Cherry-smoked brisket with Brook's Java Rub

[TasunkaWitko]

These are excerpts from a post I made a couple of years ago (almost to the day) on another forum. They will outline the recipes for the rub and sauce, the procedure that I used and my results. Photos are at the end.

This stuff really turned out well, and I highly recommend it.

Cherry-smoked brisket with Brook's Java Rub

Alrighty - it's brisket time here at the hacienda; I've got a 12.5x-pound hunk of beefy wonder that is going to experience several hours of sweet cherry smoke, but first I need to do a little prep work with it.

First, I'll trim the fat cap down to 1/4 inch, then slather it with a mixture of Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Then, I'm going to give the brisket a generous application of a rub shared by my friend, Brook:

Java Rub

6 tbls finely ground coffee
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbls sea salt
2 tbls brown sugar or powdered honey
2 tbls Hungarian sweet paprika
2 tsp garlic granules
2 tsp black peppercorns*
2 heaping tsp coriander seed*
2 heaping tsp cumin seed*

*Toasted and ground

I made this rub just a moment ago, with a couple of slight variations due to what I have on hand:

Turbinado sugar (in the raw) in place of brown sugar)
Kosher salt in place of sea salt.

The coffee I used is absolutely awesome: Gevalia traditional roast ground coffee from Sweden, the land of my ancestors. Since this is going on a beef brisket, I took some advice that Brook gave to me and added a little heat in the form of 2 tablespoons of decent, well-balanced (but not HOT) chili powder.

This rub smells and tastes amazing - I'm looking forward to seeing how it works with the brisket and cherrywood smoke. Brook also shared a coffee-based barbecue sauce recipe that I will probably try with this brisket; if I make it, I'll pass along the details.

More to come.....

...halfway through - but it's looking good!

We threw it on at about 10pm last night. Temp control was spotty at first, as the offset found her wings ~ but once she did, she began to run beautifully, a testament to the outstanding and easy modifications that she's been subjected to. Throughout the night, she's held steady between 245 and 255, right where I like her to be.

Most impressive has been the charcoal consumption; if she starts to fall below 245, we simply push over 6 briquettes of Kingsford that have been pre-heating on the "far" side of the charcoal basket, along with a small chunk of cherry that has also been re-heating. Of course, we also add six more new briquettes and a chunk o'cherry back to the far side, so that they can pre-heat for a clean, efficient burn. Then we simply close the lid and watch the temps start to go right back up into range.

Those who are familiar with offsets might be interested in this factoid: When I fired up the pit last night, I used 3/4 of a "regular"-sized chimney (not the big Weber style) of charcoal; when I put the meat to the heat, the 15.7-pound bag was 3/4 full. Now, there's still a quarter of the bag left. Not bad at all, considering it's been 9.5 hours. These mods work, and work pretty well!

More to come - I took a couple of photos when I put the meat on, and about at the 9-hour mark. Will post when I can....

Alright, we're moving along ~ I did go ahead and make the coffee-based barbecue sauce mentioned in my opening post. Brook says that it's based on his mother's recipe and therefore goes back to at least the 1950s, long before coffee was the "hot, new trend" in barbecue. Here's the recipe:

>>>In a pot, over medium heat, combine:

1/3 cup of strong, black coffee
1/3 cup of ketchup
1/4 cup Worcestershire
4 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons molasses
A healthy squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
Several glugs of hot sauce or to taste.

Simmer for 30 minutes until thickened.

Caution: This can go from too-thin to too-thick in a heartbeat. So monitor it closely as the time clicks by. If it becomes too thick (keep in mind, like many sauces, it gets thicker as it cools) thin it out with additional coffee and/or ketchup.<<<

Tasting this sauce as it simmers, i like it a lot! Brook cautioned that this sauce might be more suited to poultry and "too sweet" for beef, but it seems fine to me. The molasses I used was blackstrap molasses, which is much less sweet than regular molasses - so perhaps that made a difference.

