You can cook THIS brisket!

Brisket is one of the most feared cooks in BBQ. Sadly (and undeservedly), it’s been blown up into an ominous, temperamental monster, spreading fear and worry throughout the lands. This is due in large part to the widespread proliferation of myths, wive’s tales, and all manner of nonsense, leading to a tremendous over-complication of what truly is a very simple and intuitive process. In this article, my intention is to shed light on several of the most prominent myths associated with brisket in hopes of helping people become more effective and confident BBQ'rs. There are many ways to cook a great smoked brisket. But this is my step-by-step, myth-free guide, guaranteed to cook a great brisket on the Ninja Woodfire every time! NOTE: This workflow has activities described specifically for Briskets on the Ninja Woodfire. But the science and procedure applies equally to other cuts like Chuck Roasts and Tri-Tip. As well as working with other traditional smokers and grills. 1: CHOOSE WELL! One of the most important components of a truly successful brisket cook happens before you even get home from the store. Choosing well is so often completely overlooked. But it's one of the primary factors that make the difference between a good cooked result and a great cooked result. ESPECIALLY on the Ninja Woodfire! I tell people this all the time: “Unless you inject, the only moisture in a cooked brisket (or any piece of meat, for that matter) is in it when you buy it, in the form of intramuscular fat (marbling).

Notice how the brisket on top has significant white flecks and striations (marbling) throughout the end cut? And the one on the bottom has nearly none? The top one is what you're looking for!

So, you want to find the most well-marbled specimen you can find in your desired size range. If you’ve done this step well, The battle is already halfway won! 2. TRIM and SEASON - Trim There are two goals in trimming a brisket. The first is the THICKNESS of external fat. Briskets have a ”meat side“ and  a “fat side.” On the fat side, you want the fat to be no more than about 1/4” thick overall. And you want any areas of hard, dense fat trimmed off completely.

Most Woodfire-sized briskets have been fairly aggressively trimmed by the butcher and don’t typically have a great deal of fat on them. So this shouldn’t take more than 3-5 minutes, if even that. The second goal of trimming is SHAPE. An optimal smoked brisket is all about airflow. You want as much uninterrupted airflow on all sides of the brisket as possible. So cut away any significant protruding bits that would cause turbulence or impede flow.

Some people argue that you will remove a quantity of viable meat doing this. And they would be correct. But your goal with this is the volume of viable COOKED product. Often times, these small, dangly bits are thin and will char off to nothing anyway and may contribute (if even slightly) to a less-than-optimal overall end Product. - Rubs and Binders This is an area full of myths and misconceptions (or what I call “mythunderstandings.”) First: From the perspective of holding on to a dry rub, there is ZERO need for “binders.” The native surface moisture of a piece of meat removed from refrigeration and set out for 10-15 minutes is MORE THAN SUFFICIENT to "bind" a dry rub. You DO NOT need mustard, oils, mayonnaise, water, or whatever—not at least for the purpose of adhering a dry rub. My pictures show that the brisket is having no trouble holding on to that dry rub.

There is an exception for mustard (pickle juice or other vinegar-heavy substances), but it has to be left on long enough. A few hours to fully overnight. During this time, the vinegar purportedly helps to loosen up the muscle fibers. This (similar to dry-brining) COULD BE beneficial in tendering up small, overly-lean grocery store flats. - Rub Volume Many people under or misapply their rub. You want just enough so that it's completely covered. Enough that you can still see meat, but don’t see large open fields of bare meat. And in the case of brisket, you want rub on ALL sides and surfaces (but NOT in any deep crevices, as it will tend to cake up) And despite the name, you don’t “rub” it in, you pat it in. I usually apply 2-3 lighter coats, patting each one in to secure it before the next. After the rub is complete, I finish all my briskets with a VERY light dusting of light brown sugar.

Applying the finishing brown sugar dusting...

