Beef Tallow Brisket

To slather your brisket in wagyu beef tallow or not to slather, that is the question. We answer it with a side by side comparison to see if beef tallow brisket is worth the extra effort. We smoke two identical briskets the exact same way in the same kamado grill except for one thing. On one we use beef tallow and on the other we don’t. 

Beef Tallow Brisket? Wait, what? Tallow? So tallow is simply fat. In this case beef fat. Actually WAGYU beef fat from South Chicago Packing company. I’ve always been firmly in the Emeril Legase camp that pork fat rules. That being said, just because pork fat rules, doesn’t mean beef fat doesn’t. In fact, beef fat is much more amazing than I ever imagined. I could go so far as to call it glorious.

I’d seen people here and there use beef tallow and had it on my list to do but hadn’t gotten around to it. Now I’m kicking myself for not doing this earlier. Before we hit this recipe, I’m finding more and more uses beef tallow including three different ways in this recipe for Beef Tallow French Fries (and a fat double burger). Now that we have covered that, let’s get after that brisket!

Beef Tallow Brisket Ingredients:

• 1 beef brisket (we used flats here)
• 1 cup mayo
• Salt optional
• Your favorite BBQ beef rub
• 4 foot sheet of peach butcher paper
• 4-8 ounces South Chicago Wagyu Beef Tallow, melted

Can you use beef tallow on brisket?

The simple answer is yes, but beef tallow is not the cheapest ingredient. So the bigger question is not if you can but if you should. We answer that question with this side by side comparison of one brisket where we used the beef tallow and one in which we didn’t. 

For this cook, we did flats to keep the cuts uniform and make our experiment a little more scientific. So what is the beef tallow brisket trick? Simply put, we smoke our brisket like normal and when it’s time to wrap in peach butcher paper, we add melted beef tallow. Full disclosure here, I was not sure there would be a huge difference between the two briskets. When I tasted my brisket with the tallow next to my control group brisket, at the end of this cook, I was completely floored. As in I will never cook another brisket without some  beef tallow involved. I’m not kidding. 

We used flats here for this experiment to keep our two briskets as similar to each other as possible. When making brisket at home using beef tallow, you don’t have to use just the flat. You could go flat, packer or point. It will work for any of the cuts.

We are a big fan of prime grade though:

That’s some serious marbling right there!

Scroll down to near the bottom and check out the video we made of this cook that I posted to our YouTube channel and please subscribe.

How do you make beef tallow brisket? 

Start by trimming the brisket, which in our case started as a whole packer.

At this point, dad knocked out the trimming and separating of the points from the flats:

There was a very thin flap coming off the side of the brisket that we completely cut away. There’s some debate on this. Some keep it, others remove. We remove it because that chunk will be burnt and dry before the rest of the brisket is done:

It looks thicker than it is.

Also, don’t worry, we tossed that on the grill too and cooked it separately. 

Here is our brisket ready for a binder and some seasoning:

These are our two prime grade brisket flats ready to be seasoned:

Yes, we put mayonnaise on our brisket

At the top of the above picture is our South Chicago Packing Wagyu Beef Tallow, but at the bottom here we have our binder which is mayonnaise. I think a future side by side will be mayo as a binder vs beef tallow as a binder. A binder simply helps a rub adhere to the meat. People use mayo, mustard, hot sauce, whatever to act as a binder.  

Do you smoke brisket with fat side up?

A lot of people think that fat melts and bastes the brisket as it cooks. It does baste the meat a little, but only sides as the fat runs off the top and down the sides. The top is completely insulated by the fat so the basting is minimal. I put it fat side down because the fat can act as an insulator and protect the meat from the heat rising from the bottom. 

So put the fat side up and add the mayonnaise binder and seasoning:

Why not mustard as a binder?

Mustard is a fine binder, but not as good of a baster as mayo. Mustard is great as glue, but not as good as basting the meat as it melts away in the smoker. The fat in the mayo bastes the meat as the brisket cooks. Also, no matter which one you use, the brisket is not going to taste like mustard or mayo. The binders melt away in the smoker. 

Now that we have the binder applied, let’s season. We used a pepper heavy seasoning that also had a good amount of salt in it so we didn’t add any extra salt.