The only change I made to the recipe above was due to the fact that I have no Frank's original hot sauce, which I usually use because it has all of the flavour with none of the heat. The "mildest" hot sauce I have at the moment is Tabasco, which might possibly kill my wife, so I substituted with a generous teaspoon of chili powder.

So far, I think things are on schedule - more to come!

Alrighty, at 430 pm, after 18.5 hours, we removed the brisky from the heat, double-wrapped it in heavy duty foil, double-wrapped it further in two towels, and dropped it into a cooler to rest for at least 1.5 hours.

The brisket looks incredible, and the small piece that "fell off" (with a little help from yours truly) tasted really, really good. It is great to see that after three "brisket-less" years, I can still barbecue one; indeed, this could be my best brisket to date!

Plain, ol' potato salad - using our family recipe and home-canned dill pickles - will be served on the side, with iced tea and lemonade for refreshment and carrot cake for dessert. If I think about it, I'll get a picture ~

Bottom line: I know these bad boys are getting expensive, but do yourself a favour and enjoy one, before summer is over!

Well, after 2.5 hours of resting in foil/towels/cooler, it was time to serve our eagerly-awaited supper. One note of correction to my previous post: our potato salad was NOT my wife's time-honoured method; rather, it was my oldest son's interpretation of my wife's way of making potato salad. It was quite good, but the photos will look different from my wife's potato salad.

Anyway, the first thing I did was to open up the brisket and separate the point from the flat; this is easily done along a very clear separation between the two different muscle groups that make up a whole, "packer cut" brisket, and a properly-cooked brisket should almost come apart on its own along these lines. I then commenced with slicing (the flat) and dicing (the point).

The flat sliced very nicely; thanks to a sharper-than-usual knife and the fact that I was fortunate enough to do a very good job at barbecuing this brisket' I am also convinced that proper resting contributes to success in slicing as well. I sliced it as thinly as my limited skills allow and was pleased to see that it was tender and juicy, with a great bark and an adequate smoke ring that could have been better - a goal to shoot for next time. I couldn't resist snatching a couple of pieces off the end and really enjoyed the way that the rub-encrusted bark worked with the beef - very nice!

Once the flat was sliced and set aside, I turned my attention to the point (also called the deckle). If I would have been thinking, I would have converted this into "burnt ends," but no worries; instead, I sliced it into cubes and served them "naked," so that my diners could choose a sauce (or not, as they pleased). The point is of course usually more "fatty" than the flat, so it could have stood to cook a little longer in order to render some of this out (hence the reason that the point is usually made into burnt ends); however, mine was rendered pretty well, and the cubes served as a good, hearty foil to the delicate slices from the flat.

Finally, I plated generous amounts of sliced flat, diced point and sloppy (yet delicious) potato salad and served supper to my famished family, along with iced tea and lemonade for beverages. As I mentioned above, I left the choice of sauce to the folks who were eating; for myself, I drizzled my brisket with my preparation of Brook's coffee-based sauce and really enjoyed it. It had an intriguing, piquant quality that in my opinion went very well with the beef flavour and the rub/bark. I know that Brook expressed concern that the sauce might be a little sweet for beef, but I must disagree; rather, I found it to serve nicely in balance with the other flavours that were part of the whole, with the robust coffee profile providing a solid, earthy foundation that tied meat and sauce together. Perhaps it is a result of my slightly-different preparation of his recipe, but it worked very well for me, and I recommend it whole-heartedly.

All-in-all, this was easily my most successful brisket yet, and the only brisket I've made that has turned out almost flawlessly. Fork-tender, bursting with juiciness and mouth-wateringly delicious in every way, with an incredibly-delightful kiss of smoke from the cherry wood, I have absolutely no complaints about it. If every brisket that I barbecue from now on turns out this good, I will be happy; however, I hope that I can exceed this effort and do an even better job in the future.

Here's the rub, after mixing all of the components together:

As you can see, there are a lot of nice things going on here!

