How To Smoke Brisket on A Kettle BBQ Grill

1. Preferably do this the night before, however, you can prepare the brisket while you are heating the grill. Remove all of the fat from the back of the brisket, as well as the area where the flat and point meet where there is a large pocket of fat that will not be able to render down. Leave a thin layer of fat on the top of the brisket. Season your meat thoroughly with your seasoning blend, big briskets can take a lot, so feel free to go wild as long as it sticks. If you are doing this the night before, set the brisket onto a rack over a tray or board and place it in the fridge overnight. This will help with flavor and bark formation.
2. Prepare your barbecue. Pour or set a layer of charcoal against one wall of your kettle grill. Intersperse your favorite smoke woods in the unlit charcoal and be sure to place at least one chunk at the end where you will be placing your lit charcoal. Place a drip pan where you will be putting your brisket and fill that with hot water. Ignite ⅓ of a load of charcoal using a chimney starter. Once hot and ashed over, pour the lit charcoal at one end or the other of the unlit. Put the cooking grids in their highest position and then set the air vents ¼ to ½ way open. Preheat the charcoal kettle BBQ to between 225°F and 250°F (107°C and 121°C).
3. When the grill is ready, place the brisket onto the cooking grids above the drip pan and away from the charcoal. Place the fat cap up and the thickest part of the meat towards the hot coals if you can.
4. The easiest way to manage your brisket is to use thermometers that can constantly monitor your cook – one for the ambient grill temp, one in the point, and one in the flat. However, if that isn’t an option, it’s ok.
   1. Smoke the brisket for up to 6 hours, checking every 45 to 60 minutes.
   2. Make sure that the grill temperature remains steady. Close the bottom vents if the BBQ is too hot, open them if it is too cool, add charcoal if you run out.
   3. You will especially want to monitor the brisket itself. Spray any dry-looking bark with a little water, beer, or juice.
   4. You are aiming for an internal temperature of 140°F to 170°F (60°C and 77°C) – this is not the finished temperature. At these temperatures, you want to wrap your brisket in foil or butcher paper. This is where things can get a little tense. Between these temperatures, you may experience a stall, where the temperature will stop rising and stay the same for long periods of time. Patience is key at this time.
      Learn more about the stall in this article.
5. Once wrapped, keep monitoring your brisket and the charcoal every 45 to 60 minutes. When the brisket reaches 205°F (96°C) it is ready to be removed and rested. If you do not have a meat thermometer at all, when the brisket is done it will jiggle like Jell-O and provide next to no resistance when a thin skewer is inserted.
6. Wrap the brisket, still in the foil, in a towel or two, and place it into a cooler without ice for 3 hours. You can also use your oven, just DO NOT turn it on at any point. You can shut down the smoker for now by closing all of the air vents.

To make Brisket Bites: Once the brisket has rested, remove it from the cooler and cut the flat off. Rewrap the flat and cut the point – the thick part – into chunks. In a baking pan, toss the chunks in your favorite BBQ rub and BBQ sauce. Smoke the chunks for an hour at 300°F (149°C) until they are sticky and caramelized.

Discovering that you don’t need a special smoking appliance, and knowing how to smoke a brisket on a Charcoal Kettle BBQ Grill is a huge step forward in learning the art of smoking and grilling. How did your first brisket turn out? Do you have any tips and tricks? Share your Kettle Grill Smoked Brisket stories, recipes, ideas, and photos on our social pages like Facebook and TikTok, using the hashtags #NapoleonEats and #NapoleonGrill.

Happy Grilling!