Whether you use salt or not depends on your taste and how much salt is in the rub:

And just because we got a couple good action shots of the seasoning:

Brisket Grilling Instructions:

Now prep the grill. But wait, you haven’t seasoned the other side yet. Patience. We’ll get to that.

We are shooting for high heat (which is really only medium heat but that doesn’t sound as good). 300F plus or minus 25 degrees is our target: 

We are going for indirect grilling on our Primo ceramic kamado grill. Which means fire and smoke wood on the bottom (we used pear wood) and then plate setters between the fire and the meat to deflect the heat around the brisket which allows us to cook this brisket long enough to break down the connective tissues (this is what makes meat tender), but low enough not to burn it which will keep it juicy. With the oval shape of the Primo, we can easily accommodate two whole briskets, which isn’t possible on a round kamado.

Oh, if you don’t have access to pear wood, here is a complete list of smoke woods and what they pair well with.

OK, let’s get our briskets on the cooker.

Here is our one sided seasoned brisket:

Now place the briskets fat side/seasoned side down on our kamado:

NOW we season the other side of the brisket

See, had I seasoned both sides, whichever side was on the cutting board would need seasoning re-applied because a bunch would stick to the board.

So we season one side and then put the briskets seasoned side down on the grill and season the other side while the briskets are on the cooker:

Work that mayo around to completely coat the meat including the sides and then season:

Close the lid and let the kamado work its magic. If you aren’t using a kamado, there will be a good deal of moisture loss. One of the beautiful things about a kamado is the ceramic material which holds in moisture extremely well. On a traditional metal grill, that moisture is lost. It helps to do a spritz or a mop in that situation. No spray bottle?

I used a plastic soda bottle that I filled with equal parts of apple cider vinegar and water. I poked holes in the lid and boom:

One thing on a mop or spritz, wait a couple hours until the rub adheres to the meat.

Otherwise you’ll be doing this again because the rub washes off:

In just a couple hours our briskets that filled most of the cooking area of our oval Primo have shrunk up quite a bit:

What’s the stall?

At about the 4 hour mark, our briskets were at 175F and firmly into the stall. The stall is when the internal temp inside the briskets plateaus for an infuriatingly long time. This is standard for brisket and pulled pork. We wrap when the meat hits the stall. Why? By wrapping the briskets, the meat steams in their own juices which speeds up the stall all while keeping the briskets juicy. Oh, it also hyper accelerates the breakdown of the connective tissues which makes the meat more tender. Win and win.

Here’s where we get to that South Chicago Packing Wagyu Beef Tallow to make our beef tallow brisket.

This is such a simple thing, I can’t believe how amazing it is:

Fluffy icing

It looks and feels sort of like fluffy icing, which, by the way was my nickname in college. 

I used a spoon to get the fat into a condiment squirt bottle:

Throw the bottle in the microwave for 20 second to liquefy the tallow.

Peach Butcher Paper

But before we apply the tallow, we have to get the peach butcher paper. Why not white butcher paper?

Because white butcher paper can have wax on it. We want wax-less:

How much tallow do I add to brisket?

Time to squirt some fat! In this case, we used between 4-8 ounces.

Also, I have no idea what I’m so excited about, but I am here:

Don’t go light here. 

Also, maybe I was so excited because I could smell this:

Now set the brisket at one end of the peach butcher paper and go ahead and hit the top of the brisket with some more of that South Chicago Packing Wagyu Beef Tallow:

Now fold it up in the paper.

I like to fold the short end over the top of the brisket then fold the down the length of each side before rolling the wagyu beef tallow brisket over down the length of the paper:

Mmmmmm greasy!

And then we are going to do our control group.

The other brisket gets no wagyu beef tallow love:

What Temp to Wrap Brisket

There is no hard and fast absolute temperature in which to wrap brisket. It’s a range of temps between 160F-180F. If the brisket is wrapped at 155F or 185F no big deal.

Peach Butcher Paper Brisket back on the Grill

And back on the American Made Primo:

Left is the beef tallow and the right got no beef tallow. 

A couple hours later, we have defeated the stall and are 207F.

Most people go to 203-4 and normally I do too, but with these prime grade briskets they can handle a little more thanks to the higher fat content:

Time to rest the briskets

For this an empty cooler did the trick:

Beef tallow brisket is on the top.

