Hops & Hogs BBQ 05/02 - The Perfect Brisket

Nordo and Aaron from Northern Fire discuss cooking the perfect brisket!

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Nordo here from Kfan Radio. Welcometo the Hops and Hogs Barbecue Podcast,
Local Beer, Local Barbecue in Onepodcast, Smoking seasons here, so smoke
them if you got them. Ihad Aaron from Northern Fire Grilling and Barbecue
Supply with me to talk about cookingthe perfect brisket. Let's get down to
business as a look outside, Isee that sunshine brisket season. You gotta

(00:31):
turn your mic on there. Ohyeah, in a minute, you're in
charge of those things. That's AaronBordage, Northern Fire Grilling and Barbecue Supply
in Minnetonka, one of my buddiesin a co host of a podcast that
I do. You can get onthe free iHeartRadio app or you can get
it wherever the hell you get podcasts. But it's called Hops and Hogs Hops
and Hogs Barbecue Podcast, Local Beer, Local Barbecue one podcast. And Aaron

(00:57):
handles the barbecue portion of it andthe beer portion as well. And yes,
you do, absolutely, And youdabble in the Viking side of things
as a massive Vikings fan as aticket holder. Indeed, you're probably following
the Howl. We got game onetomorrow at Denver. You're going to get
to hear that. By the way, the pregame starts Alan Horton and everybody

(01:17):
kick off at five thirty pm righthere on the fan and then tip off
shortly after six. You're a massivesports fan. Yeah, you enjoy drinking
beer. I do. Where arethey? We're missing something. This is
unusual for us to do this withoutin podcast form. There can be beers
on the terrestrial radio side. Theprofessionals it this is an FCC operation.

(01:38):
Okay, you see how buttoned up. We are absolutely professional. We are
in studio here right yep, absolutelyso, no beers right now. But
but you you fit. You're kindof our key demo. You're you're you're
a p one in terms of yourinterests, yeah, I think so and
expertise. But but as part ofthe Hops and Hoggs Barbecue podcast, this
is it's we're we're jumping into thisyear as it's competition season. You are

(02:01):
a competition barbecue cook. You arealso a guru, a shaman. You
are you're a teacher. You area teacher of meat. Yea a meat
teacher. Yeah yeah, t shirtmeat instructor meat and yeah, it's been
it's been out that minute missing I'vebeen doing barbecue for a lot of competitively

(02:25):
for nine years, but I've beendoing it most of my life. So
is there anything better than just likeI did it? I I have.
I pulled the smoker out, dustedher off, dan clean, Oh yeah,
all right, posed her down nice, She's ready for business. Let's
go. And now all I needto do is get a giant slab of
beef, slap that thing on there, guy, and and start smoking.

(02:46):
You ever get bored or are youstill in love with it? No?
I love it. It's funny becausewith the with the shop now we don't
get to do it as much aswe used to, but it's really fun.
You know, we had our eventlast weekend and I didn't get to
cook much, but it was funto be around all the guys cooking and
got a couple of days ago,we had some pork that we either had
to freeze or throw away, andso John fired up the Yoda and we

(03:08):
were cooking, and it's like,okay, this is it's nice to get
back to. I need to getto I need to get back to doing
more of it. Well, it'sfunny because you know my wife is pregnant.
Yeah, and I just look pregnant, so congratulations. Yeah, but
she's the baby. But she's pumpedbecause all she's looking for. She's like,

(03:29):
you gotta cook some some damn food, but get after it. I'm
I'm being I'm being briske game noI And that's why Frankly, that's why
you're here. Since we've been doingthe podcast and really just do our conversations
over time. I always feel likefor a lot of people brisk it,
in particular beef giants, slab ofbeef on your you can you can do

(03:50):
it on your stick burner, youroffset, you can cook it on your
pellic grill. Yeah, most people, I would actually say most people use
pellet rills these days, which yousure, yeah, the masses are far
and away. Well, we gotanswers for that. But I feel like
it's almost intimidating, you think,in a little in some way confusing piece
of meat because it actually cooks morelike a piece of pork than it does

(04:11):
like beef. You know, ifyou cook a ribi, if you overcook
a ribbi, it's dry and terrible, and and if you overcook a brisket,
it's going to be tender like likea pork. Shoulder. So I
think people it's a confusing piece ifyou if you don't dabble in it.
Absolutely, and so let's let's jumpinto this now. It's not like like
step by step this you know,this is this isn't like a YouTube video.

