---
title: 'How to Smoke Brisket in a Charcoal BBQ for Beginners'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=4pEpuwdJOK4'
video_id: '4pEpuwdJOK4'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 1011
---

# How to Smoke Brisket in a Charcoal BBQ for Beginners

> Source: [How to Smoke Brisket in a Charcoal BBQ for Beginners](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4pEpuwdJOK4)

## Summary



## Transcript

do you want to learn how to smoke
brisket then stick around because in
this video i'm going to show you how to
smoke brisket in a charcoal barbecue all
right so we're going to be working with
a full brisket today now this one weighs
about six and a half kilos and we're
going to get started by trimming it up
all right so we'll start by flipping it
over and we'll trim the underside first
you've always got a big pocket of fat
here so we'll work on taking that out
[Music]
all right so that's about as much as
i'll take off there for now so we'll
spin it around and now we want to work
on taking some of this hard fat off the
bottom
you don't have to get all of it the thin
layers will render down
and because this end of the flat is very
thin i'm just going to square it off
through here
all right now i'm pretty happy with how
that underside's looking so we'll flip
it over and get started on the top
so you want to make your brisket a nice
uniform shape so i'm just going to trim
this top flap off
the more evenly you trim your brisket
the more even it's going to cook
now i'm working on the point end here
now there's so much intramuscular fat in
there you can afford to trim a lot of
this top fat off but on the flat side
here it's a little bit leaner so you
definitely want to try and leave a nice
even fat coverage on there and you
really want to try and trim your brisket
in a way that no juices will pull up
anywhere on it i know it's going to be
hard to avoid sometimes but if you can
definitely try and trim it that way and
your brisket trimmings don't throw them
away if you've got anything around 80
lean meat and 20 fat keep it as it makes
for the best burger patties if you've
got a mincer and any hard fat i like to
keep i'll put that in a pot later on
render it down and make some beef tallow
now this side of the brisket is a lot
thinner than the other so i'm just going
to run my knife down this side and just
square it off a little bit
[Music]
all right now i'm happy with both sides
of this brisket it's nice and uniform so
let's season it up all right so
seasoning your brisket now if you've got
a favorite beef rub go ahead and use
that or salt and pepper always does the
trick some of the best briskets i've
tasted is just a 50 50 mix of kosher
salt and cracked black pepper which is
the base for what we're going to be
using today but we've topped it up with
some steak shooter and garlic goals so
that's what i've prepared here in this
little shaker so we'll get it mixed up
and season this brisket
all right so we'll flip our brisket over
and season the bottom side first
i'll give it a light coat and mustard
just to help bind our rubs
and then you want to sprinkle from a
height so you get a nice even coverage
and give the bottom side of our brisket
a nice generous coat
don't forget the ends as well
then we can flip it over and do the top
all right so now our brisket is trimmed
and seasoned we can get started on
setting up our barbecue all right so
we're going to be using the oklahoma
joe's blackjack kettle so we'll get
started by opening it up and taking our
cooking grate out then you want to open
up some briquettes now you can either
rip the bag open or usually one side you
can just untie
the string a few times
and then you should be able to just pull
it
and open it up like so and we're going
to be using the snake method today so
with your briquettes you want to just
stack them up like so in a domino
fashion
all right so the bottom layer of our
snake is done now if you were using
larger briquettes you just run a single
stack through the middle for our second
layer but because these brick hats are a
little bit smaller we're going to keep a
double stack on top
all right so our snake is pretty much
done as you can see we've built it most
of the way around our charcoal grate but
we've just left a gap here and that's
where our startup briquettes are going
to go so in a charcoal chimney you want
to get about 12 briquettes
then we'll get a couple of fire lighters
going
we'll get our brick hats on top and
we'll wait until they are nice red hot
ashed over and ready to go so while your
briquettes are coming along use that
time to get some other things ready you
need for this cook so we've got a foil
tray ready we've got some smoking wood
ready i'm going to be using a
combination of pecan and cherry but if
you've got another favorite smoking wood
for beef go ahead and use that and we've
also got our grill probe ready now this
barbecue has a temperature gauge on the
lid but as usual heat rises and you do
normally get a slightly higher reading
at lid level as opposed to grill level
so that's all we need to do now until
these briquettes are ready so we'll come
back when they are ready all right so
our brick hats are pretty much ready so
i'm going to get this smoking wood on so
we'll lay down a piece of our pecan
piece of our cherry another piece of
pecan and we'll save our other piece of
cherry to put on at the start of our
snake where our startup briquettes are
going to go and that's what you want to
see with your startup briquettes you
want to see them nice ashed over and red
hot so we'll dump those in at the start
of our snake
and then you just want to stack them up
nicely at the start
now you want to make sure they are all
over the unlit stuff and then we can
shut our lid and then we'll make sure
our top and bottom vents are wide open
so i get questions all the time about
the snake method and if it produces
dirty smoke throughout the cook due to
all the unlit ricketts that you use for
the snake now the answer to that
question is no not when you set it up
right because we're giving our barbecue
five to ten minutes to preheat that's
going to pre-heat our briquettes to a
hot enough temperature that they will
catch light from our red hot ones
