BBQ Beef Brisket

Would you like a labor free Labor Day dinner? Who wants to be slaving away over a hot stove or backyard grill when everyone else is having fun? Not me!

BBQ Beef Brisket to the rescue!

Brisket is a large cut of beef that cooks into tender, delicious, fall off your fork goodness. Cook it in the oven using the great southern tradition of LOW and SLOW, add a little of your favorite sauce, and stand back! This is good eatin’!

Here’s what you need:

One Flat Beef Brisket (mine is just shy of 6 pounds) and your favorite BBQ sauce.

Two ingredients. See, I told you this was easy!

Pre-heat your oven to 250 degrees.

You will notice that one side of the brisket has much more fat than the other.

Photo above, less fat. Photo below…well, let’s trim this a bit.

We need to trim some of this thick fat away, otherwise our pan will over-floweth with grease and liquid during the long cooking process.

Using a sharp knife, carefully cut away strips of the thickest fat, leaving a thin layer of fat covering the meat.

Notice that we’re not removing all the fat — we need that to cook the meat into tender morsels. Just trim down the really thick areas.

You will need a large pan with sides high enough to contain the liquid, grease and juices that will cook out of the meat. I’m using a big Pyrex pan, however, even a disposable aluminum pan from the store will work.

Coat the bottom of your pan with your favorite BBQ sauce.

I’m using a combo of 2 sauces because I like the thickness of the KC Masterpiece and the tang of the Bone Sucking Sauce. Any old sauce will do.

Place your meat in the pan with the fat side up. Cover the top of the brisket with more BBQ sauce.

Cover your pan with aluminum foil and bake it in the oven at 250 degrees for 5 hours.

Remember our mantra? LOW and SLOW. Low = 250 degrees. SLOW = about 5 hours.

During this time, go enjoy yourself. You have only ONE TASK while the meat cooks.

About halfway through the cooking time, we need to drain the juice/water/grease off the brisket.

Don’t be alarmed to find your dish full of liquid. Many briskets come with added water to plump them up. Look at  how much the meat has already started to shrink up.

Carefully scoop this liquid out, re-cover your meat, and return it to the oven for the remainder of the 5 hours.

I put this liquid aside in the freezer to solidify. Then you can scoop it out and throw it away in the trash. Don’t pour it down the sink unless you really like seeing your plumber.

If you have a smaller brisket, you will need to adjust your cooking time. Count on about 45 – 60 minutes per pound of meat.

Here we are 5 hours later. Stick a fork in the meat. It should be extremely tender.

Your house should smell AMAZING by now and people should be circling, clamoring for some of this delicious meat.

However, unless you want SHREDDED beef brisket, you should wait about 20 minutes for the meat to cool before slicing.

After the meat has rested, slice it into tender little strips. I also trim away some of the remaining fat from the top of the meat. Some people would consider that pure BBQ heresy, but I’m not a huge fan of meat fat so I trim.

Add a little more BBQ sauce and GO EAT!

So tender. So delicious. SO EASY!