You must have heard that wrapping a brisket is one of the most essential steps of its preparation.
If you are unfamiliar, this step involves wrapping the brisket up in either butcher paper or a heavy-duty foil, in the middle of its cooking process.
This step is mandatory to maintain the tenderness, juiciness, and flavor of your brisket, and shouldn’t be skipped. Experts refer to it as the Texas Crutch.
Considering its importance, we’re here to help you learn how to wrap a brisket.
Wrapping a Brisket in Foil: A Step-By-Step Guide
The original Texas Crutch involved wrapping a brisket with aluminum foil. If this is your first time trying to wrap a brisket, we recommend using foil since it takes no skill to wrap with it.
This method prepares rather soft meat with a beefy flavor, in around 11 hours.
Wrapping in Foil
Aluminum foil should readily be available at your home already. Even if it’s not, it can easily be found in any store anywhere.
- You will need about 2 arm-length pieces of aluminum foil for wrapping a brisket.
- Put both of these 2 arm-length pieces over each other.
- Place the brisket in the middle of these foils and wrap the foil as tightly as possible.
The best thing about wrapping in foil is that it automatically is wrapped tightly.
Benefits of Using Foil
The tight seal created by an aluminum foil wrap helps cook the brisket fast. However, it’s still important to observe the internal temperature of the brisket every 30 minutes.
But because of the tight seal, the meat will also become moist and soft towards the end of the cooking process.
See also: When to Wrap a Brisket
Wrapping a Brisket in Butcher Paper: A Step-By-Step Guide
Using a butcher paper also fastens the cooking time for the brisket, but it does allow a little smoke to get through it, unlike a foil, which makes its cooking time around 11 hours and 30 minutes.
The meat comes out of it crunchy, and has both a beefy and a smoky taste to it.
Wrapping in Butcher Paper
Wrapping in butcher paper requires a lot of skill, unlike foil.
- Take two pieces of butcher paper.
- Put them over each other in a way that they don’t form two completely different layers, but do overlap to some extent.
- Place the brisket in the middle of these two papers and begin to fold the paper in order to wrap the brisket.
- Place this wrapped brisket upside down in the smoker, so that the weight of the brisket weighs the opening down to keep it pressed and closed.
You can easily get butcher paper from your nearest butcher shop.
If you want more help, a Traeger Grill Tutorial would be useful to you.
Our Pick
Benefits of Using Butcher Paper
We prefer butcher paper over foil because it helps absorb the grease from the brisket. This then forms a conductive layer of moisture for heat, aiding the cooking process.
However, since it’s not as tight as a foil, the meat will have a little smoky flavor in it.
Also Read:
Wrapping it Up
Wrapping a brisket is an important step in cooking it. With this guide, you can help wrap it up in both butcher paper and a foil.
Happy cooking!
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