A beef brisket flat, about 2.5 pounds, with heavy rub, before (above) and after (below) cooking. Click here for a recipe for cooking beef brisket.
Briners beware of
double salt jeopardy!
Rubs are a great way to add flavor to meat. Brines are also a great way to add flavor as well as moisture. Rubs often contain a lot of salt. You can use both a rub and a brine, but beware of double salt jeopardy. If you use brines a lot, you should make your own rubs and leave the salt out of your rub mixes. It can make the meat unbearably salty. Remember, you can always add salt, but there's no taking it away.
In Texas many barbecue joints use just plain old salt and pepper, called Dalmatian rub. But beef brisket can handle, and benefits from, a more potent mix. The rub creates a rich, flavorful, crunchy crust, called the bark or Mrs. Brown.
Beef rub is different than pork rub. Pork loves sweetness, but beef does not. The best rib rubs have sugar in them, like Meathead's Magic Dust. In addition, a brisket rub needs to be more aggressive than a rib rub because the meat is much thicker.
You can make this recipe days or weeks in advance. It makes more than you need for even a large brisket, so you can just put it in a jar or zipper bag for the next brisket. It's also great on chicken or pork.
Makes. About half a cup Preparation time. About 10 minutes
Ingredients
2 tablespoons table salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
2 teaspoons chili or ancho powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon cayenne or chipotle powder
2 teaspoons mustard powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
Do this 1) Mix the ingredients together in a bowl.
2) Lightly oil the meat with vegetable oil. Many of the flavors in the rub are oil soluble and the oil helps penetrate the meat. So does the salt, so don't leave it out. Spread the rub generously on beef brisket, not so thick on other, thinner cuts. You can apply it just before cooking or let it marinate on the meet overnight. Heck, I've left meat sit under this stuff for days. Fact is it doesn't penetrate a lot, but every little bit helps.
AmazingRibs.com is all about the Zen of Barbecue, cooking ribs, and all kinds of BBQ recipes and techniques: Baby back ribs, spare ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, chicken, turkey, steak, lamb, barbecue sauces, rubs, side dishes, with the net's best buying guide to barbecue smokers and cookers.
About links on this site. The links within the tan areas at the top and right of these pages are paid ads. Within the white, editorial content areas on this site, links and recommendations are absolutely positively not advertisements or paid endorsements. They are products, services, and websites I admire. Your suggestions are always welcome. Click here to send them to me. If you would like me to link to your website, click here to read my links policy first. Most product photographs are provided by the manufacturer, all the rest a made by Meathead.
Copyright (c) 2008 by Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn. Unless noted, all text, photos, and recipes are fully protected by US copyright law. This means you need my written permission to publish or distribute anything on this website. But I'm easy. To get reprint rights, click here.
My Privacy Promise.I promise to never sell or distribute any info about you individually without your express permission, and I promise not to, ahem, pepper you with email or make you eat spam. Click here for more about my privacy promise.
New tips and recipes: Get "Smoke Signals," Meathead's free eletter. No spam. Guaranteed.
If you have a Weber grill, you need the amazing Smokenator. It really works! List is $55, but it's less at Amazon.com.
