Everything You Need to Make Smoked Corned Beef
Corned Beef. Most people love it, few people hate it, and if you’re like many families, it’s on your dinner table for St. Patrick’s Day. Corned Beef is a tasty meal that you can cook any time of year, and in this post, I’m going to show you just how easy it is to make Smoked Corned Beef Brisket.
Table of Contents
What is Corned Beef?
According to The Kitchn, Corned beef is made from brisket, a relatively inexpensive cut of beef. The meat goes through a curing process in a brine. It’s then slowly cooked, turning a tough cut of beef into one that’s super tender and flavorful.
If you’ve had corned beef before, you know how tasty it is, and you also know it’s fairly salty. The curing process is what adds all that salt to the meat. In addition to the salt, you can add some other really great flavors to the beef during the brining process.
How Do You Cure Corned Beef?
If you have the time to cure your own corned beef, I’d highly recommend it. It doesn’t take that long to cure a small brisket flat, and the flavor profile you get is totally worth it. The advantage to curing your own corned beef is that you know how long it has cured, and you don’t have to desalinize the meat before cooking.
Making the brine is simple, and we’re going to add a little kick to the flavor profile using Colman’s Mustard. This mustard is unlike anything I’ve ever tasted, and it’s damn good. The mustard is made with a blend of locally grown white and brown mustard seeds from Norwich, England.
Brine a Corned Beef Brisket in 24-Hours
For this recipe, we’re using a 2-pound piece of brisket flat that has the same thickness throughout. If your brisket is larger, you’ll want to adjust the time to make sure the brine has time to soak into the meat.
In a saucepan combine the following ingredients:
- 1 cup Tender Quick
- ½ Cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Tbsp Pickling Spice
- 1 Tbsp Colman’s Dry Mustard
- 4 Cups Water
Stir the ingredients and then bring to a boil. Let the brine cool on the stove, and then chill in the refrigerator until you’re ready to corn the brisket.
Place the brisket flat in a large sealable plastic bag, and then pour the brine in. Get as much of the air out of the bag as possible, and then place the bag in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Flip the brisket in the bag after about 12 hours.
After 24 hours remove the brisket from the brine. Discard the excess brine and rinse off the brisket under cold water.
How to Desalinize a Brisket
If you decide to buy a corned beef brisket in the store or online instead of corning a brisket at home, you should let it soak in cold water for 4-6 hours to flush the excess salt out of the meat before smoking. I’ve skipped this step, and the end result is a salty nightmare that will have your guests drinking water by the gallons.
Smoked Corned Beef Brisket BBQ Rub
The Brisket is already going to have some excellent flavor, but this rub kicks it up a notch. It’s sweet, and the Colman’s Dry Mustard adds a little bit of kick to every bite.
In a small bowl combine the following ingredients:
- 1 Tbsp Black Pepper
- 2 Tbsp Paprika
- 3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
- 2 tsp Onion Powder
- 2 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 Tbsp Colman’s Dry Mustard
Stir together with a fork and set aside.
How To Smoke Corned Beef
Before we smoke the corned beef brisket, we need to apply the rub. Spritz the brisket with apple juice, and then sprinkle some rub on all sides of the brisket.
Set up your smoker to smoke at 250 degrees and place the corned beef brisket directly on the grill grates.
Every 90 minutes spritz the brisket with apple juice to keep it moist. Continue letting it cook until the internal temperature hits 200 degrees.
When the smoked corned beef brisket is up to temp double wrap it with foil and let it rest for at least an hour in a high-quality cooler like a yeti.
What to Serve with Smoked Corned Beef?
CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE
The traditional side dish for corned beef is cabbage. I like to include some potatoes and chopped carrots too. Cut a head of cabbage into 8 wedges and place in a 9×12 baking dish. Add 6-8 red potatoes chopped into quarters, and a dozen carrots peeled and chopped into 3″ pieces.
In a small mixing bowl combine 6 ounces of beer (a stout works best) with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of Colman’s Prepared Mustard, and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.
Drizzle this sauce over the veggies, and then put in your oven to cook at 400 degrees. Rotate the veggies every 30 minutes until the potatoes are done (about 90 minutes total).
What We Learned Making Smoked Corned Beef
In this post, we talked about what corned beef is, how to cure corned beef, how to smoke corned beef, and what to serve with corned beef.
Looking for my favorite smoked brisket recipe? Click here.
