Warming Drawer to hold Meat?

GoooDawgs

Hey guys - we're in the midst of a kitchen renovation, and I'm considering adding a warming drawer.  I'd love to be able to hold briskets and butts for hours instead of filling the cooler every time. 

Does anyone else do this?  If I can regulate it to hold at 160, is there a limit on how long I could hold something?  I seem to recall Aaron Franklin will hold briskets for up to 12 hours sometimes in his warming station. 

Does anyone else do this in their kitchen? 

dsmithok

We've had one for about 30 years and wouldn't be without one.  We've never held anything for any significant length of time, but you can hold a reasonable temperature for long periods.

minniemoh

We remodeled our kitchen a year ago. That was the ONE thing that I got my way on! HA! But seriously, we use it at least a couple of times per week. The only thing I would change is I wish it had true temp settings. Ours just has L/M/H so it's really kind of a crap shoot what the temp ends up being. Most of the time, low seems to be hot enough. They also seem to be pretty expensive for what you're getting in my opinion. 

The one thing we really dislike about our remodel is our drawer style microwave. We should have just put a standard one in the pantry. The drawer style heats very unevenly due to no rotisserie and the drawer height is too tempting for our toddler to mess with it. 

GoooDawgs

Thanks for the tip.  Regarding hold time, I've heard 4-5 hours when you FTC, but if it's in a controlled warming drawer, is there a real limit?  Is 8 hours too long for example? 

billt01

just put a cambro behind one of the cabinet doors....

maybe?

The Cen-Tex Smoker

You can hold it for many hours at 140. It will eventually degrade the texture of the meat but LA Barbecue holds for 8-12 hours and Franklin holds for many hours as well. 

My only advice is to Get a good drawer if you decide to go that route. My old one had wild temp swings and always over shot the temps no matter how low you set it. We put a better one in last year when we redid the kitchen and it is much better. Still not as good as our oven at holding low temps but we do use it quite a bit.