Recipes and Tips I use

When cooking Brats I use three methods.  First of all you need to understand the difference between grilling and smoking.  Grilling is fast cooking over a hot direct flame while smoking is slow cooking over an indirect heat source.  That's a very simple description but it will do for this discussion.  Most people just throw the brats over a hot fire and cook them until the are burnt.  I don't like to do this because I don't like the casing on brats.  The casings don't taste good and they prevent the flavors imparted by your grill to penetrate the brats.  So, the first thing you need to do on all of my  methods is remover the brats from the casings and throw the casings in the trash.  Now, to grill the naked brats just place them on the hot grill and cook them until the internal temperature is 165 degrees. 

The next method involves smoking naked brats.  I use this often when smoking things like ribs.  Smoking ribs can take around four hours and I often get hungry during that time.  So, I find some room on the smoker for some naked brats and smoke them until they get to 165 degrees.  These are better then the grilled  brats.

The third method is the best.  After removing the casings of six brats I gently make three small loafs by combining the brats, two at a time.  Don't make them too tight.   Then sprinkle each of the three small loafs, with a good rib rub.  Then smoke them in a smoker with a couple of apple wood chunks, until they reach 165 degrees, internal temperature.  You might want to make several of these at a  time.  Slice them like thick pepperoni.  You will find they taste good, even cold, out of the refrigerator and they freeze well.  The important thing get the brats out of the casings and then you can experiment.

Nobody knows where this recipe came from. All anyone knows is my mother Maxine Basso had this recipe for many years and it delighted a lot of people. She guarded it closely and would give it to nobody. Well over the years she forgot what went into the recipe and lost the "hard copy" of it. So it was lost forever, or so it appeared. It disappeared for over thirty years.

After she passed away the recipe was discovered in an old cook book. At first I decided that I would only sell it because it was so good and worth money. However I have decided to give it to anyone that wants it. Since some of the finest people in the world visit this web page I think it's only fair that you should have it.

Ray Basso

Light Rolls

(The following is the recipe after some corrections have been made to the original)

1 cup of milk

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/2 tablespoon salt

3 cups flour

1 egg

One cake of yeast (you cannot buy cake yeast anymore. So use one small package.)

Mix butter and 1/2 cup milk - add sugar, salt, then heat this mixture slightly (95-105 degree). Then stir in the yeast. You then need to let this mixture set for a few minutes until the yeast starts to activate. You can tell this when the yeast starts to bubble up, it takes about 10 minutes. Then put the rest of the milk in a separate container and beat the egg into this milk.

Then you pour the milk and yeast mixture into a large bowl. You can then start sifting in the flour. After about half of the flour has been worked in you need to add the milk and egg mixture. The remainder of the flour is then worked in.

Once this is all completed you need to cover it loosely with plastic wrap , and let it rise to about double the size. Next make round balls of the dough and put it on a cookie sheet. In order to roll the round balls you will need to put some flour on your hands or the dough will stick to your hands. Place the balls on a cookie sheet and let them about double again and then bake in a 350 degree oven for about 13 min. Or until golden brown.

Since 1998 I have been using the same barbecued beans recipe and everyone loves it.  So here is the recipe I use when I cook BBQ Beans.  This recipe was originally posted to the BBQ Forum and I then added my signature ingredients to the original recipe.

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It was posted by Jerry Berwnager June 29, 1996.

Here's a recipe that works well with me and is enjoyed by all of my friends.
2 - 16 oz cans of beans (in Kansas City I use Bush Baked Beans)
Drain sauce out of can and discard.
3/4 cup BBQ sauce
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup chopped smoked pork or brisket (or use bacon)
2 tablespoons honey
3/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

Serves 6
Fold together all ingredients in a large bowl. Transfer to an aluminum baking pan. Place
in smoker uncovered at medium heat (225 F- 275 F.) for about 90 minutes or until heated though.

Hint: Next time you smoke a pork shoulder or brisket put some away in a freezer bag for use in your
beans. I use apple wood but hickory and oak work well, you'll have to experiment with your particular cooker.
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Comments from Ray

I have changed the recipe a bit. I use skinned red peppers instead of
green. I also add a tablespoon of Head Country's Rub and a tablespoon
of Horseradish.

Here is how I cook briskets as I posted to the BBQ Forum 5/11/09.

