Here we will discuss the results of cooking a whole brisket in the oven, to see whether it was good or not. We will share our experiences with what happened and how we did it, so you will know if it is something that you would want to do or not. First we will cover the obvious question for those who are just looking to see if brisket can be done easily in an oven or not.
Can brisket be cooked in an oven?
Yes. Brisket can be cooked in an oven. Though some individuals are used to only cooking brisket in a smoker or in a grill, it can be cooked in an oven too. Cooking a brisket in the oven only requires a pan that is big and deep enough to cook the brisket in, and a well functioning oven for the least requirements.
The least requirements is all we used for this experiment for cooking a brisket; so that we could have as little as we could of extra factors, to determine if brisket cooked in an oven can be good or not.
The Experiment
For cooking the brisket in the oven, we decided to keep it as simple as possible and just do some light trimming of fats off of our whole brisket that we got from a local grocery store. After opening the package, we seasoned the brisket with simple seasonings thoroughly on every side of the brisket. Then, we placed it in the pan to cook, as we already had our oven set and preheated for 225 degrees Fahrenheit.
The pan we used was a disposable aluminum pan that was extra large and fairly deep. Later we found that it was a good idea to have this pan as deep as it was, as it kept the liquids from spilling out over the pan during the latter cooking. The juices from the brisket ended up coming up in the pan to a level of about half the height of the brisket that was laying in the pan.
During the cooking, we periodically checked on the brisket every few hours just to see how it was coming along. After a few hours the brisket was still fairly undercooked with a few signs of showing that it was cooking. This is what we expected after only 3 hours of cooking in the oven, so we continued to let the brisket cook for another 3 hours before checking on it again. After 6 hours of total cooking time, the brisket was showing signs of being done, but we knew better and instead only took a small sample of the outer portion of the brisket to eat and sample and continued to let the whole brisket cook in the oven.
From sampling the brisket at this point, we found that the samples weren’t necessarily at their best quality yet. The pieces that we samples were fully cooked (safe to eat), but the connective tissues in the pieces of the brisket that we ate and sampled weren’t quite broken down yet. The brisket was still very chewy, but not tough. It took many chews to finally chew the pieces into small digestible pieces. It felt a little rubbery but mostly gummy.
So after this we decided that we wanted our brisket falling apart and easy to pull apart (this was the initial plan), so we let the brisket continue to cook for another 12 hours at this same temperature (225 degrees Fahrenheit) before finally taking it out of the oven and seeing the results.
The Results
After the brisket finished cooking, the pan was filled with juice from the fats that had rendered out of the brisket. It was at the appropriate internal temperatures, so it was definitely done. However, our goal wasn’t to prove that a brisket could be cooked in an oven, as we already knew it could be, but to see if it could turn out tender, moist, and good after cooking in an oven with minimal requirements.
The brisket had finished cooking at this time, and it had developed a nice firm black bark too. The brisket turned out looking very similar to a brisket that is cooked in a smoker. The bark is better from what a smoker can do when compared to a smoker, but it was pretty good after its long cooking time in the oven without using a smoker. Some people probably couldn’t tell the difference.
The brisket had turned out very good from the cooking experiment in the oven. The meat was easily pulling apart and had developed a slight canned tuna-like consistency throughout the entire meat. We tried the flat end first and found it to be quite good. The slices of brisket could be used to make sandwiches with bbq, which were very good, easy to eat, and chew. The flavor of the meat was that of brisket of course, with a pronounced beef flavor, combined with the seasoning.
The extra juices that were in the pan during the cooking process, that had come from the brisket, kept the entire brisket from drying out, despite the brisket not being wrapped or covered for the entire cooking time. The brisket just ended up naturally cooking in the juices after they had seeped out of the brisket and had built up in the bottom of the pan.
Cooking the brisket this way in the oven had all worked out in the favor of the brisket in making it a very good product in the end. We ate the brisket and went back for seconds and thirds too. The brisket flat end wasn’t bursting with juices when we cut it, but it didn’t have a dry taste at all either. Every slice and every bit was well moisturized. So, despite the meat having a small consistency of canned tuna in texture, it was not dry and flavorless like tuna would be. It was enjoyable, even without the barbecue sauce.
From the long cooking time that the brisket had in the oven, it was falling apart pretty easily. If an individual thinks that a brisket at this condition is just too loose, they can reduce the cooking time to prevent this from happening; however, we found this to be better personally for our brisket. In other words, this experiment showed that a brisket can turn out very good when it is cooked in an oven.
