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What is brisket bark and how do i achieve it?

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Firstly, what is brisket? We regard brisket as the king of meats. Brisket comes from the breast section of the animal, the pectoral muscle. This is a very hard working muscle because a cow doesnt have a collar bone and therefore the weight of the cow rest on this muscle.

Cooked wrong - the Brisket is a tough, undesirable cut of meat, cooked well and this will appeal to every sense. From the crusty bark, the strong flavours, the smoky smell and the colours.

There are many ways to cook brisket, we’ve tried fan oven, slow cooking, sous vide, Pit Barrel, Weber smokey mountain but our favourite by far is in a pellet grill smoker.

Pellet grills often run a lot cooler than other types of smoker but the cook looks like this:

  • Season the brisket with a bark enhancing rub - we developed the SmokeWolfe beef for this purpose. The brisket can then be placed straight into the smoker. The smoker is set to 80C
  • Smoke the brisket for approx 13 hours - we go by internal temperature until the brisket hits 75C. (this point is also known as ‘the stall’ whereby the 
  • At this stage - the brisket is taken off the smoker and wrapped in unwaxed butchers paper - this is crucial for a good ‘bark’ or ‘crust’, in my early days of cooking brisket - i used foil because this sped up the cooking process - unfortunately this can also destroy the crust because of the buildup of steam within the foil. A good butchers paper allows the brisket to breath and build up a layer of crust - aka the ‘bark’.
  • The smoker temperature is raised to 105C and the brisket is cooked until the internal temperature hits 95C. 
  • At this point the brisket is removed from the smoker and allowed to rest - we like to rest it for at least 2 hours wrapped in butchers paper, which is wrapped in a towel and placed in an insulated container.

 

Two things which are most likely to ruin the bark are - wrapping in a non breathable material, or cooking too hot which generates more steam.

There is no escape from the fact that a brisket needs low and slow cooking for the best results.