(04:34):
I wish you had brought samples.I should have coordinated with you actually
like one of your classes. Yeah, should have stayed up all night cooking
a brisket that you could bring instudio. We just did that last Sunday,
but it was all gone. Butthis is this is of course radio,
this is not uh, this isnot video. So we're just gonna
have to settle via instruction. Listento how good this brisket is? Are

(04:57):
you? How much do we trimthis thing? I think the rule of
thumb is a quarter inch of faton the back. But it's a it's
a that's another challenge. I think, you know you don't. There's what
I try to teach people to dois trim a restaurant style. Don't overthink
it. You know, there's there'sa huge fat scene between the point and
the flat if you're cooking, Andthat's the other confusing part of a brisket.

(05:20):
Brisket can be just a flat,you know, they can get you
can get I have customers that comein to have a four pound brisket and
I'm like, okay, you gota piece of brisket, you know,
but a packer, a full packerbrisket point and flat is basically two muscles
with a huge fat scene between it. And you can go after that fat
scene. But I I honestly don'tthink you have to. If you if

(05:42):
you cook it right, you don'thave to trim it. You don't have
to. It's okay. At somepoint, again, the over the overthinking
of it comes in, what didyou do? Tell me what you did
when you did those last two?It was trimmed. Okay, so you
cut out the obviously the decko.There's a big there's a big chunk that
you want to get off there,and yeah, you just kind of create
a flat top. Yeah, Igive it a little buzz cut. Yep,

(06:03):
exactly. Yeah, trim off thesilver skin that's there and go after
what you know, there's a littlemohawk ridge on the on the backside or
or yeah we're not I'm a hackguy. I'm not into mohawks. So
I got I got rid of themohawk ridge. Yep, yep, you
want to have the fun is justthe terminology of this. Absolutely, Yeah,
it's a there's there's a lot offun naming conventions and barbecue. So

(06:27):
but but why do I want toget rid of of some of that fat
and stuff that what you're cooking ontoo? You know, like if you
listen Aaron franklin Els talks about makingthings zero dynamic, and I get I
get really into that on the offset, and I want to shape it perfectly
and make it look beautiful before youeven cook it. Okay, that's just
being me and me, but youreally don't have to if you're cooking on

(06:48):
a pellet grill. You know,I go as far as I take a
pair of scissors and I trim theedges so nothing nothing's going to crust up,
and so every slice is going tobe pretty assistant. But in the
end, I think, uh,you know, don't overthink it, because
that's the classic thing with brisket ispeople just get into the weeds about all

(07:10):
the details. And if you're ifyou're new to it, you know,
there's definitely some Uh there's Chud's Barbecueon YouTube. Has got a really good
video of five minute brisket trim videothat I always recommend that people watch if
it's the first time. Well,see if you if as I'm looking at
you right now, if if Ilook away or I look down, I'm
not trying to be disrespectful, orif I'm not listening or anything like that.

(07:31):
So you've done this before. SoI just wrote trim for less wind
resistance arrow dynamic dynamics. Yeah,yeah, Well, you know on your
offset, you've got you've got tofire on one side and a stack on
the other, and you're flowing,you're drafting across that. So you actually
want to you want that to beyou know, not not to it's going

(07:51):
to be a damper of sorts,but you wanted to flow around it and
pick up that smoke. Well,the key to the key to all this,
you know, the overthinking aspect ofit. Again, we're talking about
how to cook the perfect brisket.When have I had my first beer during
this conversation? So am I?Am? I having the first beer when
I'm seasoning it, when I'm trimmingit? Like what's the word? Like,

(08:13):
what's I don't think there's the wrongway to do it, okay,
you know if you're because that's goingto help me not overthink it. The
John Hanson's of the world do thatwhen they're trimming, you know, but
John starts admitting exactly you know,I think, uh, you know,
for me, I'm I'm up atfour am and I'm getting a brisket on
at four thirty at a contest andwe crack a beer. We have a
barbecue tradition, you know, wehave a nine twenty two shot okay on

(08:37):
nine twenty two am. That getsthe day going. And then at ten
o'clock we do lucky beers. Soyou crack a beer at ten o'clock.
But that's just you didn't. Youdidn't do the nine to twenty two tradition
today, did you. I can'ttalk about what I was Okay, No,
I didn't. Missy was you know, had me doing chores perfect?