without producing dirty smoke it's the
same concept as the minion method where
you're using a bunch of unlit briquettes
to fuel a really long slow burning fire
for a long smoke like this as long as
you use red hot briquettes to start your
snake and you pre-heat your bbq
everything around it will be preheated
enough to catch light cleanly without
producing dirty smoke so i hope that
answers that question but if you do have
any more questions don't hesitate to ask
them in the comments below but for now
we'll be back once this barbecue's had
five to ten minutes to preheat right so
as you can see nice clean burning smoke
our bbq is nice and preheated so we'll
open it up and as you can see our unlit
brickets are already starting to catch
light from our startup briquettes so
we'll get our foil tray in we'll get our
piece of cherry on at the start we'll
get our cooking grate on we'll get our
brisket on and you want to make sure
that your brisket is never over the
burning part of the snake so later in
this cook once our snake starts burning
around here we're just going to rotate
our brisket around away from it and i've
also positioned the thicker part of our
brisket which is the point end closer to
the snake which is just going to help it
cook a little bit more evenly and then
we can hook up our grill probe i'm just
going to clip it in up the back here and
then we can close our lid
and let this brisket start smoking away
all right now our brisket's on we're
just going to get our barbecue to a nice
smoking temperature for this cook i'm
going to look to stabilize our barbecue
off at around that 275 fahrenheit or 135
celsius range and in this video we're
going to be running through everything
step by step so the next thing you'll
see is how i like to stabilize my
temperatures off so i'm going to leave
our top and bottom vents wide open until
we get back up to around the 225
fahrenheit or 110 celsius at grill level
so we'll come back once we've hit that
stage
so it's been about 15 minutes since we
shut that bottom vent down to almost
closed it's sitting just a crack open at
the moment and again our top vent is
sitting wide open now i've been keeping
an eye on our temperature at grill level
and it's been sitting really stable for
the last five minutes so now's the time
you want to make any further adjustments
if you need to increase temperature open
that bottom vent up slightly if you need
to decrease it then shut it down a
little bit now i will always try to
stabilize off a little bit lower than
where i want to be at as it's much
easier to increase temperature than to
decrease your temperature it can be
quite challenging bringing your
temperatures back down if they have
gotten away from you and for whatever
reason if your temperatures have gotten
away from you and you've closed that
bottom vent down to pretty much shut
don't be afraid to pour a little bit of
water in that drip tray below your
brisket that's going to absorb a lot of
heat and really help to stabilize your
temperatures off so for the first couple
of hours of this cook this is where you
really want to just keep an eye on your
temperatures and find that sweet spot
with your vent set up and that's going
to really vary depending on what type of
barbecue you're using how hot it is
outside how windy it is what type of
briquettes you're using and much more
it's all about finding and understanding
what works for you making any
adjustments needed and building off that
so we're going to continue to let our
brisket smoke away and we'll keep
checking in throughout this cook all
right so it's been a couple of hours
since we last checked in so we're gonna
have a look at our brisket and as you
can see where our snake's burning it's
getting close to being underneath that
brisket so we're just gonna rotate our
cooking grate around
and now that's given us some good
distance between the burning part of the
steak and our brisket and while we're
here i'm just gonna spritz our brisket
with some water
that's just really going to help with
some moisture retention and bark
formation
and you don't want to leave your lid
open for too long so we'll close it back
up and let it keep smoking away all
right so our brisket's looking great
that barks coming along nice and our
temperatures have been holding
beautifully so all we're going to do now
is let this brisket go for about another
hour that's going to take us to around
the four hour mark into this cook so the
next time we check our brisket we're
going to be checking the internal
temperature and we'll potentially wrap
it or boat it as well so we'll be back
once we've hit that stage all right so
we've just ticked over the four hour
mark into this cook so let's have a good
look at this brisket right so our
temperature's still holding nicely so
just be mindful whenever you've got your
lid open you are letting lots of oxygen
in so you might see a spike in
temperature when you do close your lid
again but for now let's have a look at
these internals
so the two things i like to look for
before i wrap or buy a brisket is being
at an internal temperature of around 160
fahrenheit or 71 degrees celsius
we're a bit further behind in the point
so when we boat this i'm going to
position the point a bit closer to the
fire so it catches up
i'm happy with the bark you should be
able to touch around and it shouldn't be
coming off on your finger that's when
you know your bark set and we're going
to boat this one which is going to
really help preserve that bark too so
we'll get some alpha already and then
we'll boat it up
all right so get two layers of good
quality foil ready carefully get this
brisket out
and while we're playing around with the
brisket we'll close our lid again and
now we just want to fold the foil up
around the brisket
and then i'm quickly going to get our
foil tray out
and i'm going to use those beautiful
drippings to go back into our brisket so
we'll pour them over
get our tray back in
get our cooking grate back on and then
our brisket and like i said that point
end is now closer towards where that
fire is burning so that internal
temperature is going to catch up to the
flat side right so now our brisket's
back in we just need to let that smoke
away until we're ready to check for
