Frank Stephenson knows why so many California chefs opt for tri-tip over brisket when firing up the smoker.
The docile tri-tip cut is easy to handle and quite willing to cooperate on the grill. Brisket, however, requires the kind of patience more associated with 49ers fans or the harried parents of sextuplets.
Hefty and lean, brisket resists a quick sear and shrivels under severe heat. It taunts chefs who attempt an even cooking level across the cut. Treat it carelessly and ends scorch, tissue toughen up. Even when those behind the grill turn to the more successful low and slow method, brisket is keen to fight back.
“Those briskets are tricky — they can be stubborn” Stephenson said, admitting to demoting a few to flavor side dishes after a frustrating day. “I sometimes think ‘whose idea was this?’”
Brisket even forces a chef of Stephenson’s experience to hedge. Cooking time? Well, he says, 17 hours. Maybe 12 hours. Depending.
Yet what he slices for the plate may be one of the best orders of the difficult cut outside of Lockhart, Austin and other places synonymous with brisket.
The meat is fork tender — not a hyperbole, in this case. Apply a dull edge and the fibers surrender, easing apart before their glistening finish on the palate. The beef is gentle, but it carries a swarthy savor. Stephenson manages to celebrate the rustic essence of red meat. In other words, you taste the field, the bellow and the satisfying heft.
Oh, it comes with a sauce. But this is wisely served on the side. The rare chef understands the flavor of beef is not resilient. It cowers before A1, spice rubs and other applications.
Stephenson achieves this despite testing the brisket over smoke for much of the day. He points out that the active flames in his custom built smoker cook good white oak, not choice Angus.
“We cook with the coals, not the smoke,” he said.
Unlike the famous slices served in Lockart, Texas, the Boar’s Breath chef cares little for lurid pink smoke rings or the waft of mesquite. His brisket speaks of weathered wood stamped into dusty earth, of barbed wire stringing across the range, of chuck wagons simmering under the prairie sun — and at the same time of fine Dallas steakhouses carving thick slabs of aged prime beef.
There’s a sophistication to the brisket that belies Stephenson’s simple presentation. No wonder the Boar’s Breath brisket sells out every day.
And yet, the cantankerous cut dogs the chef. It razzes him as white puffs rise from his smoker. It causes him to dream of a tri-tip cakewalk.
Fortunately for us, he eventually stands firm. The brisket at Boar’s Breath is one of the county’s bucket list orders.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