Smoked Corned Beef
Equipment
- Smoke 2-Channel Alarm Thermometer | ThermoWorks
- Disposable Gloves
- Thermapen Mk4 Instant-read Thermometer for meat & more
Ingredients
Corned Beef Brisket Brine
- 1 Cup Tender Quick
- ½ Cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Tbsp Pickling Spice
- 1 Tbsp Colman's Dry Mustard
- 4 Cups Water
Corned Beef Brisket BBQ Rub
- 1 Tbsp Black Pepper
- 2 Tbsp Paprika
- 3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
- 2 tsp Onion Powder
- 2 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 Tbsp Colman's Dry Mustard
- 2-3 lb Brisket Flat
- 1 Cup Apple Juice
Instructions
- Combine the brine ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and then let the ingredients simmer for 5 minutes.
- Remove the brine from heat and let it cool. Place the brine in the refrigerator until you are ready to corn the brisket flat
- Place the brisket flat in a large plastic sealable bag. Pour the brine into the bag, remove as much air as possible, and seal. Place the plastic bag with the brisket in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Flip the bag after 12 hours.
- Combine the bbq rub ingredients when you are ready to smoke the brisket.
- Trim any excess fat off the "trimmed" side of the brisket - leave a ¼" of fat on the fat cap side of the brisket.
- Spritz the brisket with apple juice, and then apply the rub.
- Smoke the brisket at 250 degrees until the internal temperature of the brisket reaches 200+ degrees. Spritz the brisket every 90 minutes with apple juice during the cook.
- Let the brisket rest in foil for 15 minutes before slicing thin.
- Serve with Colman's Mustard and enjoy!
This is insanely good and I'm pretty sure the bast we have ever had. Rye bread, more mustard, even plates are all optional as we just ate it with our fingers as fast as I could slice it. I wouldn't even begin to defile it with Swiss cheese, thousand island dressing or even our beloved homemade sauerkraut. Perfect as it is with nothing more than some good cold beer. Thanks for sharing 🙂
What about the seasoning pak that comes with the brisket? Seem to help flavor the brisket?
Up to you. I use it to help season the veggies, but prefer to use my own low salt rub on the brisket if I'm buying one that's already been corned at the store.
I’ve read a lot of your recipes. What do you think about corned brisket with coffee in the rub.
Sounds great to me
Which wood do you recommend?
I like Oak or Cherry
About how long on the smoker to reach 200 degrees
Made this recipe yesterday and absolutely loved it. The rub is amazing on corned beef. I followed the instructions to the t because it was the first time I had ever smoked a brisket. Ended up having the internal temp stall out at 160 degrees but stayed faithful to the recipe/instructions. After reaching what should have been the end time (estimated 90 minutes per pound), ended up placing the brisket into a foil pan, adding a beer, and covering it with foil. What should have been a 7.5 hour cook turned into 13 hours. However, I am not disappointed at all and everyone that has tried it asked if they could buy a brisket to throw in when I made this next time. This recipe is definitely a winner!
Aaron Franklin describes your experience as the stall. Hard to get through 150 +/- deg. He recommends wrapping the brisket (corned beef) in foil or butcher paper until you see more accelerated temp. increase. Learned a lot from his book and video masterclass.
This is my go to rub for smoked corned beef. I make big batch. Double everything but the sugar.
Something is off on your weight, you say 2-3 pounds so 32-48 ounces of meat but then you say it yields 12, 5 ounce servings, so 60 ounces? We know meat shrinks when it smokes so how on earth were you able to "add" weight or is that just a typo?
Thanks!
Made this last night and it was a big hit. Everyone commented on the flavor of the meat which is really brought out and complimented by this rub. I think the temperature of the meat is somewhat subjective. I cooked it to 198 in the center and it got pretty overdone on the flatter parts of the cut. I think it would be plenty cooked and a little juicier at 195. I had a 5 lb brisket and this was twice as much rub as needed.
Made this last year and has become a yearly demand in my house around St. Pat's day. Smoking changes the whole flavor profile of the corned beef. The rub is delicious and I use every bit of the recipe on a 6.5 lb brisket and it compliments rather than overwhelm the meat, even on the ends. I cooked to 95 deg in the center, based on other reviews, which was 105 towards the thinner part of the flat and I think I could have even gone a little lower, maybe 92-93 degrees for the center I'll try next time. It was good in the center and was plenty tender but left the thinner spots a tad overdone for our preferences at least.
Forgot to mention, it was every bit of 12 hours for a 6.5 lb corned beef @225 deg.
Yeah, typo there, 195 and 205 for the temps, gonna go around 192 next time.
Can you brine the brisket for more than 24 hours? We tried the recipe as directed and want to try again, but thought about brining for longer. Thoughts?
This recipe was for a 2 lb brisket flat. If you have a larger brisket, I would brine for longer. I haven't tried going longer on a 2 lb brisket, if you try it, please let us know how it turns out.