I’m smoking a whole brisket tonight for a pot luck lunch at my office on Friday. I couldn’t find any hickory so I was stuck with mesquite, which can be a bit bitter. How to soften it? Take all the partial bottles of wine lying around the house for sauce, pour them into a food saver plastic container with a special top that allows you to vaccuum out the container, add the wood chips, jam the chips down and top off with water so they are fully covered, cover, add the foodsaver vaccuum hose, and vaccuum out the air. The air in the wood bubbles out, to be replaced by a mixture of Aubert Pinot, Scholium Gewurztraminer, assorted Ridge, and a few other wines. Slowly fill the Big Green Egg with fresh hard wood charcoal and space the infused wood throughout.
Don’t think that will help, making wood wet simply imparts steam, but it won’t change much. The whole idea of soaking wood chips is one used by amateurs. The best approach would be to use only a few small pieces at the beginning. Mesquite is strong, but with brisket it isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you like that flavor, so I wouldn’ worry too much, just don’t over mesquite it. Also, with a BGE type cooker, I find that it is best to only put a couple chunks of smoke wood around the edges of the charcoal for an overnight cook, fwiw. Hope it turns out great, please post pics.
Let us know the outcome!
I pulled it this morning after 8 hours. The smoke flavor is fine with a very very long finish in the mouth - I can still taste it 5 minutes later as I post this - but it was not bitter. There is no noticeable wine flavor, but I did not expect any. I really didn’t consider it a serious attempt to soften the mesquite. That was just part of the geek analysis. As t the amount of smoke generated, I believe that soaking the wood increases the smoke, and it certainly loked like it last night, but it’s hard to judge because it was below freezing in NY last night and the apparent higher steam contact escaping from the BGE could have been caused by the steam.
Tonight I move to stage 2, which some people consider a gross misuse of smoked brisket. I will caranelize about 5 pounds of onions, mix them with home made red pipian mole sauce I made using the Smeastad recipe, cover the brisket in a mixture of onions and mole sauce, wrap tightly in a double dose of heavy foil, and slowly bring up to about 195 degrees in the oven. The will render out the last of the fat without drying out the meat. I will then serve the brisket topped with the sauce and hime pickled red onions after I skim the fat off the sauce.
Jay,
I’d be worried the Mole sauce might react with foil, this seems like a off take of Swiss steak, I might consider using a Enameled dutch oven vessel?
Paul
I have done the mole with foil before without problems. An enamel Dutch oven is an interesting idea. I do not have one big enough for the brisket, but I suppose I could cut it in half. The problem is that I must still drain and out the sauce and skim the rendered fat. It’s an interesting ieda, though. I’ll have to think about it. I’m always up for experiments and maybe I’ll do it that way tonight. It makes transporting it to my office a bit easier.