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Message
I did the Sous Vide Brisket so you wouldn't have to....
Posted on 9/19/16 at 10:36 am
Posted on 9/19/16 at 10:36 am
LINK to Serious Eats Article
After the article hit and was posted here, I thought I would give this a try once and see if it really was foolproof, as smoking a brisket for 3 hrs at a tailgate is certainly a lot more do-able than 14-16 hrs or so.
I picked up a prime packer-cut brisket on sale at Sam's last week for $2.19/lb, which is the cheapest I've seen prime briskets here in the MW for a really long time. I didn't want to smoke a monster one because I wasn't sure how well it would fit in my sous vide tub, so I got a relatively small 9.5-pounder.
From there, I trimmed the hard fat off of the cap, split the flat in two pieces and (poorly) sliced the point from the flat to use for burnt ends. Into the water bath at 155 for 32-ish hrs.
32 hours later, here is what the flat looked like:
Here's the water/fat that was squeezed out of the meat during the cooking process; there was even more than I had assumed would come out:
Cooled in an ice-water bath in my sink for about 90 minutes, it was onto my WSM for 3 hrs at between 250-300. This was my first mistake; given the relative small size of my flat I don't think the meat was thick enough to require a 3 hour smoke at this point. Anyway, here's what it looked like coming off the smoker, both the flat pieces and the diced point:
And the final verdict on the sliced portion of the flat:
So here are my thoughts:
- The burnt ends were great, and they could take a few more hours of smoke and been fine. There was great marbling you could see after the water bath, and they were juicy. They were up there with the best burnt ends I've ever made, even if they didn't have as much smoke as they typically get.
- The flat was fine; I would put it square in the middle of the briskets I've made. I was pleasantly surprised that only 3 hours of smoke produced a smoky flavor that was on par with a full smoked brisket. I think that due to the relatively small size of the flat, I cooked it too long, both in the water bath and in the smoker afterwards. It had decent moisture, but certainly not as much as I've been able to produce when doing nothing but a smoke. On the flip side, it had more moisture than some that I have charred, so it was a good brisket, just not a great brisket.
- When smoking on the WSM, I didn't use a thermometer; I just assumed it would be cooked under the typical temperature I pull my briskets at. That was probably a mistake.
- Visually it looked not as bad as I thought it would, but not as good as I expect a fully smoked brisket to look. There was no smoke ring to speak of, which doesn't bother me, but I didn't get the charring on the outside that looks so great.
- I'm a bit upset I didn't weigh the thing after, as I really wanted to see how much meat we got out of a 9.5-lb pre-cooked weight brisket.
Will I ever do this again? Probably, but only because I am pretty stubborn and if Kenji says this produces super-juicy brisket then I think that means I did something wrong. For me, getting the chance to smoke a brisket is a pretty rare occurrence, and with three kids 6 and under at the house babysitting the WSM all day isn't something that's easy for me to do. This is easily something I can put in the water bath one evening during the week, can take out when done and put in the fridge for the week, and then on a weekend I can throw it on the smoker for a couple of hours and have a pretty good product. But this one was in the "C" range, although C-grade brisket is still better than eating a salad for lunch.
After the article hit and was posted here, I thought I would give this a try once and see if it really was foolproof, as smoking a brisket for 3 hrs at a tailgate is certainly a lot more do-able than 14-16 hrs or so.
I picked up a prime packer-cut brisket on sale at Sam's last week for $2.19/lb, which is the cheapest I've seen prime briskets here in the MW for a really long time. I didn't want to smoke a monster one because I wasn't sure how well it would fit in my sous vide tub, so I got a relatively small 9.5-pounder.
From there, I trimmed the hard fat off of the cap, split the flat in two pieces and (poorly) sliced the point from the flat to use for burnt ends. Into the water bath at 155 for 32-ish hrs.
32 hours later, here is what the flat looked like:
Here's the water/fat that was squeezed out of the meat during the cooking process; there was even more than I had assumed would come out:
Cooled in an ice-water bath in my sink for about 90 minutes, it was onto my WSM for 3 hrs at between 250-300. This was my first mistake; given the relative small size of my flat I don't think the meat was thick enough to require a 3 hour smoke at this point. Anyway, here's what it looked like coming off the smoker, both the flat pieces and the diced point:
And the final verdict on the sliced portion of the flat:
So here are my thoughts:
- The burnt ends were great, and they could take a few more hours of smoke and been fine. There was great marbling you could see after the water bath, and they were juicy. They were up there with the best burnt ends I've ever made, even if they didn't have as much smoke as they typically get.
- The flat was fine; I would put it square in the middle of the briskets I've made. I was pleasantly surprised that only 3 hours of smoke produced a smoky flavor that was on par with a full smoked brisket. I think that due to the relatively small size of the flat, I cooked it too long, both in the water bath and in the smoker afterwards. It had decent moisture, but certainly not as much as I've been able to produce when doing nothing but a smoke. On the flip side, it had more moisture than some that I have charred, so it was a good brisket, just not a great brisket.
- When smoking on the WSM, I didn't use a thermometer; I just assumed it would be cooked under the typical temperature I pull my briskets at. That was probably a mistake.
