The Beauty of Braising {Recipe: Apple Cider Braised Brisket} (2024)

FAQs

How often should I spray my brisket with apple cider vinegar? ›

The best time to spritz your meat while smoking is just after the bark has formed. The bark on meat generally forms about 1:30 to 2 hours into your cook. It is important to spritz the meat every half hour to 45 minutes to prevent it from drying out.

Pour apple cider vinegar over the brisket. The vinegar will help tenderize the meat and will add sweetness to it. Proper brisket should be cooked low and slow in a smoker, using wood or charcoal.

On the other hand, if you cook it too long, the result is dry meat. The fall-apart goodness of this delicious meat is worth every hour.

Brisket Recipes

Here's a recipe for a classic holiday brisket that gets its traditional tangy-sweet flavor profile from balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and carrots. Flat (first cut) brisket is recommended here since it's the default for brisket that's braised and then sliced.

Spritzing meat helps prevent it from drying out, enhances the flavour profile, promotes a crispy crust outside with tender meat inside, and helps rubs absorb better. My favourite choice for spritzing meat is a mix of apple cider vinegar and water as it helps balance fatty cuts of meat, add moisture, and inject flavour.

Allow to meld on counter about 1 hour prior to using the first time. Shake several times. Use to marinate meat or poultry for 3 hours.

With the brisket ready to go, I put it in a low 300°F (150°C) oven until it's tender, which takes somewhere between three and four hours. To be honest, my preference is to cook the brisket at an even lower temp, about 275°F (135°C).

Cook the brisket for several hours, or about 40 minutes per pound. At that point (about seven hours for mine), open the oven door and peel back the foil. Now, stick two forks into the meat and make sure it's fork-tender/falling apart, which means you can pull it apart to some degree.

The temperature of the meat begins to rise again -- which you want because brisket gets more tender the longer you cook it.

It's a tough cut of meat, which is why the best way to cook brisket is a low-and-slow method: Long, slow cooking makes it tender.

What is the best liquid to braise beef with? ›

Braising liquid is traditionally stock and wine; however, beer emphasizes other flavors in meats. Stock emphasizes the meat flavor, while wine and beer diversify the profile. Wine works in any braise, increasing depth, nuance and acidity.

Brisket contains a lot of connective tissue, which can make it tough. The type of connective tissue in brisket is called collagen. Cook the meat quickly and you get tough, dry meat. Cook a brisket slowly, with some liquid, and the collagen turns into gelatin.

Keeping a water pan in the smoker is the best way to retain moisture. After the first 2-3 hours start spritzing your brisket with water, apple juice, hot sauce or apple cider vinegar every 30 minutes to an hour. This helps keep it moist and stops it from burning.

Using a spray bottle filled with liquid, lightly spritz your brisket every 45 minutes to an hour. What's the liquid? Pitmaster's choice! It can simply be water to keep things moist, or beef stock to add some richness, or beer for flavor, or a combo of all 3.

Spraying down your meat is going to slow down the cooking process, giving you more time to build up that bark! Of course, spraying the bark is going to soften it, but over time the flavor from the spritz is going to dry up and leave a little flavor behind each time you spray it down.

After two or four hours of cooking, you can lightly spray your brisket with water, hot sauce, apple cider vinegar, or apple juice. You can do this every 30 minutes or every hour, based on preference.