Beef Tallow and Brisket: Should You Wrap with Rendered Fat?

In the barbecue world, it has become fashionable to wrap cuts of beef like brisket and ribs with beef tallow (rendered beef fat).

I’ve personally tested this concept a lot with my Friends and Family and what I can tell you is that my family prefers smoked meat without added tallow in the wrap. I find the tallow to be far too rich and it softens bark.

To quote my Mom: “It’s like there’s an oil slick that covers your entire mouth.”

What Does Beef Tallow Taste Like?

The flavor from the beef tallow itself is rather unassuming and subtle. It’s a relatively simple fat and will impart a slight “beefy” flavor.

However, when it gets used in large quantities across an entire cut of meat, it just tastes like you have a neutral cooking oil that engulfs your mouth.

I also find that it can overshadow your rub ingredients and really tame them. Often people use tallow as a way to “soften” bark – especially with no-wrap style briskets.

Using Beef Tallow for Wrapping Meat like Brisket and Ribs

It has sort of become fashionable to use beef tallow for smoking/wrapping meat – especially beef brisket and beef ribs; This is mainly because of Aaron Franklin.

Most people in the barbecue world have heard of Aaron Franklin – the Owner of Franklin Barbecue – either through his appearances on Television or YouTube. He’s best known for his Brisket and a number of people have tried to figure out his secret(s).

In early 2021, two people attempted to decipher what the primary differences might be. They are Harry Soo of Slap Yo Daddy BBQ and Jeremy Yoder of Mad Scientist Barbecue.

Essentially Jeremy surmised that Aaron Franklin must be wrapping the brisket with Beef Tallow as the butcher paper was entirely too wet when pulled for slicing (I agree).

Harry’s video came out roughly a month after Jeremy’s. Harry created an 11-part series using the scientific method where he would change certain control variables.

Unfortunately, Harry didn’t create a playlist on YouTube for this but you can watch Part 1 here.

Upon watching several videos from Johnny White (Jirby BBQ on YouTube) of Goldees BBQ you sort of get a peek behind the Texas Barbecue curtain. Johnny worked as a Pitmaster at Franklin Barbecue and has shared some of his stances on smoking meat.

While Johnny hasn’t made any definitive statements (likely non-disclosure agreements are involved), it’s not super hard to read between the lines:

• He’s shown the rub he uses – kosher salt, black pepper, and Lawry’s.
• He’s shown how he would wrap a brisket in tallow.
• He’s shown that some Texas Pitmasters do put tallow in the firebox – Jeremy Yoder also created a video where-in he put tallow in his firebox based on the word of another Texas Pitmaster.
• He’s shown how they slice brisket with tallow on the cutting board to prevent oxidation.

On that same token, Jirby also did a video with Matt Pittman from Meat Church where they cooked two briskets – one using tallow and one without tallow.

The brisket that’s tallow wrapped is noticeably shinier and more visually appealing.

As Matt says “it’s for the Gram’ and the likes.” This is also true when selling Barbecue (like Jirby) as people will always eat with their eyes first.

My Opinions on Using Beef Tallow When Wrapping Brisket (Meat in General)

Personally, I don’t wrap nor rest my briskets with beef tallow. I’ve tested it dozens of times and my family does not like it.

With that said, it does help with pictures:

The shiny bark above is due to wrapping with tallow.

What I can tell you is that wrapping with tallow does a few things:

• It softens the bark.
• It adds the perception of richness to the exterior of the meat.
• It can overshadow rub ingredients.

Those are really my biggest takeaways.

Personally, I like crunchy bark and actually being able to taste my rub ingredients. If I want “richness” I’ll just eat the point meat instead of the flat meat.