SMOKING RECIPE CLIFF NOTES:
Burnt Ends:
- Trim a brisket point so there's about 1/4in of fat
- Cover the point in rub, vacuum seal it, and place it in the fridge overnight
- Set the smoker up using the minion method
- Put the point on the smoker in the 225-250 degree F range until the meat hits 195-203 degrees F
- If it's taking too long, around 160 degrees, wrap the meat tightly in foil for the remainder of the time
- After the meat hits 195-203 degrees F, let it sit for an hour, the chop it up into 1in cubes
- Cover the cubes with more rub and bbq sauce, and put back on the smoker around 300 degrees F
- Pull whenever your'e ready to eat (after at least an hour), and serve!
When the idea of BBQ is mentioned, most people immediately think of ribs and pulled pork, and maybe even sliced brisket. What's funny about that is that one of the tastiest BBQ items doesn't make this list: burnt ends. If you are one of those people who like BBQ but are unaware of what burnt ends are, then pay attention, and remember to try to order some next time you go to a BBQ restaurant - I am confident you won't regret it.
Because burnt ends are such a crowd pleaser, and a favorite of mine, I decided that I wanted to try to do a cook session in which they were my entire focus. No sliced brisket, no pork (ribs or pulled). Just burnt ends.
As I have previously mentioned when discussing cooking a full packer brisket, there are two portions that make up the large hunk of meat. First, you have the leaner brisket flat, which is what the more traditional sliced brisket comes from. Second, you have the fattier brisket point. This is the key portion used to make burnt ends. Unfortunately, most stores sell full packer briskets and/or brisket flats, but do not sell brisket points on their own. Since I wanted to try out focusing solely on cooking the brisket point, I decided to go to a local (and more expensive than my usual, Costco!) butcher to get the point. He thought I was crazy buying just the point, because it has so much fat on it, but that fat is the key to burnt ends, so I still waved it in. I planned to cook the meat on Sunday, which meant picking it up from the butcher and preparing it on Saturday.
Top of untrimmed brisket point
Bottom of untrimmed brisket point
Side-view of untrimmed brisket point
The first thing to point out from the pictures of the untrimmed brisket point above is all of the fat. The side-view picture really shows just how much I was working with initially. While the butcher offered to trim it for me, I turned that down so I could do it myself, knowing that I needed a good amount of fat on the meat while cooking. Plus, I kind of enjoy trimming fat off of meat - no idea why.
Top of trimmed brisket point
Bottom of trimmed brisket point
3.25lbs of trimmed fat!
This particular brisket point weighed about 7.75lbs untrimmed. After I was finished with all of my fat trimming, it weighed about 4.5lbs. That means I paid for about 3.25lbs of fat that I ended up throwing out, and that is exactly why the butcher thought I was crazy. But it's what I wanted to do this time around for cooking solely burnt ends for the first time.
The pictures above show the point after I trimmed it. In general, I was trying to keep about 1/4in of fat throughout most of the point, though you can see sometimes I cut all the way down to the meat. You can also see that I made some cross-hatch type slices through the top of the fat where I could - this is just so the rub would penetrate the meat more effectively.
Plowboys Bovine Bold rub
Top of rubbed brisket point
Bottom of rubbed brisket point
Rubbed and vacuum sealed brisket point
Once the point was trimmed, came time to put the rub on it. The rub I chose to use for these burnt ends was the Plowboys Bovine Bold, which is perfect for brisket - it isn't too sweet (which I like on pork) and has a nice amount of heat.
I covered the entire piece of meat with some oil (think it was olive oil?), so the rub would stick better. And then just generously covered the entire point, getting it in every crease I could find. Pictures 2 and 3 above show both sides of the point covered in rub. Lastly, I vacuum sealed the rubbed point, and placed it in the fridge. This was at about 6pm on Saturday, and I planned to start cooking it Sunday at 10:30am or so. As usual the case, there is no rule about how far in advance you want to prepare the meat and put it in the fridge, but I generally try to get at least 12 hours.
Brisket point pulled from vacuum sealed wrap
Brisket point re-rubbed prior to going on smoker
Sunday morning around 10am I pulled the meat from the fridge. I cut it out of the vacuum sealed wrapping, and you can see what it looked like above in the first picture - it kind of looks like the rub penetrated the meat and was just a wettish goop on the surface. Therefore, I re-rubbed it, just pouring more all over the meat. I then put it aside to let it sit at room temperature until it was ready to go on the smoker.
When that was finished, I got the smoker set up for cooking. As usual for longer cooking sessions, I used the minion method, filled the water-pan with very hot water, and got the smoker temperature running within my target range of 225-250 degrees F. By 10:30am, the smoker's temp was around 240 degrees F, and so I put the point on the top grate. At this point, I added two chunks of hickory wood to get the smoke going so the meat could start absorbing it. My target meat temperature, which is the same as when cooking a full brisket, was between 195-203 degrees F. Given I was smoking 4.5lbs of meat and it usually takes about 1-1.5 hours per pound, I expected to take around 7 hours to hit that meat temperature target.
