It's Time For Us, As A Society, To Talk About How Much Pepper Went On This Brisket
Okay so first things first here--throwing some mustard on a brisket before the cook isn't the same thing as throwing some mustard on a hot dog before you eat it. The mustard is just there to help the seasoning stick to the meat. You could use mustard, you could use oil, you could use hot sauce, you could just let the meat sweat a little bit and use its natural moisture. Moral of the story is after you smoke a brisket for 12 hours, you can't taste even a hint of mustard.
Now let's move on to the seasoning because by the sounds made in this video, some folks are clearly very heated on the issue. I'll admit that if you're adding that much seasoning to a steak before you throw it on the grill, you should get citizens arrested. But a brisket? A brisket can handle a shit load of seasoning. And while personally I'd prefer a little closer to even ratio between salt and pepper on my brisket, some of the best brisket in the world uses 9 parts black pepper to 1 part salt. Are you going to get on TikTok and say that Louie Mueller Barbecue doesn't know what they're doing?
Didn't think so.
I mean, sure, if you're having your grandma over for a family bbq then maybe you don't want to blow her fucking brains out with all that pepper. But if you're just having the boys over for some beers and lawn games and everybody is an adult whose palates have fully developed? Then load that bitch up with as much pepper as you want to build that bark.
And just to make a couple things clear to some folks out there who may not understand there's a difference between smoking a brisket and grilling a steak. Because I feel like a bunch of people just kind of categorize all bbq as grilling so they just don't know. But 1) You don't want any pink in the middle of of the meat like you would for a medium rare steak. If someone serves you a slice of brisket that is pink in the middle, send that shit back because it's going to be garbage. The only pink you're looking for is a smoke ring along the edge. But we can talk about smoke rings later because they aren't always the best indicator of great barbecue as some people thing.
2) That crust you see doesn't mean that the meat is burnt. It's not like you threw some burgers on the grill and torched them until they turned into hockey pucks. But for something like a brisket, you want that nice crispy bark to go along with that super juicy and tender bite of beef that's waiting for you underneath of it. That's not to say you can't burn your bark to shit if you decide to throw some brown sugar on there or anything. But again, we can talk about that later.
Moral of the story is there's nothing wrong at all with that brisket seasoning. Personally I'd go a little lighter on the pepper but it's all preference. But let this video serve as a reminder that we all have to do our parts here to educate the world on the differences between seasoning and cooking a brisket from what you'd expect to see out of a steak. Keep fighting the good fight, people.