Sunday.
A very long day, but full of productive and exciting actions.
The day really started the day before as I was the chef d’affairs on a Texas brisket project. Do you know what a Texas Brisket is?
My first taste of this delectable meat specialty was in Austin, Texas at Terry Black’s Barbeque on Barton Springs Road. I was definitely impressed by this experience. This being a typical barbeque joint, from what I understand, consisted of cafeteria style service with the pièce de résistance at the end of the line along with the cash register. There were choices of meats, but when I was there for the first time I had to have the specialty of the house, the brisket.
After loading the paper plate with whatever veg you want and ordering your cut-to-order meat, and walking to the table you pass self-serve condiments in plastic pouches, plastic ware, and white bread by the loaf. With a good piece of meat you shouldn’t need to add flavor. I feel that it’s disrespectful to the animal that gave its’ life for my nourishment and to the chef who literally sweated over the beef. I gather that the paper and plastic are also de rigeur.
So, I understand that Texas Brisket is a tradition and a religion down there in the oversized state and the place that is most famous for its brisket and barbeque in general is Lockhart, Texas just outside of Austin. I first heard of Lockhart and it’s barbeque from my cousin Nini who was there at the age of twelve, 74 years ago! Her memory of the initiation is vivid! Nini has an elephant’s memory and the description of her first brisket experience is emotionally charged with detail and we are regaled with the descriptions of flavor and tender beef. Thus yesterday we had a high bar to equal or exceed.
A Texas style Brisket is a labor of love and dedication. It starts with a USDA Prime brisket. It has to be USDA Prime which means that it is well marbeled with fat. The next item is that the beef needs to be aged at least 30 days. This allows the enzymes in the meat to tenderize the tough bits. Brisket is the pectoral muscle of the steer, thus they are tough cuts. But fatty.
After the aging comes the preparation for cooking. Firstly the meat is injected with a broth, preferably a home-made salty broth made from big beef bones. The meat then sets for 24 hours for more tenderizing from the broth and the salt.
The brisket can be butchered into smaller cuts, but the whole thing is called a “packer” and weighs up to 16 pounds going from thick to a thin end. My son picked one up and slung it on his shoulder and started to burp it, and he named It Billy. The full packer is truly a hunk of meat, I called it “The Beast”.
So I prepared Billy The Beast per the best recommendations I could find, mostly found on www.amazingribs.com. That site is a huge resource about all things barbequing and is a testament to advertising and great content.
I started Billy The Beast at 10:00 PM Saturday night. By 1:00 AM I had the temp thing down. You see, this is a very slow cook thing. I was aiming for 225°. My geriatric Weber grill is suffering from not only age, but trauma. It has been blown off our deck twice so the top vent is problematic and the bottom vent is tired, so maintaining an even draft and thus an even temperature is an exercise in many ways. So at 1:00 I finally had the draft vs temp thing down and was thinking about bed…..I was ready to be horizontal. As soon as I fell asleep, it was 3:00 AM and I staggered downstairs and outside to check on things. After looking after and feeding the barbeque, checking the stats etc, I staggered back to bed around 4:30 to sneak in a few more winks.
Up at 7:15 with more adjustments and monitoring. If the dog-gon temperature gets too high, the meat will cook too quickly and will then be dry and tough.
I was just relaxing and feeling confident when Nini arrived at 9:30 with reinforcements of more hickory chips and tin foil, and more importantly a conviction and drive to excel based on a 74 year old memory…….oh Lord, give me strength! I really was trying to do it right, I promise!
Billy The Beast was now at what’s called “the Stall”, a point where it seems that the beef will never get any warmer inside and you feel like opening all the vents to get some progress on the internal temperature thing. Of course, this is the worst thing you could do. So like the proverbial Job, you take action to put up with this inaction. In this case I wrapped Billy the Beast in “extra heavy duty” tin foil with a little broth, stuck him back in the barbeque, and then walked away, with one eye nevertheless stuck on the thermometers.
When the internal temperature finally reached the holy grail of 203° at 4:00 PM we were almost done. Off the fire and time to rest the exhausted brisket in a cooler to keep it hot (what’s wrong with that picture?).
Two hours later we feasted. Yes, Billy The Beast had been tamed, soothed, and tenderized…..not to mention moisturized! And most importantly, Nini was satisfied……
