seals it in the foil. The brisket is then placed in a cooler, an ice chest without the ice, to stay warm and rest until the meat reaches an interior temperature of 165 degrees, about an hour.
Prestridge had cooked a similar-sized brisket before the class to demonstrate the final product. He put the meat in the smoker at 8 the night before and took it off around 2 p.m. before the 6:30 class, or after about 18 hours.
“Barbecue is all about patience. If you can’t be patient, then don’t try to cook barbecue,” he said as he carved the sweet, tender and juicy meat across the grain.
Here is Prestridge’s recipe for the rub he uses on brisket and other meats prior to cooking:
1 cup Kosher salt
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup chili powder
¼ cup cumin
1/8 cup cayenne pepper (optional)
1/8 cup of oregano
Sprinkle over the meat, but not on the fat side. Pat it into the meat. Cover the meat with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for 3 to 24 hours.
Warren Johnston can be reached at warren.nelson.johnston@gmail.com.