Brisket on the smoker is really one of the top tier cooks you can undertake, it's long and has quite a few steps but it's very rewarding. Your first cook won't come out as good as your future ones, but all of the briskets will be outstanding so don't be afraid to take it on.

Most briskets I've purchased have been decently trimmed. Sometimes you need to trim the fat cap on the underside, it should be left 1/4" thick. Then meat less than 1" thick should be trimmed off as it won't survive this extended cook, and some professionals further trim for neatness/prettiness, I don't bother.

You can save the pure fat trimmings to render down into beef tallow, and I always save and bag meatier trimmings, adding them to other beef trimmings to grind and make burgers.

Next, season with your favourite beef rub, I've experimented with a lot and here are my favourites: (keep in mind flavour preferences of guests if you making this to share with others).

• Meat Church Holy Voodoo - awesome rub, I usually pair it with their Salt Pepper Garlic.

• Simple 40-40-20 Coarse ground black pepper, coarse salt, granulated garlic.

• Simple 50-25-25 Black pepper, table salt, Lawry's seasoning salt. Option to pair with a sprinkle of garlic powder.

During this cook I am also making smoked beef tallow which can be used on future cooks and possibly in the kitchen. Tallow is great to add to a brisket at the wrapping stage, is fantastic for frying homemade hash browns, and apparently has some health benefits.

There are lots of great Pellet choices for brisket, competition blends are pretty safe starting out, Jax Legendary Blend are great, and recently I've been using Furtado Farms Pecan wood. They give a milder smoke profile for these very long cooks.

I place the brisket on the grate fat side down which will protect the meat. I start the cook with the machine on smoke setting, usually P5 or P6 unless it's cooler out where P1 or P2 are better. I also fill and light my smoke tube for these long cooks to get as much smoke into the meat before bark forms.

There's a lot of methods for the initial cook, here are 2 I use regularly depending on how much I want to keep checking on the cook:

• Often I put the brisket on at midnight, top off the pellet hopper and leave it until 7 or 8am. Many times it's not quite ready to wrap yet so I bump grill temp to 225ºF for an hour or 2.

• Another method is at the 3 hour mark bump grill temperature to 200ºF for 1.5 hour, 225ºF for 1.5 hours. Now internal temp should be 165-180, bark looking great, and a mahogany colour. If not leave for another hour or more at 225ºF.

Tallow slowly doing its thing!

Now it's time to wrap in butcher paper which can be found at many local BBQ supply shops. If you have beef tallow you can add a healthy dollop now to increase moisture inside the wrap! Wrapping helps keep in heat and push the cook through the stall (where meat temp just doesn't increase) and reduces cooking time.

Next I place the wrapped brisket back on the grill now set to 250 or 275ºF, I set it fat side up so the rendering fat flows down over the meat. The remaining cook can take 2-6 hours or more depending on ambient temperature, size of the brisket, etc.

After 2 hours at 250ºF+ the tallow should be rendered as much as it's going to. Remove the large chunks and strain the remaining through cheesecloth into a jar, I used a mason jar. It will harden and turn off white because as it's a smoked product.

The brisket is finished when internal temperature nears 205ºF, most important is to probe the brisket (especially the flat) for tenderness using a skewer or instant read thermometer. It should be like a hot knife through butter. If not fire it back on the grill.

I rest my briskets still wrapped in butcher paper, then wrapped in plastic, inside a cooler so it cools down slowly. Longer the better, after 4 hours mine are often still hot at 180ºF internal!

This meater graph showed the 2nd half of the cook after wrapping.

After resting it's time to slice. I separate the flat (thinner flatter end) and the point (thicker end) first. Using the pic above as a refrence, the flat will be sliced up and down, the point left to right.