Nicholas Gavin is the Culinary Creative Director of ChefSteps, where he develops recipes and is responsible for making all the food look beautiful. Nick has worked at ChefSteps for over a decade; he and ChefSteps co-founder Grant Crilly worked together at Modernist Cuisine. Nick has worked in professional kitchens both in the United States and abroad, most notably at Mugaritz in San Sebastian, Spain.

Nicholas Gavin

Smoked brisket is quintessential Texas barbecue. A large “tough” cut of beef, seasoned with salt and pepper, smoked low and slow until tender and juicy. Sounds pretty straightforward, but barbecue brisket is a perfect example of the adage “simple ain’t easy.” It takes pitmasters years to perfect the craft of trimming, seasoning, smoking, and slicing briskets so that <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/cuts/beef-brisket-primal">both muscles from the primal</a> end up rich and succulent rather than dry and chewy. When done right, brisket is hard to beat. But it’s easy to get wrong.We wanted to develop an indoor barbecue brisket recipe that could satisfy discerning ’cue critics but would still be achievable for folks who don’t have a ton of experience or specialty equipment. This recipe delivers on both fronts, achieving super-juicy brisket with a crunchy bark thanks to our innovative <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bark-builder">Bark Builder</a>, all in a standard home oven.

To keep things manageable in terms of cook time, oven space, and yield, we opted to use just one part of the brisket—<a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/cuts/beef-point-cut-brisket">the well-marbled point</a>—rather than the whole primal. We start by brushing the meat with a thin coating of molasses which helps our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/texas-black-pepper-barbecue-rub">Texas Black Pepper Barbecue Rub</a> and Bark Builder stick to the brisket.Once the point is seasoned, we nestle it on a rack in a cake pan with a splash of water, seal with foil, and pop it in the oven. The humid environment helps gently cook the brisket, slowly turning tough collagen into silky gelatin. This is the first part of the two-stage cook. When the meat is tender, we remove the foil and continue to cook at a low temperature to dry out the surface and develop that dark crunchy bark that barbecue lovers crave. This is serious brisket, even without a smoker.

Oven Texas-Style Barbecue Brisket