Sous Vide Brisket Flat for Super Bowl

mahenryak

Happy Super Bowl:

For a variety of reasons, chief one being timing, I decided to try a sous vide brisket cook.  I smoked the CAB 7 pound brisket flat for 2.75 hours and then sliced in two equal pieces, vacuum sealed and submerged in the water bath at 147 F for 48 hours.  Since it is just the wife and me, I then opened one pouch,torching this half of the brisket, while immediately placing the other half in an ice-water bath for 45 minutes to prep for the freezer.

I'm fairly pleased with the results.  The texture was spot on and the juiciness perfectly acceptable.  I was also pleased with the smoke flavor.  There was actually a visible ring, though the pictures didn't really show this.  I will definitely do this again when it isn't practical to do the entire cook on the egg.

Cheers.

Photo Egg

Very nice...thanks for posting with all the photos.

mahenryak

You're quite welcome.  Thank you for taking the time to check it out. 

Angus1978

So, I like what you're doing here.....but have one question.  Why not crank up the Sous Vide to 191 degrees and cook at that temp since that's a brisket?  Give the collegen time to melt and all.

caliking

Nice!

I have been thinking about doing a SV brisket for some time, but hadn't committed to it yet. Same question as @Angus1978 though - why not let it ride at 191? Just curious.

tulocay

Very nice

4Runner

I bet the OP was trying to get some smoke flavor into the flat as well. Maybe you all are asking after the initial smoke then let it ride in SV to 190s.??

caliking

@4Runner - yep that's my question.

mahenryak

Okay, sorry for the late reply. I relied upon a recommendation I found on a sous vide forum that I came across.  The reference was to Thomas Keller, a chef who has written a book on sous vide cooking.  Apparently, 147 is kind of the sweet spot for this manner of cooking a brisket.  Why?  Supposedly, because at 145 you're assured of melting the fat but at 150 you introduce quite a bit of shrinkage due to moisture loss.  It's the one and only brisket cook I've done using this technique and I will follow the same path the next time as I was pleased with the results.  Cooking for 48 hours at this temp, under pressure, takes care of the connective tissue worry.  The texture was great.  By the way, that is the title of Thomas Keller's book,Under Pressure: cooking sous vide.  I did some baby back ribs at 136 for 48 hours once and it was amazingly tender and juicy (but the wife couldn't get past the red color so I now do those at a higher temp).  I read some posts where folks who tried this temp for a brisket described it as a weird experience where the meat was very tender but it was in sort of a web of connective tissue that kind of ruined the eating experience.  So you don't have to do the 190+ temp cook.  You can, however, cook at a higher temp for less time if you so desire.  Again, I just sifted through all the posts and found one that resonated with me.  Part of the reason for posting this was to get other opinions, though.  One other thing you may have noticed in the picture was that I pretty much got rid of the fat cap.  This was another tip I read.  It's not needed to protect the brisket in this style of cook and won't render very well.  Also, when I smoked it it was more or less a cold smoke (dome temp just under 200).  That's pretty much all I have.

caliking

@mayhenryak - Thanks for the detailed response. You answered a bunch of questions I had!

Sous vide info is sometimes all over the place in terms of times and temps, do the details you provided are very helpful. Will add this to my list of SV cooks to try.

mahenryak

You are absolutely correct--suggestions for time and temps pretty much run the gamut.

Raymont

I think it's a great idea for smaller flats (that can tend to dry out for me when egging).

DMW

Nice, I've been wanting to do another long SV cook. I like the smoke up front idea.

Just curious, did you check the internal temp of the brisket after smoking it?

mahenryak

Unfortunately, I did not check the temp after my cool smoke period.  For what it's worth, there wasn't any rendering going on from what I could tell visually, and it was only warm to the touch.  Regarding the smoke up front comment, since you mentioned this, I did also see where some were electing to smoke again following the cook at a hotter temperature to brown the meat.  I chose to forgo this step and simply torched it a little (butane cooking torch).

THEBuckeye

Nice cover set-up for the Egg! 

mahenryak

THEBuckeye said:

Nice cover set-up for the Egg! 

Thank you.  I try to remind myself of this each time I have to sweep the snow off of it. 

Skiddymarker

Nice looking brisket, must try this. SV for tri-tip (3 to 4 hours at 58ºC) has become SWMBO preferred cook. Did you use any seasoning? For tri-tip I use a touch of liquid smoke then some steak spice, Montreal or Schwartz's. Time to go brisket shopping!

mahenryak

 

Skiddymarker said:

Nice looking brisket, must try this. SV for tri-tip (3 to 4 hours at 58ºC) has become SWMBO preferred cook. Did you use any seasoning? For tri-tip I use a touch of liquid smoke then some steak spice, Montreal or Schwartz's. Time to go brisket shopping!

Thank you, and, yes,  I used SZEGED Steak Rub. I also really like their chicken rub, herb based, and use it a lot for spatchcock cooks.  Thank you for the tri-tip tip.

Angus1978

I'm going to try this. Stay tuned. But I think I'll crank it to 188 degrees for 1 day. Maybe 2.

Anyone think I should stick with 148f? Speak now or it's going under water in 2 hours

Angus1978

I will let it roll at 148 tonight. I can always bump it tomorrow

mahenryak

Angus1978 said:

I will let it roll at 148 tonight. I can always bump it tomorrow

How did you end up cooking your brisket and how did it turn out?  (I just signed back in and saw your post, today.)