probe tenderness and i'm going to start
doing that once we reach an internal
temperature in both ends of around that
200 fahrenheit or 93 degrees celsius
mark now it can be challenging to get
both ends of your brisket to the same
internal temperature that's why it's
always important to rotate whatever end
is behind closer towards the fire where
it's going to be a little bit hotter now
to get to that internal temperature
where we're going to start checking for
probe tenderness might take us two hours
to get there it might take four it might
even take six i don't like putting a
time on these things that's why it's
always better to get your brisket on
earlier than what you think that way if
it is done a little bit earlier you can
always rest it up until you're ready to
serve it we're just going to be patient
if our brisket stalls we're just going
to ride through it we're not going to
panic we're not going to increase
temperatures we're just going to simply
let it go until it pushes through it so
be patient with your brisket we'll keep
checking back in throughout this cook so
we'll come back soon all right so it's
been about three hours since we last
checked in so that means we're about
seven hours total into this cook now our
bbq has been holding beautifully around
that temperature we want it to be at so
let's have a look at this brisket all
right so i haven't had to do too much
all i've been doing is rotating the
brisket away from the hottest part of
the snake
i've faced the point in towards the fire
so it can catch up a little bit
about 180 internal in there
in our flat we're about 185 so as you
can see the two ends are starting to
cook nice and even we've still got about
two hours left on our snake i reckon so
let's keep this lid closed and let this
brisket keep going so in them three
hours that passed since we boasted our
brisket we did hit a stool for about an
hour of that time we got stuck at about
that 165 fahrenheit internal mark but
like i mentioned earlier we were just
patient and it eventually pushed through
it so that brisket is looking absolutely
fantastic i'm really happy with it all
i'm going to do now is keep checking
every 45 minutes to an hour i'll have a
probe around i'll check my internals and
if you wanted to put a probe in each end
of the brisket by all means go ahead and
do that but i'm happy with how that's
coming along so we'll check back in soon
all right it's been two hours since we
last checked in so we're about nine
hours in total into this cook
i reckon this brisket will be pretty
close to being ready so let's have
another probe around a temperature check
196 in the thickest part of the point
199 start a probe quite nice do it a
little bit to go
198
it's quite soft there
very soft there
201 we're almost at the end of our snake
it's burning hottest a bit back here so
i reckon it's got another hour's burn
time i don't reckon our brisket will be
far off maybe another half an hour to 45
minutes so we'll check back in then all
right it's been an hour and a half since
we last checked in i did check it after
about 45 minutes and it wasn't quite
there
but this is feeling
nice and soft now
up around the 203 sort of range
it's just probing like butter and as you
can see our snakes pretty much at the
end so that's a pretty good 10 and a
half hour burn time so i've just put
some high heat gloves on and we are
carefully
going to lift this brisket out
all right so when you get your brisket
out i always like to just let it steam
off for five minutes just to stop that
cooking process so you don't overcook it
and when it comes to resting you've got
a few options based on when you want to
serve your brisket if it's ready four or
five hours in advance it's always a good
idea to rest in an esky they hold the
heat really well and they'll keep the
brisket hot at a really good eating
temperature until you're ready to serve
it or you can hold a brisket in the oven
at about that 70 degrees celsius or 160
ish fahrenheit and i've done that for
about 24 hours until i've been ready to
serve it the next day but today i'm just
going to let it rest at room temperature
for an hour because i want to serve it
in an hour and then i'll slice and serve
it so we'll come back when we're ready
to do that all right i'm just about
ready to slice this brisket but i don't
want to waste those juices in the foil
so i'm going to put it in this container
and then we'll get into slicing this
brisket so i'll make a little lip in the
foil
i'll carefully pick it up
put the lid on we can save that for a
future cook or i'll slice it straight
down the middle
all right so that's the end piece of our
flat as you can see
juicy all the way through
still pulls apart with these
that is a great brisket all right so
slicing the flat is pretty
straightforward but as you get into the
point
we've got the flat muscle more on this
side
so what i like to do
is on this side we've got that big point
muscle
is we can start taking
slices
off this way
and that's where you start getting them
beautiful
fatty point slices from
which are my personal favorite
and once you've only got that little bit
of point muscle left
i like to just trim it off like so
dice those pieces up
and then turn it back to the way you
were slicing the flat
and continue slicing like so you get
these beautiful little slices of flat
but either these little cubes of point
or the point and slices would have to be
my favorite so let's have a taste all
right time for a taste i'm gonna go for
one of these little point cubes
oh man that is incredible try a bit of
this beautiful little flat
so tender so juicy
that is up there with one of the best
briskets i've had such amazing bark
incredible taste texture so juicy
everything you want in a brisket and i
can't recommend boating your brisket
enough i absolutely love that method it
would have to be my favorite out of
wrapping in foil wrapping in butcher's
paper or anything else i've had the best
results every time i do it and as you
can see this brisket turned out amazing
well if you enjoyed the video everyone
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for now that's the end of this video so
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next time