When you’ve finished trimming and seasoning, place the brisket on a small baking rack and place it back in the refrigerator until it’s time to put it into the cooker. SCIENCE TIP! Smoke is attracted to cooler surfaces. So if you're looking for lighter bark or less pronounced smoke effect, leave the meat out while you start your pellets/fire. I tend to get mine on the cooker somewhere between 47-52ºF (8-12ºC). 3. WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S... SMOKE. Fill your pellet hopper completely, set your target temperature and cooking time, then press START. Pellet ignition will begin automatically. There is NO NEED to press the woodfire button at the start of a cook in smoke mode. I set my cook time to something I know it won't get to (the max of 12 hours is always a safe bet!), so I know there is no risk of it powering off before the cook is complete     - What cook temperature to choose? Due to its small size and convected heat, the Woodfire cooks more aggressively than a traditional smoker. So, if 250ºF (120ºC) is your target, I’d suggest 230-240 (110-115ºC). Additionally, in smoke mode, the Woodfire tends to run approximately 20º higher than you set it. So take off another 20º, making your cook temperature target 210-220ºF (99-104ºC). 3b. Smoke quality or “clean-up.” This is really the only truly challenging part of cooking on the Woodfire. And you’ll probably get it wrong a few times before you learn what to look for. Depending on which pellet you’re using (and weather conditions), you should begin seeing smoke from the rear exhaust within about 5 minutes. By 7-10 minutes you should be seeing thick white smoke. This is what’s called ”dirty smoke." You do NOT want to expose your food to this.  Set yourself a 10-minute timer. After ten minutes, one of two things SHOULD be happening:

This image shows the difference between dirty smoke (left) and clean smoke (right). Notice the difference in transparency?

A. The smoke will still be coming from the rear exhaust, but it should be looking noticeably more transparent. This is what you want to be happening. If it is, it’s time to put your brisket on, and you can skip to Step 4. If it’s still looking thick and cloudy, check back about every 5 minutes until it does look clearer. DON’T WORRY! Sometimes (based on pellet choice and WEATHER), it can take 30 minutes or so to clean up B. You see nearly no smoke at all. This means that your pellets didn’t successfully ignite. Hold the Woodfire button down for several seconds until the flame icon begins flashing or you hear the ignition click back on. At this time, you’ll be back at the start of step 3b. and will repeat the process.

4. TIME TO COOK Let's put the brisket on the cooker! Remove it from the refrigerator and put it AND the rack into the Woodfire. The rack ensures smoke exposure to all sides of the brisket. Insert your temperature probe into the thickest part of the leanest part of the brisket. You want to be sure your probe isn't in a fatty area, as the fat will show inaccurately high readings. We’ll discuss this more in a later step...

Notice the rack used to elevate the brisket, and the probe placement. It's in the thickest part of the LEANEST part of the meat, not just the thickest part overall.

