My First Try At Making Burnt Ends

One of the things I was looking forward to from the brisket cook was making burnt ends for the first time.  Normally they are made as soon as the brisket is done cooking but since that happened at 7:30pm, I was not inclined to make them for a 11pm meal, so I waited until the next day.

The meat had spent the night soaking in it’s own juices and I preheated the oven to 200F then added the covered meat to reheat until the juices were 165F.  Then I used the recipe from the “Jess Pyles” blog to make the burnt ends.  Her recipe begins with a raw brisket deckle so I just used it starting with a cooked piece of meat.  I followed it except I cut it to ¾ for my three pounds of meat and I omitted the honey all as shown below.

Brisket Burnt Ends – Adapted from Jess Pyles

Ingredients:

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1.5 cups water

1 brisket point-end, approx 7lb

1/4 cup Hardcore Carnivore Black rub

1½ cups cola (I used Diet Coke)

1 cup BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Rays)

1/3 cup brown sugar

1½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

¾ tablespoon soy sauce

1½ tablespoons butter

1–2 tablespoons honey

kosher salt

Instructions:

Preheat a smoker to 250f. Place apple cider vinegar and water into spritz bottle.

Season the brisket well with salt and then rub generously with Hardcore Carnivore: Black.

Place the brisket into the smoker. Cook, spritzing occasionally with the cider vinegar mix until an internal temperature of 150f is reached.

Wrap the brisket tightly in foil, and return to the smoker until an internal temperature of 185f is reached.

Remove deckle from the pan of juices and remove the remaining fat cap.

Cut the meat into cut into 1 “ thick slices, then cut the slices again to form cubes. Unfortunately, in order to get the flat the way I wanted it, the deckle was also very tender and hard to cut into cubes on the thin end.

Place the cola in a small saucepan over medium high heat, and reduce liquid by at least half. Add the bbq sauce, brown sugar, Worcestershire, soy and butter, plus salt to taste. Stir to combine.

Place the brisket cubes in a large foil tray, then pour over the sauce, stirring to make sure all the pieces are well coated. Drizzle honey across the top,

Add the pan to the 275F smoker and cook a for 2-3 hours (3 hours for mine), or until the liquid has reduced and caramelized. You will see fat accumulate at the bottom of the pan as it renders – this is normal, and should not be confused with the sauce liquid. Serve immediately or keep warm until ready to serve, otherwise the sugars in the sauce may harden.

The Verdict:

They were good but not what I had hoped for as they were stringy and tough rather than tender and crispy and I think the problem was cooking the deckle too long to begin with.  I think if I had cooked it separately or separated it from the flat at 185F while it still had fat in it, the results may have been much different.  As it turns out, Bev and I both prefer plain brisket so I won’t have to work on perfecting my burnt ends technique.

And while the burnt ends weren’t as good as I’d hoped for, they still made for a pretty good hash for breakfast although a little sweet for my taste.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

10/26/25 event date