(08:58):
What kind of wood am I usingwhen I'm when I'm cooking a brisket?
Uh? It kind of. I'ma big fan of oak. You know,
if you're if you're anywhere near Texanor you have a neighbor that once
drove through Texas, they're going totell you that you have to use post
oak. I think oak is mostlyoak. You know, white oak is
fine. Uh, but also ifyou want to go a little milder,

(09:22):
I don't mind mixing pecan and cherry. I think cherry gives it a great
color pop. And that's what matters, right, it does? Yeah?
Yeah, yeap? What did youuse when you last night? Last did
this? I used oak? Yeah? Perfect? What'd you think? It
was? Amazing? Yeah? Soyou know, brisk gets a heavier unlike
but cut them, cut those.If you're using logs, just make sure
you cut them down and split themin and off set. You definitely want

(09:43):
to. It doesn't Oak doesn't burnas quickly and as easily as some others
do. Correct. Yeah, sowhen you try to just toss this this
massive log, yeah it uh,you know it causes problems, right,
And then that's the beauty of thepellet girls. You just that they've already
figured that out. Or you fillout to fill up your yodur with a
bag of pellets, and the whereyou go. I never thought I never

(10:05):
thought it mattered until you actually startusing other kinds, right, I mean,
if if you're if, if allyou do is like you cook,
the first thing and I'm sure ithappens with a lot of people. You
you cook the first thing that goeswell, and you just you you got
to replicate all the things that wentinto that, you know what I mean?
And so you know, the firstexperiment of stepping outside it. Oh,

(10:26):
I understand what this mesquite mix is. I understand, you know,
uh stoked, it's it's a localcompany, Caledonia's fine great pellets. They
turn you know, the stave planksinto pellets. Yeah, barrel staves,
Bourbon barrel staves made right here inCaledonia, Minnesota. That that that the
byproduct is now barbecue pellets, whichis awesome, brilliant all and second of

(10:48):
all, it's a great product.But when you step outside of that,
and now you can understand the differencecooking something with a specific rub or excuse
me, a specific brand of wood, but getting into the to the seasoning
aspect of it. Am I seasonit and letting it sit? Or am
I uh season in? I canjust throw that thing on the grill.
Yeah, if you're talking brisket,it's a rule of thumb would be at

(11:11):
least forty five minutes before you putit on. And I prefer kind closer
to room temperature or yeah, youwant it to warm up. You want
to get some of the cold offof it, for sure, and you
want the you want those flavors toget into your meat. Also, I'm
not a binder guy. I knowsome people you know, do the mustard
bit or whatever rub the brisket down. I don't do that. There's enough
salt most of these rubs. Like, the first thing I do is hit

(11:31):
it with just table salt, andthat table salt is going to draw some
moisture out of that brisket and it'sgoing to give you, you know,
moisture that's part of the brisket,the Areo dynamic. It's gonna be able
salt, and that's gonna be yourbinder. But I seasoned it the night
before and I throw it in thefridge uncovered. You don't want to do
this ran wrap bid over a foilpan because then you create that greenhouse effect

(11:54):
and in the morning you've got abrisket swimming and soup. You don't want
that. But yeah, so whenI get up in the morning at a
contest or if I'm cooking at thestore or whatever, that brisket is out
first thing as soon as before Ilight a fire or anything, that the
brisket is out of the fridge,you unlock the door. You haven't even
turned the security system off. Thebrisket's got to come out. Absolutely yeah,

(12:15):
perfect, yep. Yeah, that'sthe job one is start to start
to at least get something like likeI said, some of the cold off
unless it's at nine to twenty one, because then you have about a minute
and then you you have a decision. Yeah, and then there's priorities.
Then you know, you got topick your poison. All right. How
about this Northern Bordage, Northern Bardage. Why didn't you use that as a

(12:35):
store name. It might be agrandson Aaron from from Northern Fire Grillion Barbecue
Supply. We're cooking the perfect brisket, so we're we're seasoning the wood matters
for beef. I love oak,So put that in your back pocket.
Oak, whether it's a pellet,whether it's it's a stick for your for
your offset grill, think about oak. I love that. But this is

(12:56):
my this is what I'm thinking.How low and slow do we go?
Because you can go you can goa buck eighty yeah, and turn this
thing into a weekend, the AndreAndy Boterman method. That's what we teach
at the classes. There's two differentstyles. If you have I'm a two

