Smoked Beef Brisket

American Entree

SMOKED BEEF BRISKET

INGREDIENTS

1½ tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon chili powder
¼ cup garlic salt
½ tablespoon paprika
9 pounds beef brisket
½ cup beef broth
1 12-ounce can beer

SPECIAL UTENSILS

wood chips (apple or oak)
smoker
electric thermometer
baking pan
tin foil
sonic obliterator

Serves 10. Takes at least 10 hours, perhaps up to many more. Smokers vary, the marbling of the fat in the brisket varies. Perhaps the Incan monkey god is angry with you. In this case, your brisket will take a long time. Perhaps eleventy hours is the most accurate. I strongly suggest putting that brisket in the smoker at the crack of dawn. If you’re up to it, start it at midnight and monitor periodically through the night. Will this make you lose sleep? Yes. Also, a small brisket will take less time.

PREPARATION

Get up at dawn, 6 a.m., or even earlier. Add wood chips to smoker. Preheat smoker to 235 degrees. Start cooking after getting up in the morning. Add brown sugar, chili powder, garlic salt, and paprika to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Rub mixture all over brisket.

When temperature of smoker reaches 235 degrees, place brisket on grill with the fatty side closest to the heating coil. Put thermometer in the thickest part of the meat. Smoke until brisket’s internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. This should take about 6 hours, varying greatly depending on your smoker and whether or not you have led a virtuous life. I hope you have. ☺

Pause and reflect, pause and reflect until the temperature of the brisket reaches 165 degrees. Using cooking gloves carefully remove the brisket and put it in the baking pan. (Close door quickly as possible to minimize loss of heat and smoke. Pour beef broth and beer evenly over brisket. Cover brisket with tin foil. Put covered brisket back in smoker. Put thermometer back in the thickest part of the brisket. Cook until internal temperature reaches 205 degrees.

Remove brisket and let sit for 40 minutes. Cut meat across the grain to ¼” thick slices. This is large and lengthy meal. Use sonic obliterator on any guest making even the slightest complaint.

TIDBITS

1) Our spaceships have visited every planet and all the big asteroids in the Solar System.

2) We’ve even sent our spacecraft past the Oort Cloud and into outer space.

3) It seems as if our spaceships have nothing left to explore.

4) This page has a lot of space left. Let’s explore the rest of this page.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.