How long to dry age brisket?
If you’re wondering how long you should be dry aging your brisket, you have certainly come to the right place!
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On average, briskets can be dry aged anywhere from 30 to 45 days assuming you have vacuum sealed them properly.
This allows plenty of time for the dry aging process to occur, and can produce fantastic results that makes your brisket even more tender than otherwise.
To get started, let’s take a quick look at whether or not you should be dry aging your brisket and what dry aging a brisket even does.
Should you dry-age brisket?
If you’re wondering whether or not you should be dry aging your brisket, the answer to that is it depends. If you want to go through the process of having to vacuum seal your piece of barbecue and waiting about a month and a half for it to come out the way you want it, then you should strongly consider dry aging your brisket.
The results are fantastic, and can produce very tender brisket after the dry aging process has occurred.
Basically what dry is process does, is that it allows fungus to start encapsulating the meat, while also tenderizing it.
After you’re done dry aging it, it is recommended to slice off parts that have the fungus, leaving only the tender parts to enjoy.
Let’s dive a little bit deeper into what a dry aged brisket actually accomplishes.
What does dry aging a brisket even do?
For starters, it is helpful to know what a dry aged brisket does for the meat and its overall tenderness. It basically allows all of the connective tissues and proteins to begin breaking down before you even throw it onto the smoker.
This is what makes dry aged meat in general incredibly tender.
The fungus starts to interact with the proteins in the meat and further break them down.
You can also apply certain types of glaze to your meat as well to further emphasize this overall tenderizing process.
The whole point of dry aging a brisket or any other type of BBQ for that matter, is strictly to tenderize it and to tenderize it alone.
It’s actually really easy to do, all you need to do is vacuum seal it, and let it rest for about a month and a half to fully go through the process.
The longer you let it sit vacuum sealed in the refrigerator, the longer it has time to break down overall.
Final thoughts
As you start to consider dry aging your barbecue and brisket in particular, you should know that the average length of time that many will choose to do the at, is around 30 to 45 days.
This is about a month and a half for those that are on a calendar timeframe.
By letting the brisket sit for this length of time, you can ensure a very tender, moist, and juicy after result with a distinct sharp flavor that only dry aged briskets can get.
This article was written by Robert McCall, the founder of bbqdropout.com. Robert also owns and operates the BBQ dropout YouTube channel where he demonstrates his first-hand experience cooking all kinds of meats and strives to provide helpful, authoritative content for people looking how to barbecue.
He primarily hand writes the bulk of the content but occasionally will leverage AI assisted tools, such as chatGPT, to properly edit and format each blog post on this website. This ensures a pleasurable reading experience for visitors. Read more about our editorial policies here. If there are any improvements that can be made to this article, reach out to us directly at staff@bbqdropout.com