What went wrong with my Brisket recipe?

Question

I had a great experience with a pork shoulder using an Americas Test Kitchen recipe.  I tried a variation with a Beef Brisket and it did not come out so well.  Can someone tell me what I did wrong?

BRISKET:

Large flat-cut brisket.

Made a brine with 1C salt, 1/2C sugar, 3 Tbls Liquid Smoke (don't judge me). Soak meat for 2 hrs.

Dry meat. Mix 3 tsp Liquid Smoke and 1/2 C yellow mustard. Coat meat with Mustard mix, then coat with  spice rub.

I wrapped the meat in foil.  Put in 220 degree oven for 4 hours.  

The foil packet leaked but I thought that would be fine so it did not pot-roast the meat.

Meat was then put into fridge until the next day.  (Plans changed) The next day I un-wrapped meat and put in 325 degree oven for 30 minutes to heat it up.

I Wanted tender, falling apart meat fibers to mix with BBQ sauce for BBQ beef sandwiches.

The meat was tasty but firm.  I had to slice it against the grain, then cut into cubes to mix with sauce. It worked - but not what I wanted.


PORK SHOULDER:

This was treated the same way but put into a Dutch Oven with a bowl at the bottom to keep it from sitting in it's own juices.  Then cooked at 325 for 3 hours.  It came out falling apart, the fat had all disolved leaving tender, juicy hunks of meat. (The dog, not normally a chow hound, is right by my side when I go near the Fridge hoping for a chunk.)

I thought the lower temp and longer time for the beef would work better - but it did not.

What did I do wrong? The time and temp?  The foil packet leaking instead of sealed in a Dutch oven?

? · Accepted Answer

To get a brisket to "fall apart" you need to cook it in high humidity for at least 6 hours.  This will let the collagen turn to gelatin and all the muscle fibers to fall apart.  What happened in your case is there was not enough liquid available to turn the collagen completely into gelatin (when the liquid came out of the foil you roasted instead of braised) and then when you cooked at 325° to heat it up the collagen shortened up and toughened the meat.  The dutch oven is a more sealed environment so the pork shoulder had enouhg liquid to turn the collagen to gelatin and the fat melted out.  Try the same recipie in a crock pot on low for 6-8 hours and your brisket should come apart nicely.

sweetroll · Answer

I don't know why a recipe would suggest brining beef. I would never do it, only to pork or poultry. Because a brisket is almost fat free that the brine had little to absorb 'in'. 
Sitting in it's own juices is fine, this might be why it's kind of dry.
Try a  fattier cut of meat, cheaper too. Use a home made recipe and not packets.

Del Mer · Answer

I don't know how large your brisket was, but it could take 10 to 14 hours to tenderize like pork.
The big difference is the internal fat content of pork shoulder is much higher, once that fat melts the meat fibers fall free. Beef is more lean and tightly "knit", so just melting the external fat won't make it fall apart. The meat fibers themselves need continuous heat till the proteins break down.

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What went wrong with my Brisket recipe?

3 Answers