On the Woodfire FAT SIDE GOES UP! Why? Because the #1 job of external fat on a brisket is heat shield. On the Ninja Woodfire, heat comes from ABOVE in all modes except Grill. So you need to be cooking fat side UP. Any time someone asks, “Does the fat side go up or down?” you see about 17,364 replies. With about a 50/50 split of people who say it’s ALWAYS one way or the other. Guess what? They’re BOTH wrong. It’s not always one way or the other. The FAT UP camp says, “Fat goes up, so the fat renders down through the meat.”  This is a scientific impossibility. For two reasons: First, the pores of the meat are too small for fat to migrate down through it. Second (and more importantly), water is being pushed out of the meat during cooking. And as we all know, oil (fat) and water don’t mix. And that lighter fat ain’t swimmin’ upstream. I’ve never really heard specifically on what the FAT DOWN camp bases their claim. But of the two camps, they are the more correct. WHY? Because about 70% of smokers and grills get their primary heat from below. Heat from below is usually more intense than heat from above. So, if you don’t know for sure where the primary heat is coming from, you minimize your risks of failure by running fat side down. 5. BABY, LET'S CRUISE! (mostly) For about the next two hours, you really don’t need to do much of anything.  You should open up and check on things about every hour. If the brisket's surface looks remarkably dry at any time, give it a spritz. If not, just leave it alone! What you spritz with doesn't really matter. Everyone has what they feel works best for them. And about anything will. Apple cider vinegar (or “ACV”) water, beer, fruit juice, worcestershire, wine, cola, or pretty much any combination of these are common. Most of it has no effect on the meat other than dampening the surface. Only in the cases of the stronger or more sugary liquids (and even then only slightly) will it have any noticeable effect on the flavor or texture of your cooked product. 6. HEY, BARTENDER! CAN I GET A REFILL? After about 60-90 minutes, the pellets will have burned up, and there will be little to no smoke coming from the cooker. Like many Ninja users, I’m a firm believer in the idea that a single hopper fill provides adequate smoke presence on the Woodfire. The brisket cooked (and pictured) in this article was indeed a single fill, (Red+White Oak Blend) with about a 30-minute clean-up wait. 7. LET’S WRAP! Maybe. Or not... Once your brisket reaches an internal temperature (IT) of about 150ºF (65ºC), it’s time to have a look and decide whether or not to wrap.  But first, let’s make a quick confirmation of our internal temperature to make sure our temperature probe isn’t in a fat pocket. If we were in a fat pocket originally, the fat will show a higher temperature than the meat, and we’ll need to give it more time before moving on. Remove your temperature probe. and move it over an inch or two, and at another angle. Do this in a couple of places on both sides of your original location. if all three places read within a few of degrees of each other, we’re good to continue. If it reads more than 8-10 degrees lower than 150º (65ºC), put it back into where it read the lowest, and let it continue cooking until it gets back to 150º (65ºC). By the time we’ve reached between 150º and 160º (65-71ºC), the Woodfire’s smoke effect is finished.  And it’s just a matter of how you like your bark and how much of a hurry you may be in to finish. I typically wrap simply because, at that point, it’s on autopilot, and I can go about the rest of my day as it finishes. Wrapping is largely a matter of personal preference. There are three common options: wrap in foil (softer bark), wrap in butcher paper (tackier bark), or don’t wrap at all (firmer bark). There are other reasons, as well as pros and cons, for how you choose to wrap (or not to), but that's a topic for a different conversation. I simply find butcher paper to be the most effective choice for my tastes. SIDE NOTE: NO. Due to it's more heat-conductive capacity, I do not consider parchment paper a good option for this use. Roll out approximately 36” (91CM), about as far as your full outstreched arm, of paper and lay it on a clean, flat surface. Using your spritz, dampen the paper generously (but not to the point of saturation) anywhere it will directly contact the brisket. This will make the paper pliable and prevent it from absorbing so much of the meat's native surface moisture.

Remove your temperature probe and set it aside. Take the brisket from the cooker, and place it, fat-side-up, cross-wise (left to right) on the paper a little more than its width from the edge of the paper nearest you. Fold that front edge forward over onto the brisket. Then fold the extra paper on the left and right sides over onto the brisket. Creasing them down the length of the paper. Now flip the brisket away from you, toward the far end of the paper (it will be fat-side-down now). Flip it once more, so it’s now back to fat side up. Lift the front edge of the brisket, and fold the remaining paper back toward you, and under the now fully-wrapped brisket.

Now, replace your temperature probe (yes, you have to punch it through the paper). Keep in mind the temperature it read before you removed it. 8. THE HEAT IS... ON! Now, we put the brisket back into the woodfire. At this point, if you want to speed the cook a bit, you can turn up the heat 30-50º. Or you can just leave it as it was. It just depends on how soon you want/need it to be finished. For this one, however, I just left it at the 210-220ºF (99-104ºC) it was originally and let it do it's thing. - I have seen no measurable benefit to switching to other modes for this part of the cook. NOTE: at some point in the cook, usually somewhere between 160º and 190ºF (71-88ºC), your brisket will go into what’s called “the stall.” this is when the internal temperature stops climbing (and may even drop a couple of degrees) due to evaporative cooling. This is perfectly natural and happens in all brisket cooks. Some people will turn up the heat to help push through it. But, personally, I find it wiser to just leave it alone, to minimize the possibility of drying things out.

