5 Tips for the Best Smoked Brisket and Golf of Your LIfe

Some followers decry my use of this blog for things other than golf. They call me confused. They are nearsighted in their approach to life. It is not hard for the avid golfer to see how cooking a brisket relates to golf, and life in general. For those of you who haven’t caught the vision, let me explain how these 5 tips will ensure one of the best smoked briskets you have ever eaten and lead to the best golf you have ever played.

1. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…”

For the Best Brisket Don’t Ask Don’t Tell — A fat edge sharpie works best

The most important part about cooking a brisket does not involve the seasoning. The most important prep work is much simpler than that. When you get your brisket home from the store, take a sharpie and black out the price of the meat. Nobody wants to start a BBQ by having a argument with their spouse about how much the meat cost. Prices of brisket have gone up in recent years due to increased popularity. It used to be one of the cheapest cuts of meat. I unfortunately was a little short sighted and didn’t cross out the weight or unit price on my most recent purchase. Amateur mistake.

Golfing is Priceless

Arnold Palmer once said, “I have a tip that can take five strokes off anyone’s game. It’s called an eraser.” I don’t condone cheating in golf or in marriage. For the betterment of society though it seems that not telling your significant other about the price of some hobbies is best. Kelsey taught me this principle when she shops for her clothes. I have adopted this for both golf and my meats. A few years back Kelsey told me she wanted a fun money bank account that was hidden from my oversight. Of course she wanted me to replenish it monthly as well. I decided to do the same for myself. It’s nice not having someone nitpicking the price of every purchase. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” may have been done away with in the military, but in small doses may be healthy for your marriage, your brisket, and your golf game.

2. Trim the Fat

Trim the Fat for the Best Smoked Brisket — Trim the fat for even cooking and the best taste.

Brisket comes with a large amount of fat on it. You will be chewing a mouthful of fat on every bite unless you trim it off. It is tough to know how to trim a brisket properly. Some people leave the fat on because they think it adds to the flavor. It made me nervous to cut it off initially. There are varying philosophies you will find online about whether or not to trim the fat and how much should be lopped off. The Houston Chronicle had a great article about how a lot of Texas joints do it. In my mind who wants to spend 12 hours cooking a delicious meat to bite into a chunk of chewy fat? Not me. The following website gave the best tips that I could find on how to properly trim the fat on your brisket.

https://www.traegergrills.com/smokenomics/competition-brisket

I ended up whacking off most of the fat and all of the silver lining on the brisket before I smoked it. It turned out perfect. The Traeger website said to leave a 1/4” layer of fat on the bottom. I chose to cut it thinner than that (I cut off as much as I could without cutting off meat) and will probably do that again for future briskets. Don’t forget to place the fat side of your brisket on the bottom of the Traeger when you cook it. Unless you love chewing on a bunch of fat, cut it off your brisket before you smoke it.

Trimming your Fat Golf Shots

Me and my then one year old. He now golfs left handed. The huge divots are probably from me.

We all know that guy who takes huge divots or seems to hit every shot fat. For those new to the game a Fat Shot in golf is when you take a large divot out of the ground and your ball doesn’t fly much farther than your divot. You have to trim out those fat shots if you want to become a top 100 physician golfer. These are Jack Nickalus’ thoughts on how to trim the fat shots from your game.

When I was a kid my family used to call me Minnesota Fats. Unfortunately it was not due to me hitting fat shots on the course. Minnesota Fats will definitely be a topic of a future blog post. Just last week I was 1 over par going into the 16th hole. Two fat shots later I double bogeyed the hole. I ended up shooting 6 over for the round. My fat shots had ruined my confidence. If you want the best smoked brisket and to play your best golf then trim the fat.

3. Prep for Success

I tried to come up with a fancy title for this section. When I googled “Prep” the first thing that came up was “Prep for colonoscopy”. Given that this is a golf and medical blog I may have to discuss that in the future as well.

What you do the meat before dropping it on the grill will have the biggest impact on whether or not you are eating dry leather or the most amazing smoked brisket of your life. I found hundreds of different ways to prepare my brisket when researching online. Some of them seemed very strange, especially for a novice brisket smoker. One tip I got included slathering the whole brisket in Mayonnaise before I seasoned it. Sounds nasty to me. Others had different ideas on how high of a temperature to smoke the brisket at. Everyone had their own idea of the type of rub and the type of wood pellets that were used to smoke the brisket.

