Backyahd BBQ | @backyahdbbq

Brisket Trim IRL 4 of 4

This is the 4th and final brisket trim for a recent catering event for 70 people. This is the 22 pound on that needed a lot of help. In this video I’m going to show you some things I haven’t talked about yet and show you a bunch of mistakes I made to help you avoid them.

I keep a honing rod near by and hone my knives between each brisket trim. I cut the wrapper along the deckle fat so I don’t gouge in to the meat.

I pat it down with a paper towel so it’s easier to handle.

I inspect the brisket to see what I’m working with. I notice that the mohawk is lopsided and there’s a lot of hard fat cap to remove. Ideally I should have put this in the freezer for an hour before slicing, but I didn’t have the freezer space or time.

I cut off the mohawk, round of the point, and then clean up the fat that was under the mohawk.

I square up the long side. A cut off the end of the flat to get it down to 18” to fit on my smoker. I’ll use that in burgers.

I shave off the deckle fat. I don’t remove it entirely because I like some of it to render and keep the flat moist as it cooks.

I shave off the fat build up on the meat side. Notice how I’m using my left hand to prop up the brisket - that helps get it at the right angle to shave off the fat.

I square off the other long side and clean things up.

I pound the point down to be more level with the flat.

I move on to the fat cap. You can see here I start to cut into the meat - as soon as I notice that I can either back out and fold the fat back down, or I can angle my knife upwards and keep the exposed meat. In this case the gouge wasn’t too bad so I kept cutting with an upwards angle.

You’ll notice here that I continually look under my knife to see if I’m starting to expose the meat.

I inspect the fat and see that more needs to be trimmed off the top of the flat.

I got a little to close with this cut, but you just have to keep moving. It’s not the end of the world.

Here I’m lightly scraping the fat cap with the edge of my knife to see if anything pops out. I discover there’s some stringy fat and remove it.

I put some final touches on the corners.

I notice there’s a gouge from the butcher here, so I shave that lip off. I don’t want that hanging off and I want my rub to be applied evenly to the flat. I pound it out a little to even it out.

And finish with a final inspection and move onto applying the rub.


Hopefully these trim videos helped you out. I thought it would be cool to show my process when I just working on feeding people.

#brisket #foodprep #catering #bbq #smokedmeat

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Brisket Trim IRL 3 of 4.
This is brisket trim 3 out of 4 from a recent catering event for about 70 people. We’re starting with an 18 pounder prime that I got from Costco for 4.79 a pound.

Cut the wrapper on the deckle fat so you don’t gouge into the meat.

Pat down with a paper towel.

Cut off the mohawk - to get consistent height across the whole point - and remove the thick hard fat from that long side under the mohawk.


Square off that long side. I’m shortening the brisket to 18” here to help all 4 briskets cook consistently so they all finish at roughly the same time.

I round off my flat corners and use all the trimmings for burgers or sausage.


I flip it over and shave off the big hunk of deckle fat. It won’t fully render during the cook, but can be turned into tallow later.


I shave off the bigger globs of fat on the meat side.

The end of the point will cook the fastest and dry out easily so I round that off.

I take the whole fat cap down to ¼ to a ½ inch thick - just thick enough so it renders down into the meat. You want your bark to be a combination of fat and meat, not just bark on fat.

I square off the other long side and clean things up a bit.

I pound the point end down a bit to be more even with the flat which will help it cook more consistently.

I continue cleaning up the fat cap and any rough edges.

I finish by lightly scraping the fat cap to even things out and see if I missed any thick parts.

I have one brisket trim video left in this series. Let me know in the comments if you want to see it and if you have any questions.


#brisket #foodprep #catering #bbq #smokedmeat

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Brisket Trim IRL 2 of 4.
This is brisket trim 2 out of 4 from a recent catering event for about 70 people.

Cut the wrapper on the deckle fat so you don’t gough into the meat.

Pat down with a paper towel.

Cut off the mohawk - to get consistent height across the whole point. Round off the point. And trim some loose hanging meat and thick fat.

Square off that long side. I’m cutting off some of the flat here to get it down to 18” so I can fit 4 briskets on my 36” smoker.

And then round off both flat corners.

Remove the thicker fat that was under the mohawk.

And remove some of the brown meat on the top.

Continue cutting off any loose hanging bits and create clean lines.

Shave off most of the deckle so it lays flat with the rest of the flat muscle.

Trim off the big fat globs from the flat meat.

Run fingers down the middle of the point to get an idea of how thick the fat is. And trim the fat cap down to a ¼ to a ½ an inch thick.

It helps if you put the brisket in the freezer before trimming - I just don’t have the freezer space for 4 briskets right now.

Look under your knife as you are trimming to make sure you aren’t exposing the meat.

Clean up any rough edges and call this one good.

I’ll post the other 2 trim videos soon. Let me know in the comments if you want to see them.

#brisket #foodprep #catering #bbq #smokedmeat

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Brisket Trim IRL 1 of 4. This is brisket trim 1 out of 4 from a recent catering event for about 70 people. Cut the wrapper along the deckle fat so you don’t cut into the meat. Pat down with paper towel. Cut off the mohawk - to get consistent height across the whole point. Round off the point. Square off the long side - and round that corner. Trim off some of the fat that was under the mohawk.

