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Steve-O's Corned Beef Smoked Brisket Point

Prep Time7 days
Cook Time3 hours
Resting Time15 hours
Total Time7 days 18 hours
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: American, Irish
Keyword: beef, brisket, brisket point, Comfort, corned beef, dinner, march, spring, st. patrick's day

Equipment

  • 1 Large Stock Pot (6 - 8 quart)
  • 1 Cooler
  • Brown Paper for insulating
  • Tin Foil
  • Traeger Grill

Ingredients

Instructions

Prepare Brine

  • Add enough water to cover the brisket point to a large, non metallic or coated roasting pot.
    Add Sodium Nitrite – the Lucky® Beef Jerky DIY Kit is a great base for brining as well as making jerky. Brisket points are right at 5 lbs, and one packet of cure is the perfect amount to cure a 5 lb cut of beef.
    Dissolve the Sodium Nitrite cure very thoroughly.
    Add one packet of Lucky® Beef Jerky “Peppered” seasoning as a base seasoning.
    For a proper brine, we’ll want to add an ample amout of Sea Salt. I used about 1/4 to 1/3rd cup.
    Add about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of brown sugar.
    I like bay leaves so I went heavy, 6-8, it’s hard to over do bay leaves.
    2 or 3 healthy tablespoons of black whole peppercorns is about right. Another 2 or 3 big tablespoons of all-spice. 2 or 3 tablespoons of mustard seeds.
    Cinnamon sticks should be a part of every brine in our opinion.
    Cloves … another very aromatic seasoning, they have an anise smell and flavor, again, no brine should be without them. Add the cloves, about 2 tablespoons.
    Last but damn sure not least … fresh garlic. Pull 4 or 5 big cloves from the bunch, peel the loose skin, lay them on a cutting board, lay your chef knife on them FLAT and use the knife to smash them, this will really help open up them up and get the flavor into the brine.
    corned beef brine
  • Beef Brisket Point going into the brine. Make sure that the Brisket Point is completely covered with Brine. Put the lid on, and into the refrigerator for about a week.
    Brisket Point used in corne beef

To the Smoker

  • Take the brisket out of the fridge and put into the drip rack and pan … FAT SIDE DOWN the point is a fairly fatty cut, and we are going to use a slow, farily low temp. cooking process to render as much fat out of the point as possible.
    Set Briket fat side down to render as much of the fat off the corned beef as possible
  • Drain off and discard the liquid part of the brine. The pickling spices and seasoning left over are a flavor gold mine.
    Feel free to use them all on the point during the cooking process, they’ll continue to add flavor and an awesome aroma as the point cooks.
    We use them liberally … then add water to the pan, we’ll want to keep a fairly humid cooking environment, the humid heat penetrates better and will help to render out more of the fat.
    Drape the pan with foil to help keep the humidity in the pan and on the point.
    Set the oven to 300° F and leave it alone for an hour or two.
    Check the temperature every so often. Ideally, we’re looking for 190° F before we pull and wrap … we’ve still got a little way to go.
    cook the corned beef until 190F internal temp
  • The internal temp has reached 190° F and now it’s time to pull the point, wrap in foil, and rest for a few hours.
    Wrap tightly in a few layers of foil.
    Then in a few old kitchen towls for insulation, and wrap that with more foil. The goal here is to keep as much heat in the point as possible. This will help to make it more tender.
    We like to place this insulated, wrapped point in a cooler with paper to take up remaining air space.
    We then seal the cooler and let it rest for up to 8 – 12 hours. The meat will still be well in excess of 100° F when it comes out of the cooler.
    After it’s rested and been unwrapped … you will also be surprised at how much fat renders out during the resting process.
    wrap clot around the meat to keep heat into the muscle creating a more tender bite
  • Now it’s time to smoke. We’ve got a small Traeger grill that works awesome for small projects like this one. We also have a bigger smoker, but it needs a much larger load so that the tempature does not run away from us. The small Traeger is perfect for this job.
    Place the cooked, rested point on the grill and let it smoke until the internal temp gets back to 200° F, at this point its done but you can let is smoke longer if you wish.
    Here’s what the point looks like when cut at 200° F fresh off the smoker. Don’t let the pink fool you, this is very well done meat, the sodium nitrate that we used in the brine causes the meat to take on this color, all cured meats are this way.
    brisket point