A full packer brisket smoked at 225 degrees runs about 1.5 to 2 hours per pound, so a 12 pounder could take anywhere from 18 to 24 hours. Bumping temp to 250 shaves that to roughly 1.25 hours per pound. Wrapping in foil cuts around 25% off total time.

Cooked yield sits near 50%, meaning a 10 lb raw brisket gives you about 5 lbs served.

How to Cook a Beef Brisket

What you are ready read, do not come from some computer calculators or converters. Here directly from experiences of folks that cook at home, regular forum members and fans in cooking groups, that genuinely did this.

The beef brisket come from the front part of the cow, especially from the chest muscle. In this muscle there are two main parts: the flat and the point. Usually one finds them together, when one buys whole piece from store.

The muscle itself is tough, because it is full of tough tissues and not well marbled by means of internal fat. What it has are thick deposits of fat, that cover the outside. That is the secret element.

The mix of tough tissues inside and that thick outer cover makes it perfectly fit for low and slow cook: braising, smoking, slow roasting, whatever one calls it.

Here the key cause about the slow cook of beef brisket: one simply breaks all those tough tissues into gelatin. Try eat half done beef brisket, and your jaw quickly will tire, do not matter, how far one cuts it. Mostly because of that beef brisket stay between the cheapest beef pieces.

What however makes it unique are that after hours of cook it becomes fork-soft, but slices cleanly. Want it collapse in fibers? Simply give it more time.

Favour slices, that can be served as neat pieces? Reduce a bit the cook tiem.

The Texan style of smoked beef brisket is not real recipe, more a feeling it is. The best smokers keep the smoker at 225 until 250 degrees. When the beef brisket reach nice state, one wraps it in meat-paper with a bit of beef fat around 180 degrees inside, what surprises.

But wrapping too early with the fat can cause taste of baked roasted pot. The beef brisket should reach at least 170 until 180 degrees inside before even think about wrapping.

Do not own a smoker? Genuinely, no problem. One can cook beef brisket in regular oven or even in slow cooker, if that is what one has.

One mode: lay it in the slow cooker thick side up with can of beer, later cook low during four until six hours. Other method is first sear it, later braise in the oven with onions and garlic until it falls apart. One can also braise it with beef broth at 300 degrees four around two and half hours.

The best part? The leftovers last surprisingly well in freezer.

When dealing about portions, I found, that each pound of raw beef brisket per person is good measure… What gives around quarter pound after cook. For children, a quarter until third pound of raw weight works well.

19-pound Costco beef brisket, that I prepared once, was enough for 30 folks, but warning: it needed wholesday for finish.

Beef brisket also works well for ground beef. Cooked in jar with right spices, it does not taste like simple beef stew, especially if one chooses prime piece.