I don’t know about you but I’m happy to see that grilling season is finally here! We get to enjoy that distinctive flavor of all sorts of foods that come off a grill. You just can’t beat it. People cook most every kind of meat and/or vegetable that there is. I’m going to share with you my way of smoking a brisket.

Smoking a brisket can be very intimidating to a lot of us …..temperature control, many hours of checking that things are going well, etc. I like to think that the main goal of smoking is the smoke flavor. It’s very easy to leave a brisket on a grill for the smoke and end up with it being way over cooked. There’s that temperature control problem. Perhaps separating the smoking from the cooking would be helpful.

SMOKING

I use a kettle type grill but you can use any type you like. I’ll line the bottom side of the grill with char-coal. Lay the briquets three wide with two wide on top of those. Put whatever kind of wood you smoke with on top of that. This will end up being a “snake” type layout for your char-coal. Go a little over half- way around the bottom. Put some char-coal in your char-coal chimney, not even half way up will suffice, and light it!

Once the char-coal in the chimney is ready, pour the hot coals at one end of the “snake”. This will get the “snake” going. There will be enough fuel to last three hours or more. Plenty of time to get that smoke flavor and bark on the brisket. Be sure and set your vent on the bottom about a quarter open and the vent on top the same. Put the brisket on the part of the grill away from direct heat from the coals and put the lid on the grill with the upper vent over the meat. This will pull all that smoke right around the brisket. You can literally walk away from it at this time. Let it smoke for about three hours and you’re ready to finish the cooking part!

COOKING

I like to finish up using a crock-pot. Unless you have a really big crock-pot you’ll have to trim and divide the brisket. The point part and the slab part, etc.

The point part should fit as is but you may have to cut the slab in two in order for it to fit. One piece at a time. Put two or three small glass bowls in the bottom of the crock-pot to keep the meat dry. You need to put about a quarter inch of water in the bottom of the pot to keep things moist. The brisket just lays on top of those small bowls to keep it out of the water. Set the temperature low and let it cook about eight hours. The brisket will be fully cooked, moist and smoked! This way is so much more simple and easy compared to twelve or thirteen hours of watching and fretting over the grill!

I hope you try this method and find it preferable. Of course there are many ways to prepare the brisket for smoking. I’m not going to go into that on this blog but there are many sites on the net that can help you with that. Start smoking!!!!!