Smoked Pellet Grill Brisket (Texas Style)

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Let’s make your summer cookouts extra delicious with this smoked pellet grill brisket! After cooking low and slow, this Texas-style smoked brisket comes out melt-in-your mouth tender, and smoking a beef brisket is surprisingly simple, even if this is your first brisket. Your summer barbecues will be everyone’s favorite spot when this brisket is on the menu — it’s the ultimate summer dinner.

The pellet grill brisket on a white plate with a side of baked beans and BBQ sauce and a beer in the background.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Ingredients
Step-by-Step Instructions
How to Serve
Recipe FAQs
Expert Tips
Perfect Pairing
More Summer Dinner Recipes
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Makes you look like a pit master: One taste of this smoked pellet grill brisket and everyone will be in awe of your smoking skills. It can be our secret that it wasn’t nearly as hard as people might think.

Works on any type of smoker: While this recipe specifies a pellet grill, it works on any type of smoker for your convenience. Whether you have a Traeger, Pit Boss, Green Egg or any other type of smoker, you can apply these directions to that unit.

Requires very little hands-on cooking: Once we trim our brisket, most of the work is done, so you’re free to kick back with a cold one and enjoy good company. How’s that for easy hosting duties?

Feeds a crowd: Depending on the size, a whole brisket can feed 10-20 people. Yes, it’s an expensive cut, but when you consider how much delicious, succulent meat you get, it’s a pretty good deal.

Ingredients

The whole packer brisket on a cutting board with the point and flat cuts labeled.

As you can see, a Texas smoked brisket recipe requires only three simple ingredients. Although I live in Denver now, I grew up in Houston and went to college in Waco, Texas, at Baylor University, so I’ve had my share of wonderful briskets. Trust me — you don’t need a fancy dry rub to make the best smoked brisket.

Whole packer brisket: This brisket includes the point cut and flat cut in one piece. The flat is the largest part of the brisket with a leaner texture while the point is the fattier piece that’s great for making shredded brisket. You can buy the flat and point separately, but that’s not what we want here — get the full packer brisket. This cut typically runs from 10-16 pounds, but it could be as large as 20 pounds.

If you can swing it, I recommend getting prime briskets from a local butcher shop rather than a chain grocery store. Quality does make a difference.

Salt and black pepper: Yep, that’s it. Smoked Texas brisket is all about letting the meat shine. We don’t want to distract from that tasty cut of beef. Of course, you can use your own BBQ rub if you insist, but it’s unnecessary for an authentic Texas brisket. You don't need garlic powder, chili powder, brown sugar and all those other spices to make a flavorful brisket.

Step-by-Step Instructions

How to Trim Brisket

Step 1: Let’s walk through how to trim brisket. This may seem intimidating, but once you start trimming, you’ll see it’s not as hard as you might think.

On one side, you’ll notice a fat cap covering. We want to trim the extra fat so that it’s about ¼-inch thick, and then trim any gray edges (photo 1).

The brisket on a cutting board after trimming the top fat cap layer.

Now we flip the meat over and use a sharp knife to remove excess silver skin, and you can remove large areas of fat if you would like. It should look similar to this after trimming (photo 2).

Showing the silver skin and trimmed under side of the brisket on a cutting board.

Don’t feel like you need to be perfect here with the extra fat. Just remove what you can. There will be some remaining, and that's just fine. Some people don't ever bother trimming the extra fat on this side.

From here, we cut out this large fatty piece, leaving the meat underneath intact (photos 3 and 4). This is a hard lump of fat that does not break down even with low and slow cooking, and you will not want to bite into this piece. We’ve now trimmed our brisket.

Showing the process of trimming the hard fat on the the underside of the brisket.

If you'd like to see a full video tutorial, Aaron Franklin of Austin's famous Franklin Barbecue shows how he trims his brisket.

Step 2: We mix together the salt and pepper and sprinkle it all over the surface of the meat, including both sides and the edges (photo 5).

The brisket on a cutting board covered with salt and pepper.

We place the rubbed brisket fat-side up directly on the grill grate in a 225-degree pellet smoker or the smoker of your choice with a water pan. The cooking process should be low and slow for the most delicious brisket. To ensure best results, we insert a leave-in probe thermometer in the thickest part of the flat cut.

Pro tip: While we can smoke the brisket right away, it's even better if you can wrap the brisket in plastic wrap after seasoning and refrigerate the meat for 24 hours to dry brine. During the dry brining process, the salt brings the meat's moisture to the surface, which dissolves the salt, and then the meat reabsorbs the salt. This results in a more flavorful, juicy brisket.

The Stall and Texas Crutch

Step 3: Once the internal temperature reaches about 160 degrees, it will hit a cooking stall where it will maintain the same temperature for hours. This happens as the connective tissue begins to break down, so to help our brisket get out of the stall and remain moist, we wrap it like a present in peach butcher paper, known as the Texas crutch (photo 6).

The brisket wrapped in peach butcher paper after stalling out on the smoker.

Pro tip: Keep in mind, the exact stall temperature can vary. If you notice the internal temperature number stalling or going up and down when it’s in the 155-degree range, go ahead and wrap it.

We put the wrapped brisket back on the smoker, insert the leave-in thermometer again and continue to cook until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 200-205 degrees with 203 degrees being the sweet spot. While the temperature probe should be accurate, I like to double check by inserting the meat thermometer in another spot or two. When the brisket is ready, you should be able to easily insert the thermometer like a hot knife to butter.

