We just finished a very satisfying, restaurant quality beef brisket meal. I had made it a couple times before, but the third time was the charm. Also - bonus - you can get brisket for $4.99 a pound, on sale, so it's pretty cheap. And I didn't use a smoker or anything else fancy (except a temperature probe, which seems pretty standard nowadays).
First trial - I made the beef brisket in the pressure cooker. I'm a "low effort" cook - I don't like to fuss over things, or spend a lot of time, so I thought the pressure cooker would be great. But it's not the way to go. Although you CAN find recipes that tell you how to pressure cook your beef brisket, it definitely does NOT turn out like regular brisket. Edible and quick, but not great.
Second trial - I did a lot of researching on recipes, and found what I thought was a pretty decent one (cooking in an oven). I didn't cook it long enough though - it was done, but didn't have the classic beef brisket tenderness. Still, it was good enough to encourage get me to try again.
Third trial - I did mostly what I did last time, except longer and slower. Also I didn't put the brisket up on a rack - the theory was that if it's not on a rack, once it's "resting" (the period after it gets to the right temperature, when it's supposed to rest and let the fibers relax) it can also reabsorb some of the juices/fat that has been cooked out.
The vote was in, and this time the brisket was very popular. There's tons of leftovers as well.
It's a long process, BUT there's very little hands-on work with my recipe - none of the time-consuming details you see on youtube videos (transferring from oven to smoker, wrapping it, injecting it, etc.).
Here's a concise version of my recipe. If anybody has questions, ask and I will give details.
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Get a 7 or so pound brisket. Where I live, they come in about 15 pound chunks, so cut one of those in half, and freeze the other half.
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Leave it out of the fridge the night before. That way it'll be at room temperature, and not fridge temperature, and the initial part of the cooking won't take as long.
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Put in the cooking pan (no rack necessary), and put the spice rub over it. I used the following: 3 tablespoon smoked paprika 2 tablespoon salt 1 tablespoon garlic powder 1 tablespoon onion powder 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
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Start the oven. I set it to 285 degrees F, at convection bake.
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Cover with tin foil, going over the rim of the pan. Seal it nicely, but don't stress too much about getting the perfect seal.
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Put a temperature probe into the thickest part of the brisket. The final temperature you're aiming for 203 degrees F.
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Now let it cook in the oven. It'll probably take at least 5 or 6 hours to get to 203. It'll depend on what the initial temperature is, so if you've left it out of the fridge the night before (which I will do next time) maybe it'll be a few hours less.
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Take it out, and "rest" it. I've seen estimates from 30 minutes to 4 hours. I did 1 hour.
Slice up the brisket (always against the grain) and serve. Use the drippings from the pan as an amazing sauce.
Yum!
For next time, I need to figure out how to slice it better. It tasted great, but the slicing was all over the place, and sometimes was more chunks than slices. Also I'll try out a shorter "rest". I'm not sure I believe that the resting is very important.