Meathead’s Texas-Style Smoked Brisket Recipe, Step by Step

Chef uses protective gloves to prepare a beef wrap with fresh ingredients on a wooden surface.

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This is Meathead Goldwyn’s Texas-style brisket as published by AmazingRibs.com: the Authentic Texas-Style Smoked BBQ Brisket recipe and the guide around it. Quantities, temperatures and timings come from that page; the Celsius figures are our own conversions. It is a whole-packer method: dry-brined, smoked at 225°F (107°C), wrapped at the stall, then rested in a cooler. The recipe card plans on about 1 pound (454 g) of starting weight per person, so this 12-pound brisket serves about 12.

Ingredients

  • 1 whole packer brisket (point and flat together), about 12 pounds (5.4 kg), untrimmed, USDA Choice or better
  • 6 teaspoons coarse kosher salt (the recipe specifies Morton, at about 1/2 teaspoon per pound of meat)
  • 1/2 cup Big Bad Beef Rub, or simply salt and pepper if you prefer the traditional route
  • 1/2 cup beef broth, for the wrap, plus heavy-duty foil or butcher paper and a probe thermometer
  • About 4 cups (8 ounces / 226 g) wood chunks or chips

Big Bad Beef Rub, from Meathead’s separate recipe, makes roughly 1/2 cup: 3 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper, 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon onion powder, 2 teaspoons each of mustard powder, garlic powder and American chili or ancho powder, and 1 teaspoon chipotle or cayenne powder.

Method

  1. Trim. Leave about 1/4 inch (6 mm) of the fat cap and clean silverskin off the meaty side. Keep some fat back if you plan to make burnt ends.
  2. Salt. Sprinkle the salt evenly 12 to 24 hours ahead, or at least 2 to 4 hours before cooking. Note which way the grain runs so you can slice across it later.
  3. Rub. Apply the rub liberally on all sides and keep the meat chilled until it goes on the cooker.
  4. Fire up. Stabilize the cooker at about 235°F (113°C). It should settle near 225°F (107°C) once the cold meat goes in.
  5. Smoke. Put the probe in the thickest part. Add about 2 cups (4 ounces / 113 g) of wood at the start, and 4 ounces more whenever the smoke stops during the first 2 hours. After 3 hours, turn the meat only if its color differs top to bottom.
  6. Wrap. When the bark has set and the temperature stalls, around 150 to 165°F (66 to 74°C) after roughly 6 to 8 hours, wrap tightly in double-layer foil or butcher paper with the broth. Keep cooking at 225°F (107°C) in the smoker or an oven.
  7. Check for tenderness. From 195°F (91°C), roughly 5 to 7 hours later, start probing. It is done when the probe slides in and out with little resistance and the meat jiggles, usually near 203°F (95°C).
  8. Hold. Keep the wrapped brisket in a cooler for 2 to 4 hours. The guide says to slice once it falls back to 150°F (66°C).
  9. Slice. Wait until the last minute, fat side up. Cut about 1 inch (2 cm) off the thick end and 2 inches (5 cm) off the tip of the flat, then separate the muscles along the fat layer. Cut across the grain into pencil-thick slices, 1/8 to 1/4 inch (3 to 6 mm).

The Source’s Timeline

Meathead’s table for a foil-wrapped whole packer gives these markers: the stall and wrap at about 6 hours (150 to 160°F / 66 to 71°C), “nearly done” at 10 to 12 hours (190 to 195°F / 88 to 91°C), probe-tender at 12 to 14 hours (200 to 205°F / 93 to 96°C), then the 2 to 4 hour hold. He totals this at 14 to 18 hours including about two hours of holding, and adds 1 to 2 hours if you wrap in butcher paper. Without any wrap he plans 16 to 20 hours of cooking plus the hold.

The page is not perfectly consistent with itself: the recipe card lists a 12-hour cook time, while the guide’s own timeline is longer. Treat the clock as a rough plan: his page notes that seasoned professionals go by feel as much as by temperature.

Other Temperatures Meathead Mentions

He prefers 225°F for this recipe, but notes that Walter Jetton advocated 275°F (135°C) and up, that Smitty’s Market runs above 300°F (149°C) and finishes in as little as 8 hours, and that he has seen competitors win at 350°F (167°C). His view is that cooking temperature matters less than other factors, but he recommends low and slow until you have mastered the technique.

Doneness Is Texture, Not Safety

The 195 to 205°F target is about connective tissue. In his food-temperature guide Meathead states that brisket and similar cuts are safe at 145°F (63°C), but are deliberately cooked to about 203°F to melt the connective tissue. USDA’s chart lists 145°F (62.8°C) with a rest of at least 3 minutes for beef steaks, chops and roasts. It does not mention brisket by name, so that guidance applies to whole cuts generally.

USDA’s guidance on holding is separate. Hot food should stay at or above 140°F (60°C), because bacteria multiply fastest between 40°F and 140°F (4°C and 60°C). Cooked food should not sit out over 2 hours, or 1 hour when it is above 90°F (32°C), and leftovers keep 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. Meathead’s cooler hold ends at 150°F, only 10 degrees above the USDA line, so check the meat with a thermometer if you hold it longer.

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