Forget Low and Slow.. Try a Hot and Fast Brisket on your Kamado SmokerForget Low and Slow.. Try a Hot and Fast Brisket on your Kamado Grill






by David Sinclair


It is accepted barbecue gospel the correct way to cook a brisket is at a reduced temperature for a long time, so called "low and slow". Recent experience by a number of barbecuers, and competition barbecuers at that, advocates otherwise. The high temperature, fast cook strategy is simple, and produces excellent results, including first place competition wins.

Prepare your brisket with the rubs and or injections of your preference. The less warm the meat is to start, the longer time it'll spend in the smoke, enhancing the smoke ring and bark.Cook indirect on a fire between 300 to 350 degrees on your Big Green Egg or Komodo Kamado ceramic griddle. Fat cap down or up, your preference, I don't believe it matters. When the internal protein temperature reaches 160 to 170, wrap the brisket firmly in foil.

This could happen roughly at the 2 hour mark. Sixty minutes later , begin checking the brisket for tenderness, and at half hour intervals afterward. Resume cooking till the brisket is really tender when probed with a sharp probe like a skewer, fork, ice pick or similar object. Do not employ a precise finish temperature. In reality it is recommended to remove the meat temperature probe after foiling and stop monitoring the meat temperature. Do not poke the probe all the way thru in order to puncture the bottom foil, you will lose all of your juice! Do probe in 1 or 2 spots. When tender, remove from the fire and rest according to your preference.

Some folks prefer wrapping in towels and resting in a cooler, or ice chest. Or, you may hold in a warm oven if you like. Though foiling has generally been considered nonessential in ceramic cookers, it has a function aside from to simply forestall moisture loss. It enhances the tenderization of the meat, most likely by accelerating the breakdown of the muscle fiber proteins. Common times to completion are four hours, more or less.Also, if you foil correctly, you will probably collect one or two cups of juice in the foil to use later for various purposes. This, in brief, is the high temperature/fast cook method for brisket.

You can do a composite technique, mixing lower and/or higher temperatures before and after foiling, to fit your time wishes. For example, you might start the cook at 200 or 225, and go do something else for one or two hours, then come back and check on the protein. Or vice versa, start warmer and finish lower. The secret's to foil the brisket when it reaches the 160 or 170 degree point. Though a low and slow brisket cook is certainly a brilliant strategy, it is not mandatory. The fast/hot methodology does require you to remain around and monitor the cook, so a low and slow does offer the benefit of allowing you to leave for quite some time. Use whichever technique suits your time wishes or hybridize!




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