Shave off most of the deckle so it lays flat with the rest of the flat muscle. Trim off the big fat globs from the flat meat.

Square off the other long side. I usually round off that corner, but I’m saving some of this flat meat for burgers so I chopped a big chunk off here.

Clean up the edges.

Trim the fat cap down to a ¼ to a ½ an inch.

Clean up any remaining edges.

Lately I’ve been pounding it the point down to be more level with the flat.

I’ll post the other 3 trim videos soon. The more comments and likes on this post the faster the next one will come out.

#brisket #foodprep #catering #bbq #smokedmeat

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I recently did a four brisket event and couldn’t risk not finding the briskets I needed from my local Costco. So I drove up to the Costco Business Center in Lynnwood, Washington where they have cases of prime and choice briskets. When smoking briskets and bulk your goal should be to get a consistent size so they cook consistently. My target was 18 pounders. I didn’t find what I needed on the rack, so I went through the boxes and found some that I liked. The butcher showed me how to use the labeler, so I weighed them out, attached a label, put on the the prime sticker and I was on my way. Oh yeah, I also threw in a 10 pound pork belly.

#bbq #brisket #smokedmeat

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Pork Belly Burnt Ends

Today we’re smoking pork belly burnt ends. We’re cubing up this 10 pound pork belly into 2” chunks. Slathering with mustard and sriracha. And applying a paprika based rub and a garlic pepper rub. Lay them out on an oiled wire rack meat side down. Smoke them at 250F until they hit 185F internal. I’m not serving these for 2 days, so I let them cool, vac seal, and then in the fridge. Morning of the event I put them in foil pans and cook at 275 until they got back up to 185F. For the glaze, I cut some BBQ sauce with honey and covered them for the last hour of the cook until they were probe tender throughout. To keep them warm, I put them in the new Drip EZ @dripez BBQ blanket, then in the tub, and then in the Que crib. These pork belly burnt ends were very popular and definitely something that’s going to stay on my menu.

Cube a pork belly into 2” chunks
Apply mustard and sriracha binder
Rub with paprika and garlic pepper rub
Smoke at 250F until they hit 185F
Optionally cool, vac seal, until you need them.
Smoke at 275F until they hit 185F
Glaze with BBQ sauce thinned with honey
Continue cooking until they are probe tender, around 200F
Keep warm in Drip EZ blanket, prep tub, and Que crib

#porkbelly #burntends #bbq

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Let’s see exactly how much I trim off this 18 pound brisket. I like to do a minimal trim just to help it cook more evenly and to remove fat that I know wouldn’t fully render.

I trimmed a little off the mohawk. Squared up the long sides. Rounded off the super thin flat corner. Shaved off the deckle fat. Cleaned up some fat globs. And took the hard fat down to about a half an inch.

All of the trimmings weighed 4 pounds 8 ounces - so the post trim brisket weighed about 13 pounds and 8 ounces - about a 25% decrease in weight.

I separated all the fat from the meat and ended up with 1 pound 13 ounces of fat and 1 pound 7 ounces of meat. I rendered the fat down into tallow and made a beef soup for lunch. You can cook with the tallow as a regular fat replacement. And do a lot of stuff with the meat, from burgers, tacos, stews, and sausages.

#bbq #brisket

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Easter Brisket

So you’ve just decided to smoke a brisket for Easter. You’re going to want to buy, trim, and rub the brisket today on Good Friday and then smoke it all day Saturday, hot hold it overnight and then serve it on Easter. I have my full brisket guide at bkyhd.com/brisket. There you will find my entire process for smoking a brisket…. including how I trim, the rub I use, how I smoke and wrap it, how I hot hold it and how I slice. It also includes an hourly schedule so you know exactly what to do when. I’m also smoking a brisket this Easter, and always looking to improve the guide, so come back and let me know how it turned out.

#bbq #brisket #easter

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We eat a ton of beef jerky around here. I was searching for a new recipe and came across this Sweet and Spicy one from StellaNSpice - it was really different from mine, so I gave it a try. It uses balsamic vinegar, grapefruit and orange juice to naturally tenderize and sweeten it - and fresh habanero and jalapeno peppers for the spice. I reduced the numbers of peppers because kids will be eating this, and omitted the liquid smoke - because I’m using a smoker. I also made a batch of my teriyaki recipe as a safety net. You can both recipes at bkyhd.com/jerky

After letting the eye of round harden in the freezer, I trimmed off all the fat and sliced into quarter inch thick slices against the grain.

I gave the slices a bath in the marinade, vac sealed, and then in the fridge for the night.

After laying them out on my wire racks I smoked them at 180F for about 4 hours - flipping them over half way through. I pulled them when they had a good color, stood up on their own, and easily tore apart. My kid likes chewy jerky with some moisture, so I pulled a little early - leave it on longer if you want it drier jerky.

I’m not ashamed to admit that my family liked Stella’s recipe better than mine - so I’m likely going to be using this as a base going forward and experimenting with it from there.

bkyhd.com/jerky

Recipe credit to @stellanspice

#beefjerky #bbq #howto

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