(13:16):
seventy five guy, Yeah, yeah, on the offset for sure, and
there's reasons for that for sure.But if you've got a pellic gril and
you want to do an eighteen hourcook on it, go for it.
It's definitely going to give you anenhanced flavor and you're going to build a
park over a long period of time. You think part of that is the
fact that it's a pellic rill andit doesn't offer as much smoke. Maybe
you need to go to pole.It definitely needs a longer cook. But

(13:39):
if you're cooking on an offset forone thing, it's like, you know,
you're sitting in front of an offsetfor fourteen hours, is it's not
a bad day, But it's alsoif you've got other things going on,
you know, it's it's it's ait's difficult to dedicate fourteen hours of your
life to just running a operating asmoker well. And it is the difference
between I always I use the samereference every time. Sitting at Perkins in

(14:03):
the mid nineties, you had thesmoking section and the non smoking section.
That's the difference between a pellet andan offset a little bit. Yeah,
it's it's a pretty similar or closeanalogy. But uh yeah, the at
two seventy five three hundred degrees.You know, we've got contests or competition
teams that are cooking as high asthree twenty five, and there's a like

(14:26):
I do a hot start, I'llput my brisket in the highest elevation in
my outlaw and that thing is ina five hundred degree range and it sits
there for a half an hour,and briskets do this magic thing that you
know at two hundred and twenty fiveor one hundred and eighty degrees, they
just kind of puddle, They justrelax. Yeah, if you put them
in at like five hundred degrees,it's gonna get the shock effect and stand
up and you get thicker slices.It's just it's just it's dumb things mind

(14:50):
for Yeah, you know, tofeed people that we don't know they're barbecue
judgment. But if I'm if I'min my backyard with my pellet grill,
I'm rolling two hundred, don't twotwenty five, right, I can hit
the super smoke function on my tragger. Yeah, you know, do that
sort of thing lower and slower.It takes a little bit longer. Yeah,
but you're gonna you're gonna get themost out of out of it.
Beat. I mean, you cando that overnight cook. I tell people

(15:13):
all the time, get your flavorin that piece of meat overnight, and
then once you wrap, you know, push your paper or tinfoil or whatever,
you know, ramp that temperature uptwo seventy five if you need to.
If it, you know, Mom'son you and saying, hey,
we're eating at four o'clock, youknow, then get it done. Ramp
it up, get it done.I'm spritzing with beef stock. What do
you think about that? I thinkthat's a bad idea. That's me personally

(15:35):
really Yeah. I mean, asyou know, if you get a good
piece, you're just doing water.Yeah. If if you get a good
piece of beef and you don't,you're gonna risk doing that pot roasty kind
of vibe. You know. Whenyou're adding that beef stock, it's you
know, brisket in my opinion,tastes it's beefy, but it's got a
different flavor, especially the way you'recooking it. They're that beef consume and

(15:58):
beef broth. I'm not a fan. I just sticked with water. I
know people do the apple cider bit. I've never really felt like that had
an effect. If if that's whatyou're into, you go for it.
Okay, Yeah, I know that'sanother Texas thing. Stick with water.
Yeah, I go with the lowsodium beef broth. I think I think
it works great. Yeah, butbut water's good too, Okay, perfect.

(16:18):
What am I wrapping with? I'mwrapping it with butcher paper. Yeah,
you're gonna give me up on myhigh horse. Everybody talks about bark,
and I I don't worry about bark. I mean, you're gonna it
when you see that black hunk meatdown in Texas, you know, and
they make amazing brisket. I'm moreworried about making a delicious tender brisket.

(16:41):
And I don't I've never had anybodyget mad at my brisket for you know,
not having enough bark. But okay, you know, so I'm about
butcher paper and then I use Iuse beef tallow yep, instead of butter
or anything like that. What doyou think? Yeah? I don't.
I don't use any butter in brisket. But we've had a contest. We
double foil wrap, and that's moreto speed up the paste than you want

(17:04):
to capture. That foil captures allthe asu that's coming out of that brisket,
all that natural beef fat that's renderingout, and then you can retain
it. Butcher paper makes a littleharder to capture all that magic that's coming
out of that brisket. So Itake that fat and put it in a
fat separator like you do turkey gravy. Separate out that fat, and then