The Rest

Step 4: Now we remove the brisket from the smoker and let it rest for at least an hour, but it's much better if you can let it rest for two hours or more. In fact, the best brisket I ever made rested for six hours.

For that extra long rest, I boiled water in a tea kettle and poured it into a stainless steel bowl in a cooler and closed the lid to create a warm environment. When the brisket was ready, I double wrapped it with two towels, removed the bowl and placed the brisket in the cooler. It was still nice and warm after six hours and so incredibly tender that we called it meat butter instead of brisket.

After that nice long rest, we’re ready to carve, slicing across the grain on a cutting board (photo 7). Each cut of meat will have their grains running a different direction, so you'll have to rotate the meat as you slice.

Carving the brisket into slices on a wooden cutting board before serving.

Just look at all that bark and the pink smoke ring. It’s pellet grill brisket perfection!

Bonus: If you’d like more recipes for your smoker, you should try my smoked tri tip, smoked burgers and smoked whole chicken. And don't miss my round-up of best pellet grill recipes.

How to Serve

For Texas purists, they don’t need any accompaniments and just want the smoked beef brisket in all its glory. That said, sandwich bread, onion slices and pickle chips are often served on the side. Sauce usually isn’t served with Texas brisket, but if you like sauce with brisket, you do you. My coffee-bourbon BBQ sauce and honey-sriracha BBQ sauce are always favorites.

And what’s a good cookout without side dishes? Try some of these:

Spooning BBQ sauce onto the slices of brisket on a white plate.

Recipe FAQs

How long does it take to smoke brisket?

Cooking brisket is not an exact science, but plan for 90 minutes per pound at 225 degrees. Not every brisket will cook the same, but 90 minutes is the standard guideline.

For an evening dinner, I start smoking the brisket the night before serving and check on it throughout the night. Yes, it’s a commitment, but I’ll do anything for my delicious meat baby. Hey, it's a labor of love.

What is the best wood for smoking brisket?

For a real Texas brisket, go with oak or mesquite. Personally, mesquite is what I use. Brisket is a big meat, so we need a boldly flavored wood pellets. Save the fruit woods for lighter fare.

Should the fat cap side go up or down?

For the perfect brisket, the general rule of thumb is to place the fat side of the brisket up. During the smoking process, that layer of fat will melt and render all over the meat, making for an ultra flavorful, juicy brisket. If you place the fat side down, you'll lose all that wonderful fat rendering.

How long do you rest brisket?

Let the meat rest for one hour at minimum, but I like to give it at least two hours or more if possible.

To hold the meat for two hours or longer, place a bowl of hot water in a cooler to create a warm environment toward the end of the smoking process. When the brisket finishes, wrap it in two towels and place it in the cooler without ice. This should hold the temperature for about six hours, which is great if you need to prepare the brisket ahead of time.

And please do not ever skip this important step. A cut this large needs time for the juices to settle. If you cut into the brisket, it will be dry, and you will have wasted all that time and money. Keep in mind, the rest time is separate from the cooking time.

Can you finish cooking brisket in the oven?

Yes, simply place the brisket on a large baking sheet and continue cooking in the oven at 225 degrees. Sometimes you may come across bad weather and need to finish cooking inside.

I actually had to do this recently because of an equipment issue, and the brisket was still a huge hit with succulent, tender meat. Fortunately, it was after wrapping the brisket in butcher paper, so a lot of that smoke flavor already infused the meat.

Expert Tips

For easier trimming: Trim the excess fat on the brisket when it’s cold. The fat slices through much easier when it’s still firm.

Don’t overtrim the fat cap: While we don’t need all that fat, we do want some of it to keep the brisket flavorful and moist. Keep about ¼ inch of fat.

Let the butcher do the work for you: Don’t want to bother with trimming? Ask the butcher to trim. I’ve also bought a pre-trimmed brisket, and that hard fat chunk was still in tact, so you might want to specify you’d like it removed.

Allow the brisket to sit at room temperature before smoking: While this step is technically optional, it helps with more even cooking if we can take the chill off the meat.

Get the right type of butcher paper: Make sure you use a food-grade butcher paper. You can also use aluminum foil, though I prefer butcher paper because it’s porous. This allows it to breathe and retain moisture but not so much moisture that it overly softens the bark. I get my butcher paper on Amazon.

Keep an eye on your pellet hopper: We're smoking for a long time, so you want to make sure you don't run out of wood pellets. Refill as needed.

Perfect Pairing

Pair this smoked pellet grill brisket with a bold stout, and you are in for a delicious match. The smoky brisket is perfect with the stout’s roasted malt, and stouts show off a robust mouthfeel that can stand up to such a big, rich meat.

If wine is more your style, a syrah is a nice pairing for brisket. Syrah has some big berry notes for some contrast but also shows off some spice and even a smokiness that beautifully matches our cooking style.

Or maybe you love a cocktail. I’m always a big fan of bourbon with beef. My sweet tea mint julep is wonderfully refreshing on a hot summer day.

For the ultimate backyard party, serve this pellet grill brisket, and everyone will feel full and happy. It’s the perfect summer dinner for a crowd.

Cheers!

An aerial shot of the pellet grill brisket on burlap with the side of baked beans.

More Summer Dinner Recipes

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