How Long Does It Actually Take To Smoke A Brisket?

If you, like Antonia Lofaso, are a fan of recipes that take hours and hours, then smoking a brisket could be the perfect weekend project for you. Heck, why not smoke a whole dang pastrami? (The deli meat made from salt-brined brisket seasoned with pepper, coriander, fennel garlic, and mustard; and yes, it's perfectly possible to make your own.) You don't even need a dedicated smoker since it's quite easy to transform a cheap charcoal grill into a smoker with very little effort. What you're going to need (as we already implied) is quite a few hours to babysit your smoking brisket.

How many hours are we talking about? Well, that's going to vary depending on the weight and thickness of the meat and the degree of doneness you want, but brisket needs to reach at least 203 degrees Fahrenheit inside to be considered fully cooked. As a general rule, it will take between 30 minutes and 1 hour per pound of meat. Meaning that a 12-pound brisket will need between 6 and 12 hours on the smoker plus an additional 1 to 3 hours of prep time for brining. After that, it'll still need to sit for at least an hour before it's ready to carve and eat. This will allow you time to whip up some tasty barbecue sides like our German gnocchi potato salad or our garlicky lemon herb macaroni salad

If you're too impatient to wait a full day, there are a few brisket smoking methods that some cooks swear by which are supposed to knock a few hours off the total time commitment. It's not a bad deal, really, if you want to eat dinner at a normal hour but aren't a fan of getting up in the early morning hours. One of these (a shortcut recommended by pitmaster Aaron Franklin) involves smoking the brisket for just five or six hours to absorb all the wood-fired flavor, then finishing it off in a 250 degree Fahrenheit oven until it hits the internal temperature recommended above. This may take four hours or more, so you're not saving a lot of time, but it does allow you to shift operations indoors in case the weather becomes inclement.

Another shortcut, however, involves cooking your brisket over a higher heat than is typical for smoking. Brisket smoking typically takes place in the 225 to 250 degree range (this is the grill's temperature, not the meat's). But at 325 degrees, your 12-pound brisket can be done in under six hours. Before you rush in, there are a few tips and tricks you need to know to pull off this high heat cooking method. For one thing, cook the brisket with the fat down to protect the bottom of the meat. (Also, don't trim too much fat.) For another, once the meat hits 170 degrees, wrap it in foil to keep it from drying out while it finishes cooking.