How To Slice Brisket: A Complete Guide (With Pictures!)

Home » How To Slice A Brisket » How To Slice Brisket: A Complete Guide (With Pictures!)

Maybe your like

Note: Slicing is not Trimming:

Trimming refers to cutting the brisket pre-smoking. If you’re looking to learn how to trim your brisket, I have a separate article for that.

Cut the Brisket in Half, Roughly 60/40 (Flat/Point)

That looks like this:

first cut brisket
Flat left side, Point right side

These muscles have apposing grain directions.

Cutting in half separates them and lets you slice them individually.

cutting brisket point in half

Slice the FLAT Against the Grain-ish

The reason I say “ish” is because a brisket is smoked until the point of tenderness, you DO NOT need to slice entirely against he grain to get tender meat.

This is completely different from Steak where slicing against the grain as much as possible makes the steak more tender.

A simple backyard way to slice is like this:

Create pencil thin slices.

slicing flat
White lines indicate way to slice

But, if you’re anal retentive, the grain of the flat is at an angle.

So you’d technically turn your knife to compensate.

the grain direction of brisket
Black lines indicate grain direction

Doing the above you won’t notice a huge difference though.

You can test it for yourself and let me know.

Turn the POINT and Slice Against the Grain and Create Burnt Ends

The point’s grain is opposite that of the flat.

Slice a bit wider than the flat – a little more than a pencil-width.

You also can cut burnt ends into cubes from either edges.

slicing point

Double Checking How We Did

The flat looks tender and we sliced against the grain:

flat muscle after slicing

The point is similar and we have good burnt ends to offer People:

brisket flat and point after slicing

Tag » How To Slice A Brisket