6-March
It looks like we are heading into the 60s tomorrow under a blue umbrella sky ( that’s a beautiful line from the song Summer Wind, Sinatra 1965 ), so it should be a splendid day for smoking a beef brisket. The excitement and anticipation of a day of smoking begins the day before, when you pick up the brisket and wood chunks. I don’t go for those puny little two-pounders they put out on the grocery shelf. No siree Bob. Ten pound minimum, so I have to query the meat-man at Dierbergs to fetch such a majestic slab.
A barbeque feast should be an occasion, with hickory or mesquite smoke filling the air all day. When the feast is ready for the table, it can’t be some paltry offering with barely enough. It must be sufficiently robust for impromptu guests, neighbors and plentiful leftovers. Perhaps this not in keeping with the collectivist zeitgeist, but there it is.
Usually, I treat the brisket with the most respectful minimalism, rubbing it only with salt and pepper. However, this time I am trying something a bit different, adding an ancho chili and coffee rub. This is a promising concoction and tomorrow will tell the tale on this departure from orthodoxy. Brisket should have a peppery bark on the outside, in my view.
We shall set the alarm at 0600. With a good pot of strong coffee, a Saint Louis sunrise and little Mitzi as my helper, I would think we could be feast-ready by 1500-1600 hrs. Would morning dough-nuts help the process?
It’s always a bit harder to sleep before brisket day.
And here we are, on a perfect, crisp Sunday morning, with my assistant on the job. As the morning stretches out, mesquite smoke drifts around the neighborhood and the brisket acquires a lovely dark color. Temperature control is my biggest challenge, since I operate with manual equipment. Many barbeque experts have embraced digital sensing and control, but I am a laggard. The physics of combustion are the same, and there is something to be said for getting a feel for the process.