I haven’t made beef brisket for a long time (have usually done pork shoulder, which so easy), so wanted to give it another try. Andrea picked up a nice 4 lb. piece of brisket from Bryan’s Market and made the coffee rub based on a recipe from the Wall Street Journal that has worked for us great in the past.

I had the BGE at 250 F, indirect heat, with a pan of water below the grate. Temp on the brisket seemed to rise more quickly than I expected, but adjusting the temperature probe seemed to show that it still had a bit of a ways to go. Once it reached 170F, I wrapped it in foil. This step (aka the Texas crutch) wasn’t in the original WSH recipe, but I did see this in several on the recipes online and is what I normally do with pork shoulder. The WSJ recipe said take it to 185F, but again online I saw many that said 190F+ up to 205, so I went to just under 200F (although I normally go to 205F with pork shoulder). I then took it off the heat and wrapped the foil wrapped brisket in towels to rest for an hours plus.

The brisket came out moist enough, but not as tender as I would have hoped for. Will definitely need to take it to 205F next time.