Apparently, Arby’s New Smokehouse Brisket Takes 13 Hours to Smoke

We expect fast food chefery can be a bit thankless sometimes. Whether you love or hate X chain’s new pretzel-bun, beer-battered mash-up ramen burger sandwich, some culinary mastermind out there still had to both conceptualize and execute it – a task probably made significantly more challenging when the dish in question also needs to be mass-produced on a national or even international scale.

Take Arby’s new Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich for instance. Featuring Gouda cheese, crispy onions, BBQ sauce and mayonnaise and sliced beef brisket that reportedly needs to be smoked for 13 hours minimum, this thing probably takes a lot more work than most people will give it credit for. For those who do appreciate a solid slice of beef, however, Arby’s has set up a “League of Brisket” website where fans can enter to win two tickets to a pro football game, as well as collect points toward other prizes, from now until October 30.

It doesn’t seem as though fast food’s trend toward more “artisanal,” premium fare is letting up any time soon. If anyone can tell the difference between Arby’s meat that’s been smoked for 13 days and the stuff that’s only been smoked for six, we’d love to hear about it.

PicThx Arby’s