One hour into the smoking
Four hours into the smoking
Five and a half hours into the smoking
After the point had been on the smoker for around an hour, I added another chunk of hickory wood to keep the smoke going strongly. I also took a picture which can be seen above at the top. Once again, I added another chunk of hickory after yet another hour of smoke time. This is the last time I added wood because I don't want to overdue it (too much smoke gives meat a bitter flavor), and after the meat's temp his around 140 degrees, the smoke doesn't really stick to the meat anymore anyways. You can also see the foil pan below the meat. I did this to catch all the drippings, as I planned to use them in the later stages of making the burnt ends.
After four hours of smoking, as can be seen in the second picture above, I opened up the smoker and sprayed the point with some a mixture of 3 parts apple juice and 1 part oil. I did this again after another hour of cooking as well. Then, after the meat had been on the smoker for 5.5 hours and was measuring an internal temp of 165 degrees F, I pulled it and wrapped it tightly in foil. This is because of the "stall", which is when the meat's temperature doesn't move much between 150-170 degrees F. It's very frustrating - as I've mentioned in previous posts - and when you're trying to stick to a schedule, sometimes you just need to keep things moving. After wrapping it, I through it right back on the smoker, and left it there until hitting 201 degrees F. It had been on the smoker for 7.25 hours. At that point, I removed the foil-wrapped meat from the smoker, wrapped it in a towel, and put it in a cooler to let it rest for an hour or so.
Fully-cooked brisket point
Brisket point removed from the foil
Started slicing the point - and snacking on a few amazingly delicious pieces
Brisket point cut into roughly 1in cubes
Brisket point cubes placed in foil pan
After letting the cooked brisket sit in the cooler for an hour, it was time to cut it into 1in cubes. You can see when I first opened the foil and pulled the meat out (pictures 1 and 2 above), the meat looks kind of wet and soggy, as opposed to having that more typical dark bark that the smoke and rub combination makes. This is not intentional on my part as I'd rather have the bark, but it's almost impossible to avoid when you wrap meat in foil. Given I'm making burnt ends here, and they're about to go back on the smoker, I figured it didn't matter in this case.
As mentioned, I cut the point up into 1in cubes and placed them in a foil pan. I also ate a couple while doing this, because it was way to hard not to do so. The meat is just so tender and juicy and flavorful. But, it's not finished yet!
Re-rubbed brisket point cubes
Brisket point cubes covered in bbq sauce mixture
KC's own Cowtown BBQ sauce
The BBQ sauce mixture
When the 1in cubes were placed in the pan, I then gave them a light dusting of the same rub used all along. This is just because the pieces are going to go back on the smoker, and I want to extra rub to help add more flavor. I then brushed each cube with a BBQ sauce mixture, which was a combination of the drippings from the pan I had in the smoker, the meat juice (aka au jus) that was contained with into the foil when I wrapped the point, and some Cowtown BBQ sauce - which is the commercial version of Kansas City's famous Joe's Kansas City (aka Oklahoma Joe's) restaurant.
After all of that, the cubes are ready to go back on the smoker. To help give the meat a bit of a harder crust, I stoked the fire in the smoker to help bring the temperature up to around 300 degrees F - thus, we call them "burnt ends" (actually, that's not technically why we call them burnt ends, but I digress).
Cubed burnt ends back on the smoker
Close-up on the smoker
Burnt ends pulled from the smoker and finished
Burnt ends - up close and personal
There is no real set time that the cubed burnt ends are supposed to go back on the smoker, nor am I looking for them to hit a certain internal temperature as they are already cooked. The key is simply to let them get some heat (recall I pumped the smoker's temp up to 300 degrees F) so the rub and bbq sauce mixture can get a little burnt and harden up on the meat.
I chose to leave them on the smoker until about fifteen minutes before we wanted to eat dinner, so in all in all, they were back on there for about 1.5 hours. I think when I do it next time, I'll plan to leave more time for them to sit on there and get even more "burnt". But in any event, I pulled them and fifteen minutes later, we were eating. And just look at that last picture and tell me those don't look delicious!?!? Believe me, they were.
SMOKING RECIPE CLIFF NOTES:
Burnt Ends:
- Trim a brisket point so there's about 1/4in of fat
- Cover the point in rub, vacuum seal it, and place it in the fridge overnight
- Set the smoker up using the minion method
- Put the point on the smoker in the 225-250 degree F range until the meat hits 195-203 degrees F
- If it's taking too long, around 160 degrees, wrap the meat tightly in foil for the remainder of the time
- After the meat hits 195-203 degrees F, let it sit for an hour, the chop it up into 1in cubes
- Cover the cubes with more rub and bbq sauce, and put back on the smoker around 300 degrees F
- Pull whenever your'e ready to eat (after at least an hour), and serve!
