sous vide brisket

njl

I did a search, and found a few people have tried this in general, but I'm wondering if anyone's tried it "Kenji's way" which I saw recently mentioned in an email from Anova?

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/08/sous-vide-barbecue-smoked-bbq-brisket-texas-recipe.html

I bought one just under 6lb to try this.  I'll probably have to cut it in half to bag it, and may only do the sous vide "experiment" on half of it.

Skiddymarker

Go to ChefSteps, they have a great sous vide brisket demo. 

Mattman3969

I'm pretty sure @The Cen-Tex Smoker has done SV brisket.  Maybe he will chime in shortly 

DMW

Mattman3969 said:

I'm pretty sure @The Cen-Tex Smoker has done SV brisket.  Maybe he will chime in shortly 

Yes, he has. Just found the link.
http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1189046/sous-vide-brisket-cook/p1

njl

I'm giving it a shot.  I bought a 5.75lb flat, cut it in half, froze half, and coated the other half with the prescribed salt and pepper mix.  It went into the 155F water bath at 2:30 this afternoon.  If all goes according to plan, I'll finish it tomorrow on the BGE.

njl

Other than the amount of pepper being way more than I'd like, this turned out pretty similar to one of the local BBQ joint's brisket.  Definitely not bad other than the pepper.  I'll probably do it again, cutting the amount of pepper by 75%.

BREWnQ

I've done this twice now with AWESOME results. It's so simple you cant go wrong.  Both times I did SV for 36hr and smoke for 3.  Since I don't always have a need for 15# of brisket I'm going to try freezing some after SV then smoking a piece when I need it. 

njl

BREWnQ, do you follow Kenji's recipe (155F sous vide, then smoke at 275-300F for 3 hours) or just something similar?  The amount of pepper I used was kind of overpowering and left my mouth tingling after eating it.  We made two dinners for two out of this, and lunch for me today.  Second night, I scraped off as much pepper as I could before slicing.  

For today's lunch, I just chopped up what was left, added a bit of bbq sauce, mixed it up in a bowl, and microwaved it for a minute.

nolaegghead

I've done a bunch of sous vide briskets.  You really don't want to do them at the lower temp unless you plan on smoking for a longer time or you like fat.  The fat needs to render.  I usually do them at 148F for 24 hours then smoke for 4 hours at 300F.

They're foolproof.

55drum

The last two I did were @ 130 for 60 hr....they were great....

GrateEggspectations

@BREWnQ: Old thread, I know, but can you please tell me how your approach of SV’ing and then freezing the cooked brisket before smoking on demand worked out for you? Was it still tender and juicy?

This is an appealing approach, as it caters to smaller crowds and also means only 3hrs lead time for serving brisket assuming you’ve got the SV’d beef thawed beforehand. 

nolaegghead

GrateEggspectations said:

@BREWnQ: Old thread, I know, but can you please tell me how your approach of SV’ing and then freezing the cooked brisket before smoking on demand worked out for you? Was it still tender and juicy?

This is an appealing approach, as it caters to smaller crowds and also means only 3hrs lead time for serving brisket assuming you’ve got the SV’d beef thawed beforehand. 

I've done probably 7 or 8 of them via SV.  Experimented with different times and temps.  Main objective is to not over-cook, where you have potted meat.  The main consideration is how much fat you want to render off. 

For example, cooking it at a low temp for a long time, like 130-145F doesn't render off much fat.  If you have a very lean brisket, you might not want to render much off....at least on the flat.  The point is,  even in a leaner brisket, too fatty for most.  You start rendering fat at the higher SV temps.  160-ish F is a good start.  Soft fat renders first.  There is a benefit to separating the flat from the point and cooking at different temps.

But regardless of how much fat is rendered, you have a second chance on the smoker.

BREWnQ

I haven't done it yet. But I did freeze the finished brisket, vacuumed it while it was still pretty warm then just reheated in the SV.  It was almost as good as eating it fresh, you just don't get the bark that you would when it's finished on the egg.

My plan if I was going to do it again would be to SV then freeze after 36 hours or so. Thaw in the SV and finish on the egg.

GrateEggspectations

BREWnQ said:

I haven't done it yet. But I did freeze the finished brisket, vacuumed it while it was still pretty warm then just reheated in the SV.  It was almost as good as eating it fresh, you just don't get the bark that you would when it's finished on the egg.

My plan if I was going to do it again would be to SV then freeze after 36 hours or so. Thaw in the SV and finish on the egg.

Thanks. This is the plan I like, as you’re only thawing the SV’d brisket and then smoking on demand, creating the bark. May have to try this.