Here is what worked for me:

Rudy’s Rub- After trimming the fat I liberally coated the brisket in Rud’s Rub. I then wrapped it in plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge for 12 hours. My wife brought me home some Rudy’s rub when she visited Waco, Texas last year. It was the first time I used it and it won’t be the last. Save yourself the flight to Texas and pick some up on Amazon.
Oak Traeger Pellets- I typically smoke with Hickory/Apple wood pellet combo. My father in law recommended I give Oak a try. I had never used Oak when smoking and gave it a whirl. Try it out. It won’t disappoint.
Cooking Temp/Duration- This was the most difficult step for me. I have an old Traeger with an aftermarket cooking dial. Typically my temperatures do stay fairly constant but I had to battle them a bit this time. It wasn’t quite as set it and forget it as I would have like. In a nut shell this is what I did:
- Smoked @ 160-180 degrees for 5 hours (until internal temperature of the meat reaches 160 degrees)
- Removed brisket from the Traeger and wrapped it in foil with some beef boilloun to keep it moist
- Cooked @ 225 degrees for 7 hours (until meat temp was 204 degrees)
- Wrapped brisket (with foil) in multiple towels and placed it in a cooler for 4 hours.

Prepping Your Golf Round

On the golf course most golfers make the mistake of not prepping adequately for their rounds. This doesn’t mean you have to spend 2 hours at the range prior to each round, but the time you spend on the range and putting green the days leading up will make a huge difference.

Brooks Koepka shocked the golfing world a few weeks ago by showing up to his final round of the World Golf Championship only 45 minutes before he teed off. This was his response:

No such thing as Sunday scaries for @BKoepka. pic.twitter.com/pkJNVGd7sG

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 30, 2019

Tiger Woods has the best pre-round routine of anyone I have ever seen. If I was good enough to play in tournaments I would prep like he does.

Want to warm up like @TigerWoods?

This is what it takes. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/xQeDI9P0zw

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 17, 2019

Prep work on Saturday is a must for the best smoked brisket on Sunday. The same could be said of your golf game.

4. Start it Early, Cook it Slow

The key to any good brisket is a long smoke/cook time. If you cook it too fast then it won’t be tender. For my most recent brisket I figured I needed to cook it for at least 12 hours. This made it a little difficult, especially considering I wanted to eat it right after church ended. Fortunately you can finish a brisket ahead of time and keep it wrapped in tinfoil, multiple towels, and then place it in a cooler. It will stay warm for multiple hours. I kept mine wrapped for 3 hours in a cooler and it was perfect by the time the rest of dinner was ready. Regardless you want to let your brisket rest for at least 30 minutes before you serve it.

I started my brisket at 12:00am (midnight for those of you who can’t tell time) and finally took it off the Traeger around noon, 12 hours later. In an ideal setting we would have ate at 5:00pm or 6:00pm and I could have just woken up early to get it going. Staying up until 1:30am to make sure my meat was smoking properly was well worth it to me.

Start it Early, Play it Fast

Set an early tee time for your best golf experience — A recent 6am round with my brothers at @SoldierHollowGC in Midway, UT

I’m an early tee time type of guy. I like to be the first one off in the morning. For your best golf experience play in the morning. During med school we would often wake up at 4am, drive an hour to play The Bull at Pinehurst Farms, a beautiful Jack Nickalus design, and be the first ones off at 5:15am. It was an ideal scenario for us. There aren’t too many things I don’t mind losing sleep over. Golf and brisket are high on that list.

The only way that golf differs from smoking an amazing brisket is that golf should not be done slowly. The biggest conversation in golf right now is the slow pace of play. Several golfers are known for being methodical in their approach to every shot. Bryson Dechambeau has been blasted on social media this week for his slow play.

No round of golf should ever take more than 4 hours. I can play a full 18 by myself in less than 2 hours. When I play with someone else I can get done in 2 and 1/2 hours. The #1 golfer in the world is fed up with his playing partners slow play.

“I mean, I take 15 seconds and go, and I’ve done all right. So I don’t understand why they are taking a minute and a half.” ?

Brooks Koepka still isn’t happy about slow play.https://t.co/I7PeNgTPQ6

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) August 7, 2019

5. Don’t Slice it Too Thick

After 12 hours of smoking at 24 hours of prep time don’t ruin the brisket with a poor slice job. They say that brisket should be sliced the same width as pencil. I don’t remember where I read this but it seemed to stick. After buying a 17lb brisket, trimming the fat, and smoking for 12 hours we had enough to feed about 25-30 people.

Slice it Thin for a Successful Round

I am not a golf swing analyst. It is very tough for me to look at someone’s swing and determine what is wrong with it. I know when a swing looks bad but I don’t try to analyze every portion of my own swing. For much of my life I battled a slice. The rage 20 years ago was for everyone to hit a draw. Now, if you are not hitting a power fade (slicing it thin) then you’re not playing how the pros play. Just like your brisket avoid the thick slice. Hit the power fade for you best rounds of golf. Rickie Fowler in Golf Digest has some of the best tips I’ve seen for how to hit the power fade.