Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

It’s taken us a few attempts, but we’ve figured out how to smoke beef brisket in Rosie theTraeger Pro 34.

Well, we’ve figured out a method that works for us – I suspect true barbecue aficionados will take umbrage to some of our suggestions…

We start with a grassfed Cape Grim brisket. This alone is a fabulous find – Cape Grim produces some of the best beef in Australia and it usually carries a hefty price tag. However, brisket is less popular than other cuts, and Harris Farm Markets in Leichhardt sells it for just $13.99/kg…

Traditional American barbecue uses grainfed beef, but we try to avoid it for animal welfare reasons, plus we find it a bit too rich and fatty for our tastes. Because it isn’t as heavily marbled, grassfed brisket is less moist when smoked, but it’s incredibly delicious nonetheless!

We took advice from two sources – the amazing Steven Raichlen book Project Smoke, which is available in Kindle/iPad format for about $10…

…and the excellent PBS series BBQ with Franklin, as well as Aaron’s fabulous YouTube videos…

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We start by trimming most of the fat from the brisket, leaving just a few millimetres (about ¼”) all over. It’s a rookie error to leave too much fat, as the low smoking temperature doesn’t render it all out or crisp it up.

The meat is coated with ground black pepper and kosher salt (flaky salt would work as well) in equal parts by volume. The pepper is ground in a spice grinder and then sieved to remove the superfine dust – we only use the coarser bits. The rub is evenly sprinkled on and patted into the meat, which is fridge cold for trimming and coating, and then left to come to room temperature before smoking.

We place the brisket in an aluminium tray, fat side up. A temperature probe is inserted  into the thickest part (more on that later). Now, conventional wisdom is to place the meat straight on the bars, and I’m sure you get a better result that way, but we’re lazy and don’t want the extra cleaning up.

It’s worth mentioning that Rosie is a 34″/90cm pellet smoker, with a relatively large hopper. This means that we can confidently load her up with wood pellets before going to bed, knowing that she’ll have more than enough fuel to keep her chugging along until the following morning. You might need to make adjustments if you’re using a different type or size of smoker.

We started off using the Traeger Hickory pellets, but we now buy the Green Mountain Premium Fruitwood Blend from BBQ Aroma in Leichhardt. They’re a slightly more affordable option and they burn well…

If we’re having people over for lunch the following day, we start smoking at 9pm the night before. Rosie is brought to temperature (107°C/225ºF) and the tray is placed in the smoker with an accompanying pie tin of water. It’s then left to do its magic overnight.

The briskets we buy vary from five to six kilos, but trimming reduces that substantially. We’ve found the meat can take anywhere from 12 to 14 hours to smoke (depending on the thickness of the cut), so we need to allow extra time just in case. In addition, the longer the meat rests (within reason), the better the final result!

Once the internal temperature of the meat gets to between 76ºC to 80ºC (169ºF to 176ºF), which is usually about 6am the following morning, I turn the temperature up to 121ºC (250ºF), refill the water tin, and cover the meat with parchment paper.

On that point – Aaron Franklin recommends taking the meat out, wrapping it in butchers paper, and then putting it back in to finish smoking. When we tried that, the temperature of the meat dropped massively and took ages to heat up again. As our brisket is already on a tray,  just covering it with parchment to prevent it from drying out seems to work well for us.

When the internal temperature reaches 93ºC (200°F), we take the meat out. The test for doneness is if you can insert a finger into the brisket without too much difficulty – we use a wooden spoon handle.

Here’s how our last smoke looked just out of Rosie…

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We remove the cooked meat from the tray and wrap it in a double layer of butchers paper, then pop it into a clean esky (insulated cool box) to rest for up to four hours. It probably needs at least two hours resting time.

A note on the wrapping – smoked meats are traditionally wrapped in foil to rest, but recent thinking suggests that the foil causes the meat to steam a little as it cools, resulting in a slightly stewed flavour. Franklin and Raichlen both suggest butchers paper – I didn’t want to pay for the fancy peach coloured paper they recommended, so I sourced a locally made food safe white version on eBay…

And the moment of truth, the slicing! Because of the tray, we don’t get a smoke ring the whole way around, but there is usually a decent pink stripe at the top…

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So…how to serve it? With coleslaw of course – we like to make ours with Chinese cabbage as it’s a little sweeter and gentler on my stomach.

Pete also made an amazing cheese souffle last time, using this dead simple recipe from Kitchn. It will be a house staple from now on…

I made potato salad using Kestrels and dressed it in an excellent honey mustard vinaigrette from Chew Out Loud – this will also be our go-to henceforth.

Now here’s our personal contribution – we served our brisket in…tah-dah!…deepfried DOUGHNUT buns. Brisket doughnut sliders are a thing!

I made a large batch of yeasted sweet dough and once it had proved, shaped it into 50g balls. These were given a second rise before flattening slightly and deepfrying…

Here’s my assorted plate of leftovers. Because there are always leftovers!

And before I forget – a final note on probe thermometers. The Traeger Pro 34 comes with two, which record the internal temperature of the meat as it smokes. The problem though is that the smoker sits on the back deck and the first time we used it for brisket, I found myself getting up three times overnight to check the temps. It was like having a newborn baby!

Our darling friend and neighbour PeteV took pity on us and bought us a Meater Thermometer. It’s the bomb. It bluetooths to our phones and iPads, and the alarm function has saved us on more than one occasion from badly overcooked meat. Brisket is a particularly tough cut, so it needs to be cooked very slowly until well done (93ºC or 200ºF). It’s much easier not to stuff that up when the internal temperature is being electronically tracked…

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We’re still newbies to smoking and barbecues, so if you have any tips, we’d be very grateful for them. And I’d love to hear about your barbecue adventures as well!

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PS. I loved this show about spending 24 hours working at Franklin Barbecue – it’s fun to watch if you have ten minutes spare. I can’t believe folks queue up for six hours!