The following is how I cooked my last briskets. I cooked a couple of large flats on the WSM at about 240 degrees. I took the briskets out of the refrigerator and injected them with chilled canned beef broth. Then I sprinkled a bit of accent on each of them. Next, I gave them a good coating of Durkee Steak Dust. I then went over them again with Head Country’s Rub, and follow this up with some grindings of Weber’s Chicago Steak Seasoning. These three sets of spices combined with the injected beef broth became my formula, to produce good briskets. This formula worked well, other formulas I have tried in the past did not work as well.

When the smoker was up to temperature I put both briskets on. One brisket went on the top grate and one on the lower grate. The fire was built with lump charcoal and I put in a couple of chunks of oak and two chunks of hickory.

I then cooked them until the internal temperature hit 165 degrees and at that point I pulled them out, wrapped the good and tight in aluminum foil. I cranked up the temperature in the smoker to about 300 degrees and cooked them until the internal temperature hit 195 degrees. Then I took them out of the smoker and wrapped them up in an old insulated (washable jacket) and let them set for three hours. I still had the temperature probe in and made sure the internal temperature never went below 160, which it did not.

After three hours I opened them up and poured the juices that had collected in the foil, into a bowl. I put the bowl in the refrigerator, to separate the fat. While I was waiting for the fat to solidify on the top I sliced the briskets. I then put small portions in pre-made Food Saver bags. Then, after the fat was separated from the juice I removed the fat, and added the remaining excess beef broth. I put a large spoonful of juice in each bag. The bags were then sealed while the sliced brisket was still hot and immediately put into the freezer. Whenever I wanted any brisket I just put the frozen bags in boiling water for 20 minutes and it tasted as good as the day I cooked it.

Now this is a very common way of cooking brisket that has been discussed on the forum almost since that beginning of the BBQ Forum. It almost always produces very good brisket. It seems that a lot more discussion has revolved around how to cook briskets rather than what we put in it or on it. What I used on these briskets was just some stuff I had in the kitchen but the three items I put on the briskets produced really good results. They became a formula when combined coupled with the injected beef broth and the result was good tasting brisket.

I would be interested in hearing from some other people about what spices you put on brisket and what you inject in brisket. I don’t expect anyone to give all the ingredients of your formula like I did. But I am sure that some random items would be of interest to me and others. Your comments would provide a good working ground for people trying to develop their own formula.

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In the follow up messages in the thread some more details came out:

I have won using the same cooking technique, cept I start probing around 203*. When I'm cooking comp, my rub is equal parts K salt, fresh ground bp,and granulated garlic with a little Accent. This is purty spicey for the home folks, but it works for the judges and I inject with fb cut 50/50 with water. Also I try to use a LH brisket, if possible........ed

Posted by Zeb on May 11, 2009 at 20:14:44:

Ray,

Good posting. That has about all a newer cooker should need to know to cook a good brisket. It is hard for a newer cook to find all that info in one place. Great job!

We never inject ours and we wait until that point that it hits 205. We are not really shooting for 205, but when the meat gets to 190-195, just waiting on the temp to "break." For us, it tends to "hang" there for a while and as soon as it gets "unhung" the temp shoots up quick and it is usually about 205 before I get to it. I guess the "unhanging" is when the internal tissues finally break. Though, we have never placed higher than 12th out of 52 teams with our brisket and have consistantly finished 12th - 15th doing it this way, it is as good as any and consistant.

Maybe we need to inject:)

I can say that we prefer a "red-eye" TYPE mop and use it as "sauce."

The only thing with brisket is that no 2 cook the same. If I could figure that part out I guess I'd be brisket king, huh?!

Zeb

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In Reply to: Great Post posted by Zeb on May 11, 2009 at 20:14:44:

Thanks, but most of the technique came from a post to the BBQ Forum in 1996 by Mike Scrutchfield. I and many others have been cooking briskets that way since then. In Mike's post he said to cook the brisket to 205 degrees while in the foil. I stop most of the time at 195 because sometimes 205 is too much. But, sometimes 205 is perfect.

I was just talking about the last briskets I cooked and that is exactly what I did. I didn't leave anything out. These two briskets turned out so good that I didn't put any sauce on it or anything else. I don't know how this would have done in a contest but it was damn good.

Ray Basso

• Mike's brisket post