We left the briskets in the paper in the cooler for about an hour. You could leave them in the cooler for many hours. Particularly if wrapped in a beach towel too. 

One note here, I was disappointed in my bark:

The bark was mushy on part of each brisket. The whole point of the paper is to have better park than foil. While I was not happy with the texture of the bark, the flavor was outstanding. AAAAAND this is why I don’t do barbecue competitions! For the backyard guy, it’s all about the flavor, to hell with the presentation score!

Time to bust out the sword to slice these briskets.

This is the one that did not get the tallow:

Now get a slice of the brisket so we can do the bend test:

The brisket bend test

And we have passed the bend test with flying colors!

Time for the other brisket.

This one got the peach butcher paper and the brisket itself slathered in the South Chicago Packing Wagyu Beef Tallow:

Another successful bend test.

But how’s the smoke ring on our wagyu beef tallow brisket?

Who needs to use a finger for the bend test.

Let’s use the back of the knife:

Yep, still passed!

So how did they compare? Let me show you rather than tell you.

This is me slicing into brisket and then tasting each of them for the first time:

Indeed, I think that says it all. I’ll have a video of the whole process up shortly.

Here is the link to the whole video since I can’t seem to imbed a short from YouTube 

Beef Tallow Brisket Summary:

A couple notes. You don’t have to melt the tallow. You could drop a big dollop right onto that brisket and then wrap it up. Additionally, before cooking, you could inject a choice or select brisket with some tallow and take it up a couple levels and make it really, really hard to dry out along with adding a bunch of flavor!

Furthermore, I’m thinking of mixing up some garlic and maybe ancho chili powder with a little tallow and make a compound butter like finisher for steaks. A dollop in some chili or stew would go a long way. Just spit balling. Did I mention that beef tallow lasts for months on the counter and even longer in the fridge and even longer in the freezer. 

Thank you

South Chicago Packing sponsored this post, and I’m so glad they did. Not just for the sponsorship, but to kick my butt into gear on the wagyu beef tallow because it is life changing. 

If you are looking for other brisket recipes (including a dynamite brisket chili recipe) click here. 

Also, you can follow us on our GrillinFools Facebook page, Instagram, and YouTube feeds

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

Wagyu Beef Tallow Brisket Recipe Card:

Print Recipe

5 from 2 votes

Beef Tallow Brisket

To slather your brisket in wagyu beef tallow or not to slather? We answer it with a side by side test to see if wagyu beef tallow brisket is worth the effort

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time8 hours hrs

Course: Brisket, Entree

Cuisine: Barbecue, BBQ

Keyword: #Grilled, Barbecue, BBQ, Beef, Beef Brisket, Beef Tallow, Brisket, Brisket Flat, Butcher Paper, Charcoal, Charcoal Grill, Grill, Grilling, Indirect Grilling, Kamado, Kamado Grill, Lump Charcoal, Peach Butcher Paper, Smoked Brisket

Servings: 12 People

Equipment

• 3-4 feet Peach butcher paper

Ingredients

• 1 Brisket The whole packer
• 1 cup Mayo Divided
• Salt Optional
• Your favorite BBQ beef rub Divided
• 4-8 ounces South Chicago Packing wagyu beef tallow Melted

Instructions

• Trim the fat from the brisket
• Slather the fat side with half the mayonnaise and coat with half the seasoning
• Prepare the grill for indirect grilling with a target internal temp of 275-325F
• Place smoke wood on the fire (we used pear)
• Place the brisket, seasoned/fat cap side down on the grill
• Slather the unseasoned side of the brisket with remaining mayonnaise and add beef rub evenly
• Close the lid for a few hours
• If not using a kamado grill then hit the brisket with a 50/50 apple cider vinegar/water spritz or mop after 2 hours and then every 30 minutes after
• Once the brisket hits 170F+ prepare the peach butcher paper
• Slather the paper with melted wagyu beef tallow
• Place the brisket on the peach butcher paper and add more melted tallow to the top of the brisket
• Roll up the brisket in the paper and place back on the grill
• When the brisket reaches 203-210F remove from the cooker and place in a clean cooler or microwave and allow to rest for 1-2 hours
• Remove from the paper and slice across the grain
• Eat and enjoy

Video

Additionally, More of our Wagyu Beef Tallow Brisket Cook

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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This article was initially published on: June 30, 2022