Anyone Know What to Do to a Bison Brisket?

C

Chooky

100+ Posts
I've been involuntarily entered into the self-described "World Championship Bison Cookoff."

1.) This is my first cookoff, ever.
2.) I don't know the first thing to do with a bison brisket.
3.) I'll be drunker than a weeping senator.
4.) I need to know how to cook a bison brisket at least well enough to lose gracefully.

From what I understand, the bison will be like a beef brisket but much more lean. My first thoughts are to use bacon, salt pork, or beef fat trimmings to create something of a fatcap. Whenever I ask someone what they know about a bison brisket they just say "it's very, very lean," so I'm probably not going to cook it one degree over 225, I guess. I've got to figure out what would be an adequate internal temp for bison meat.

The cookoff is in Santa Anna, TX on May 19th. Anyone who considers themselves resilient enough to endure drunk Santa Anna locals and people dumb enough to flock to this deranged event is welcome to come to our cooking site, get drunk and eat my meat. That means you too, flaco.

Anyone who can provide enough information to make this dry run of a fool's endeavor more than just a meager donation to the rubes of Santa Anna would be appreciated. If I do happen to win anything, the prize money will be donated to my favorite charity: Chooky's bank account.

Help?
 
Damn, I will be tubing down the Frio that weekend. I really did want to go to that.


From what I have read about cooking Tatanka:

- will cook faster than beef
- trim all fat (it must taste nasty)
- moist heat low and slow... Dutch oven? Foil boat in butter? at least baste it a bunch
- rare to medium rare or it will be tough

I'd bet you could inject the thing with cores of pork fat (larding needle). Or maybe cut between the cap and point and stuff lots of bacon in there and wrap it in bacon also. You could always throw away the bison and eat the bacon.

Good luck.
 
i don't like injections or including pork with beef, but layering the top with bacon, injections, cracking open a 6-pack and sitting it on the grill, dutch oven/foil blankets etc are all probably good ideas. anything to lock moisture

what about slicing the fat cap off a a beef brisket and laying it on top?
 
How about the following:

1 -- brine it overnight (use any good brine recipe you would use for a lean pork tenderloin).

2 -- rub it as you would a beef brisket, but a bit more lightly, as it should have picked up some salt from the brine.

3 -- lard it with fat -- hell, maybe you should smoke a beef brisket and save all the smoked fat trimmings and use them?

4 -- smoke it at low to medium temp (225-ish) for 4 hours, no more than 6, with a water pan underneath it.

5 -- after the 4-6 hours, wrap it TIGHTLY in foil, pouring a beer, or some of a beer, into the foil packet before sealing it. Continue cooking at 225 or so for another couple of hours at least.

6 -- remove from foil, put back on smoker, get temp up towards 250 for 30 mins to an hour, to crisp up the outside a bit.

Remove and let rest 20-30 mins, carve.

Should be a combo between smoking and moist cooking a roast, for tenderness and moistness.

I dunno. Good luck.
 
Cook 2 briskets first, remove the points and put them on top of the buffalo brisket while it cooks. You would probably want to filp it multiple times while keeping the brisket points on top.
 
make sure you let us know how it turned out. pics if you can. this sounds interesting.
 
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I should be able to provide pics.

flaco's advice to dump the bison and eat the bacon was hilarious, because I've had bison before, and ... not a huge fan. Some of the people out there do an outstanding job, but most it just tastes unfamiliar, somewhat gamey.

I'll consider the injections, but I haven't seen many people do that. Brisket and LD's suggestions sound solid. Real quick, what is "larding?" Is that just rubbing the whole brisket down with lard? Either way, should I apply that after the rub?

LD's suggestion of using the points of a beef brisket will work. The entire cookoff includes the bison, beef brisket, spare ribs and chicken. I planned on doing about 3 briskets for fun, so there will be no shortage of points and beef trimmings.

If anyone knows, I'm still curious about what the internal temp should be on buffalo.
 
Larding is laying fat over the top of the meat -- when a recipe calls for you to lay bacon strips over a piece of meat, fowl, etc., that's larding. I just thought that perhaps doing it with pieces of already smoked beef brisket fat might be the way to go.

Does it have to be smoked? I mean, I doubt it will stand up head-to-head against a smoked beef brisket. Maybe you should try something completely different?

I looked at a couple of recipes on the web, and they all seem to call for braising -- I couldn't find any for smoking (which tells me that it is a lean meat that is hard to keep tender). I would evaluate the fat on it -- if it has enough, go the smoked route. If it doesn't, maybe something completely different? Maybe you brine it in a very sweet brine, and then start the cooking process by grilling it (direct heat, in the 300-400 range). Flip it occasionally so it doesn't burn, but it gets good charring flavor and grill marks.

Then, wrap it in foil with liquid for the braising part of the cooking (to make it tender -- you aren't going to have a tender brisket if you don't cook it for a long time). Maybe make a braising liquid of sour cherries, sugar, water, a dash of rasberry vinegar, maybe a dash of chipotle for spice -- cook it in a sauce pan to get it ready, then pour it over the brisket when you foil wrap it.

When it's done, let it rest, carve, and serve with the pan juices (you may even want to cook them down in your saucepan a bit to thicken them to make it more of a sauce?)
 
Larding is actually injecting fat into the meat, usually done so with a larding needle. Larding or draping fat should help as would injecting butter or oil.

I have never smoked a bison brisket, but based upon a bison roast I would smoke it at a lower temp (180-200 degrees), foil it after a few hours and shoot for an internal temp of about 150-155, toss it in an ice chest and let it sit and continue to cook and reclaim some of the juices. Go much higher than 160 it's likely to get very dry. Brisket temps and timetables aren't going to help you here as this is going to cook more like venison, which means much faster and with a lower internal temp. Even if you lard it, inject it with oil/butter, drape bacon over it and mop it with fat and libations it's still going to cook different than a brisket. Timing your turn in is going to be tough.

Best of luck. Wish I could check this out, but I'm going to be collecting **** on my boots at a cattle auction.

On a related note, I talked to a guy last week that represents a company that makes squeeze chutes for both cattle and bison. It was interesting how much different the equipment for processing bison is than cattle.
 
Ahh yes.

The preferred equipment for processing bison:


bowArrow.jpg
 
Hey!! We will be at Santa Anna this weekend also, I was looking for recipes to cook bison when I came across your website. This is our first time to cook bison too. The tips you received have been helpfull. Other sites tell me to use the fat off of your briskets them only cook to 150 degree internal temp them put off to the side to cool before slicing.
 
I'm coming in late but here is a recipe I found online that sounds interesting:

2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 cup coffee
3 pounds brisket
1/2 cup catsup 1/2 cup chili sauce
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup beef broth
2 teaspoons minced garlic

Sear brisket on all sides to seal it in and then turn heat way down. Mix all the stuff above and pour over the brisket and allow to cook for 3-4 hours on low heat. You need to make sure the meat doesn't dry out.

------------

I have tried lime juice for overnight marinating with other meats (por/beef) and they turn out well...I wonder if lime juice will help bison be more tender?
 
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