(17:26):
you could take that that that uh, that fat and mix it with your
barbecue sauce and you get a niceblend of beefy and cuts the sweet.
It's a way to go. Wecook it to what one sive? What
do we cook it to? Brisket'stricky. I always tell people it's,
you know, a brick, youcan finish anywhere between one. People want

(17:48):
specific numbers and there isn't one.It's it's gonna finish between one ninety.
You hate my beef broth, you'reyou're out on apple cider vinegar. It's
I always tell people, do whateveryou like, if you if you like
and it tastes good, then doit. It doesn't for you know,
for God's sakes, I'm one man'sopinion, and you know my barbecue scores
alone would tell you that I needa number. Yeah, one ninety five

(18:11):
to two thirteen. And the trickis, well, I know that's the
finished temp, right, Yeah,but when am I wrapping? Oh,
I'm sorry, we're still at wrap. I'm sorry I jumped ahead. Yeah,
one sixty five, one seventy.But it's there's no magic in that
either, just somewhere in that area. Wrap when it's convenient to you.
You know, you've got to gosomewhere, and you know, the brisket's
at one fifty. Uh, it'snot preferential. But you can wrap then

(18:34):
if you if you've got other stuffto get done. But my target is
when I like the color and it'sone sixty five is okay? At that
point, it's taken all the smokeit's gonna take, So you wrap it
again. You're gonna capture some moistureand you can you can add some flavor
enhancers like you do with the tallow. You can do a mop if you
want to. But uh, andthen time for the big finish. So

(18:56):
I've I've waited to one sixty five. I wrap it beef tallo is the
absolute way to go. Yeah,and you put that in your butcher paper
or double wrap foil at one sixtyfive, then you get it too.
And this is where so I've alwaysaimed like low two's like you get into
that two oh three two four range. But the key for me, you
can tell me if I'm done withthis, I actually don't look for the

(19:19):
specific temp once it's in that range, I look for when I push that
probe in, it's it's just it'spure butter yep. Yeah, And that's
so it's kind of a feel thing. That's the other thing is when you
talk about probes, there's two differentstyles of probes. There's there's probes that
come with your grill that measure temptyou over a long period of time.
And you know if you have apellet grill that came with one, yeah,

(19:40):
but a handheld probes what you wantto get an instant read of the
of that. You know, wesell the thermal works. I think they're
the best thing on the market.But yeah, they're great, but that's
going to give you an instant readyou that that probe you don't want to
use the probe that comes with yoursmoker it you know it, that's your
guide to kind of tell you whereyour head is. Yeah, but that
handheld probe is going to tell youwhere you're at. But you're right when

(20:03):
you get up. I always Istart checking at about two o six,
two oh seven, So you're takinga little heavier than that. Okay,
yeah, yeah, sweet yeap.But in the end when it when it
just kind of slides in there,Yeah, you don't want to feel any
resistance there, you go, zeroresistance, yeph be like warm butter,
okay, and I feel like okay, several beers in the mix here,

(20:26):
Okay, we got into one sixtyfive. We wrapped it and all that,
so we hit the temp. Mylast thing for you here is we
uh as we put a bow onthis thing to cook the perfect brisket.
Rest the freaking thing be patient patientpatient patient rested at least an hour,
right, yep, yeah, cooler, just don't unwrap it. Just throw
that thing immediately in a cooler.You can throw in your oven, yep,

(20:48):
as long as your oven's off andlet that thing chill for at least
that it's just like a Thanksgiving turkey. You want that thing to just hang
out and settle down. You don'twant to you start cutting into it,
you're gonna lose everything, all thework you put into it. So I'd
say at least, you know,minimum of one hour. Of course,
if you're cooking that four pound,you know flat we talked about, you

(21:11):
could probably an hour's fine, butfor a big piece of meat, I
like to rest it for two twoand a half hours. That's kind of
my target menu feast. And ofcourse, lastly, and thanks so much
for doing this, by the way, thanks for having me. This is
it's always fun. Aaron from NorthernFire. Your philosophy not only on life,

(21:33):
but your philosophy on meat is puta smile on. Absolutely, have
fun while you're doing it. Absolutely, relax and cook. That's Aaron from
Northern Fire. I'm Nordo and thanksfor listening to the Hops and Hogs Barbecue
podcast. Subscribe via the free iHeartRadioapp or wherever you get your podcast.
Follow us on x via Hops POGsBBQ and let us know how your brisket

(21:55):
went. I know it's perfect startcooking,