9. TIME TO CRUISE! (again) It will be pretty easy again for the next couple of hours. So you can go about your day until the internal temperature gets closer to 200º (93ºC), and we start checking for doneness. 10. ARE WE THERE YET? Like most meats, brisket is not a “time and temp” cook. It‘s done when it’s done. For PLANNING purposes, I use an hour and a half per trimmed pound. That can be generous. But it‘s FAR easier to hold a finished brisket for a prolonged time than it is to rush one to finish. So how do you KNOW when it’s done? The most common way to judge a brisket‘s doneness is by “resistance probing.” This is done by inserting a temperature probe (an instant-read thermometer is the most practical tool for this. but you can also use a metal skewer or ice pick) and judging the resistance you feel from the meat. What you’re looking for is for it to feel like room-temperature butter. This can happen at a range of temperatures. I‘ve seen it happen as low as 197ºF (91ºC) and as high as 213ºF (100ºC). Both of those are extremes, so generally, I start resistance probing once it reaches an internal temperature of 200ºF (93ºC). Most briskets will be “done” between 203ºF and 210ºF (95-99ºC). The cook is complete once you get that “room temperature butter” feel. 11. TIME FOR A REST! Ah, brisket rests. Probably THE most misunderstood and needlessly over-complicated step in all of BBQ! Nearly every YouTube video and social media post you‘ll see, has people swaddling their briskets in towels and stashing them away in coolers, cambros, and insulated bags for 4, 6, 8 hours, or more. In most cases, this is TOTALLY unnecessary. All that needs to be done to successfully rest a brisket is to remove it from the cooker and give it time to cool down naturally to an internal temperature of about 140ºF (60ºC). THAT'S IT. And simply sitting on the kitchen counter will do just fine! Or in a cool oven (if you have curious family or crafty pets nearby). For common Woodfire briskets, a sufficient rest will take between 45 minutes and a couple of hours, depending on size.

This is what my typical brisket rests look like. Still wrapped, just sitting on the cutting board. This 5lb brisket took about 2.5 hours to cool to 140ºF (60ºC).

The only reason you’d need (and only real benefit of) towels for your rest would be if your brisket was finished several hours before serving time, and you needed to hold it at safe temperatures until then. I suspect that this myth may have gotten roots when people saw BBQ joints and caterers pulling briskets out of coolers wrapped in towels. so they just assumed that was a crucial part of the process rather than just a way to keep them warm for several hours. 12. CUTTIN’ UP! All that’s left is slicing and serving! Remember to slice ACROSS, not with the grain. This alone can make or break the texture experience.

A few slicing tips: 1. It can be difficult to see the grain on smaller briskets after they're cooked. So if you insert a toothpick shallowly along the grain before it goes on the cooker, you'll have a clear indicator once it's cooked.

2. If you have a larger (usually 5lb+) "floint" (what I call a brisket that has some flat muscle and some point muscle) like the one in this article, or even a larger "full packer" brisket, the grain changes direction as the flat meets the point. there are two ways to address this. You can either cut the brisket in half, to begin with, about where you think the two muscles meet. Or, as you slice from the flat end, as you notice a second muscle present (they will be divided by a layer of fat), decide at what point there is more of the second muscle than the first, and rotate your slicing 45-90º to accommodate the change in grain direction

This is an approximation of how this brisket was sliced. Always across the grain. Thinner (green lines) slices in the leaner flat. Getting slightly thicker (yellow lines) as you get toward the point. Then once you begin seeing more of the point muscle, rotate your slicing (red lines) relative to the different grain direction, and make yet thicker slices.

3. Slice with the fat side UP, to give you a firmer base, and the brisket won't rock under the pressure of the knife.

13. CONGRATULATIONS! You're done! Sit back and enjoy all the compliments.

--------- end This blog post was originally intended to be a video. However, due to a vehicle accident at a nearby intersection, the electric company had to cut power to the area for about a half hour so that the passengers could be removed from the vehicle. This wasn't really a problem for the cook itself, but it "wrecked" the continuity of my video, so I decided that rather than just scrap the whole effort, I'd turn it into a blog post!

Maybe one day, i'll get that video done ; ) - W