How Long Should You Rest Brisket? [FIND OUT HERE]

Although brisket is one of the most flavorful cuts, failing to give it a rest may interfere with its juiciness and flavor. Therefore, understanding how long you should rest a brisket is essential if you want to serve a tasty and juicy meal.

After cooking your brisket, let it rest for at least 30 minutes. However, one hour is the ideal duration. To be scientific about the resting period, you will need a digital meat thermometer to determine when the brisket is done resting. You need to insert the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the brisket and wait until the temperature drops to 150 degrees.

While resting your brisket is essential in ensuring that meat can retain most of its juices, it is crucial to understand that resting it too much will make it cold. You do not want to spend a lot of time cooking your brisket to eat it cold. Read for a good understanding of how and why you need to rest your brisket.

Why Should You Rest Brisket

You have probably seen many BBQ experts recommend resting a brisket before slicing, and you are not even sure why this is important. Resting a brisket is essential for several reasons.

First, resting a brisket allows it to reabsorb and evenly redistribute the juices in the entire cut. If you start slicing the brisket immediately after it is out of the grill, you will notice that most of the juice will escape from the meat and be all over the chopping board. Consequently, the meat will be dry and less flavorful. Letting the meat rest before you can slice it is the only way to prevent such an undesirable scenario.

How to Rest a Brisket

While most BBQ enthusiasts know the importance of letting a brisket rest, not all everyone knows how to rest a brisket the right way. The good news is that resting your brisket correctly should not give you a hard time considering that it’s a straightforward process.

If you got your brisket out of the smoker wrapped in foil or the butcher’s paper, there is no need to unwrap it. You can keep it wrapped and adhere to the following steps.

Put the brisket at the room temperature
Use a kitchen towel to wrap it around the brisket
Put it in a cooler and let it rest for about 2 hours

If your brisket is not wrapped in foil, you should start by wrapping it in foil before wrapping a towel around it.

How Long to Let Brisket Rest

The duration that you will need to let your brisket rest depends on the size of your brisket. If you are dealing with small cuts, you only need to rest them for a few minutes, and they will be perfect.

However, when dealing with large chunks of brisket, you will need to rest them for more time to allow the redistribution of juices. In most cases, the ideal time is between 1-2 hours. If you are in a hurry, 30 minutes will serve you right.

Nonetheless, you should avoid resting the cut for more than 2 hours as this may make it start turning into mush. Moreover, you do not want to spend much of your time cooking your brisket to eat it cold as that will interfere with its taste and flavor.

How Long to Let a Brisket Rest in a Cooler?

Considering that a brisket takes a lot of time to cook, you do not want to mess it up by skipping some essential steps. So, how long can you rest a brisket in a cooler before its quality degrades?

You can rest a brisket in a cooler for up to 4 hours before the temperatures start to drop. However, high-quality coolers can hold the brisket for an extra hour.

Resting Unwrapped or Wrapped

Resting a brisket wrapped or unwrapped is a question that has always popped up. Sometimes, people face difficulty deciding the best way to do it.

The truth is that when you wrap your brisket before resting, you make it possible for it to retain more moisture and, therefore, make it tenderer. In addition, wrapping your brisket helps it to stay warm for longer. Hence, the best way is to wrap your brisket before resting it for optimum results.

Is Wrapping your Brisket Bad for the Bark?

Wrapping your brisket before resting may soften the bark. Nonetheless, the benefits of wrapping are more than the softening of the bark. That is a small price for keeping the brisket moist and soft.

Tips for Buying the Best Brisket

You want to know how to rest your brisket because you enjoy delicious meat. It is essential to understand that guaranteeing a delicious brisket entails not only smoking and resting but also the purchasing process. In other words, for a delicious brisket, you should ensure that you get the best quality. The following tips will help ensure that you buy the best brisket.

Select a brisket that has been graded USDA prime if you have the chance. Any meat with this grading is high quality with plenty of marbling that guarantees an extraordinary flavor. In addition, ensure that you are purchasing antibiotic and hormone-free meat.
In addition to the USDA grading, you also need to pay attention to the color of the meat. Fresh brisket will have a dominating reddish, while a brisket that has been in the store for more than three days will be brown.

Parting Shot

If you want to cook a delicious brisket, you should remember that patience is key to succeeding. Additionally, every step requires your attention, including purchasing, trimming, smoking, and resting. If you do everything right, you will love the mouthwatering flavor of a brisket.

Courtney is a professional grilling enthusiast who has spent a good portion of his life grilling and exploring different methods and techniques for preparing delicious meals. As he always says, creativity is key to preparing sumptuous meals.