For this brisket, I applied a Worcestershire-and-mustard slather prior to the rub that worked really well:

It's almost as if the combination was made for beef!

Here's the brisket, all ready to go; after taking this photo, I wrapped it in saran wrap and put it in the fridge for a few hours in order to give the slather and rub time to get acquainted with the beef:

Here's a shot right after I put the brisket to the heat:

At first, I put it fat-cap up, but then immediately flipped it so that the fat-cap could be on the bottom in order to protect the meat from the heat a bit. As a result, I hash-marked it a bit, but no worries.


Here is the brisket after about 9 hours over sweet cherry smoke:

And here's the finished brisket, which I pulled from the heat right at 188-190 degrees internal temperature; after taking this photo, the brisket got swaddled in foil for a nice resting period:

Separating the flat from the point after resting:

These slices might be just a bit thick, but it had been quite a while since I had barbecued a brisket, and it took me a few minutes to get myself back in the saddle. The good news is that thickness wasn't really an issue anyway; this brisket turned out so tender that it was all good - juicy, flavourful and just right:

How about that smoke ring? Things really came together well for this brisket, and I found myself very impressed with it before I even tried it!

Some more slices here - a bit thinner once I got the hang of it:

No burnt ends this time around, due to the already- long, long cook and the fact that I wanted to get an honest evaluation of the Java Sauce; instead, I simply piled the platters high with a mix of wonderfully-tender slices from the flat and cubes from the point:

And here we are, plated alongside some potato salad that was also pretty darn good:

That's what I have, folks - as I said, the rest of the details can be found in the posts above - if anyone has any questions, please let me know - but in the meantime, I strongly recommend giving this a try for your next brisket or chuckie barbecue. It was impressive, to say the least, and quite easily my best brisket so far.

Enjoy!

Ron

Anyway, there it is - if anyone gives it a try, please feel free to reply and let me know what you think. I plan to make this again tomorrow - pretty much the same as before, focusing on improving technique. The planned side dish will be "Cauliflower Tots" - here's the recipe:

Cauliflower Tots

Ingredients

2 cups cauliflower florets, steamed
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/4 cup chives, chopped
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a large baking sheet with cooking spray and set aside.

In a food processor, pulse steamed cauliflower until grated. Place grated cauliflower on a clean kitchen towel and squeeze to drain water.

Transfer cauliflower to a large bowl with egg, cheddar, parmesan, Panko, and chives. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon about 1 tablespoon of mixture and roll it into a tater-tot shape with your hands. Place on the baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the tots are golden.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Well, I had intended to use a 3.x-pound brisket, and the package (wrapped in butcher paper) said brisket, but when I opened it, it was a very large rolled-up chunk of flank. No worries, I'll give it a go, and see what happens....

I made the rub pretty much as before, except I used coconut sugar in place of brown sugar. I am loving this unique sweetener more and more for applications such as this, and it really adds a nice touch. Also, as before, I added two tablespoons of good chili powder, since it really makes the rub sing for beef.

After slathering with a German mustard/Worcestershire mixture, I liberally coated the flank with the rub. A few minutes ago, it went into the smoker. I expect results to be pretty much the same as before; hopefully a little better, as I have aim to improve on the technique. As before, I'll make the sauce according to the recipe; I have Frank's Original this time, so it will be added as per the recipe.

 

[Turkeyshot]

What kind of mods did you do to your offset smoker. That is pretty good to get that much time, with the amount of charcoal that you used.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Hi, TS -

Here's a link that outlines the mods I've done....

http://foodsoftheworld.activeboards.net/modifications-for-brinkmann-charbroil-smokers_topic203.html

They work!

 

[TX_Brewing]

Ummm I think I have smoke ring envy... Very nice!!

 

[Turkeyshot]

Hi, TS -

Here's a link that outlines the mods I've done....

http://foodsoftheworld.activeboards.net/modifications-for-brinkmann-charbroil-smokers_topic203.html

They work!

Nice! Thanks for the link. That was a good read and I will have to try some of it out on my smoker.