- Visually it looked not as bad as I thought it would, but not as good as I expect a fully smoked brisket to look. There was no smoke ring to speak of, which doesn't bother me, but I didn't get the charring on the outside that looks so great.
- I'm a bit upset I didn't weigh the thing after, as I really wanted to see how much meat we got out of a 9.5-lb pre-cooked weight brisket.
Will I ever do this again? Probably, but only because I am pretty stubborn and if Kenji says this produces super-juicy brisket then I think that means I did something wrong. For me, getting the chance to smoke a brisket is a pretty rare occurrence, and with three kids 6 and under at the house babysitting the WSM all day isn't something that's easy for me to do. This is easily something I can put in the water bath one evening during the week, can take out when done and put in the fridge for the week, and then on a weekend I can throw it on the smoker for a couple of hours and have a pretty good product. But this one was in the "C" range, although C-grade brisket is still better than eating a salad for lunch.
Posted on 9/19/16 at 10:42 am to NEMizzou
I have worked my way through a bunch of recipes in Kenji's book. None of them thus far have worked perfectly or even tasted good.
While I am sure he is a fantastic cook, he isnt in the dogma category.
While I am sure he is a fantastic cook, he isnt in the dogma category.
Posted on 9/19/16 at 10:49 am to NEMizzou
great attempt at it, you should be commended for that.
i thought about doing ribs/brisket SV and then finishing them in the oven ala the chefsteps method soon, I'll post if I do it this weekend.
i thought about doing ribs/brisket SV and then finishing them in the oven ala the chefsteps method soon, I'll post if I do it this weekend.
Posted on 9/19/16 at 11:01 am to NEMizzou
Good effort. It looks like you sliced with the grain though
Posted on 9/19/16 at 11:23 am to LSUballs
quote:
It looks like you sliced with the grain though
I wasn't paying enough attention I suppose, but it looks like you're right. That probably didn't help!
Posted on 9/19/16 at 11:32 am to NEMizzou
thanks for posting. Did not know Sam's sold prime. Have a card but just use it for gas and go to Costco.
Looks a little dry, how was the moisture? :taco:
Looks a little dry, how was the moisture? :taco:
Posted on 9/19/16 at 11:38 am to t00f
quote:
Looks a little dry, how was the moisture?
That was the main issue. Texture was fine, smokiness was fine, flavor was fine, but it was drier than I would like. Not awful, but certainly not up to something you would expect in a halfway decent bbq shop. Didn't have that problem with the point section, but either I smoked the flat for too long given its size, or the water bath didn't keep it as moist as it should have. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken a section of the flat and left it off the smoker and eaten it there, and although there wouldn't have been any smoke I would have been able to tell if the water bath dried out the meat or if it was the smoking portion. I tend to think it was the smoking portion but I really don't have any way to know for sure.
Posted on 9/19/16 at 12:00 pm to NEMizzou
I don't see any smoke ring. Why bother smoking it if you are going to do sous vide? Both are slow and low methods and it doesn't make sense to me to combine the two if you are just going to smoke it for a couple hours. What am I missing?
Posted on 9/19/16 at 12:28 pm to NEMizzou
quote:
- When smoking on the WSM, I didn't use a thermometer; I just assumed it would be cooked under the typical temperature I pull my briskets at. That was probably a mistake.
I did this same recipe and I made the same mistake when I finished mine on the Primo. I actually did probe it right after I pulled it off and it was at 211°, so I'm sure carryover brought it up even more before I sliced it. If I had it to do over again, I may ice bath and then refrigerate overnight after the sous vide process so the internal temp of the brisket before smoking is <40°. That way you have ample time to smoke at a low temp before your internal surpasses the 155° that the brisket was cooked to while sous vide. The whole point of the sous vide process in the recipe was to put out a juicy brisket at a similar texture to one that has been cooked on the smoker until ~200° internal. So by overshooting that temp (155°) during the smoking process, you've more or less negated the primary benefit of doing sous vide to begin with. That seems like a key point that Kenji didn't really spell out in his recipe.
This post was edited on 9/19/16 at 12:35 pm
Posted on 9/19/16 at 12:30 pm to SUB
quote:
Why bother smoking it if you are going to do sous vide? Both are slow and low methods and it doesn't make sense to me to combine the two if you are just going to smoke it for a couple hours. What am I missing?
You aren't missing anything.
Posted on 9/19/16 at 12:40 pm to LNCHBOX
quote:
Why bother smoking it if you are going to do sous vide? Both are slow and low methods and it doesn't make sense to me to combine the two if you are just going to smoke it for a couple hours. What am I missing?
You aren't missing anything.
Just because the ring isn't there doesn't mean it doesn't pick up some smoke flavor...you can fake the ring with pink salt if you want the ring. I was actually pleasantly surprised with the amount of smoke flavor the meat picked up after three hours (I used oak FYI). In my case, smokiness wasn't the issue, moisture loss was (and was likely because I relied too much on the directions in the initial post and not my probe thermometer).
As for the rationale, it's a lot easier for me to find time to put a brisket on the smoker for 3 hours as opposed to 12+, so I thought it would be a good marrying of the two techniques. I think it could work, but my first effort didn't turn out fantastic.
Posted on 9/19/16 at 12:58 pm to NEMizzou
I'm not seeing the point, and you got a product substandard to what you're used to making.
Posted on 9/19/16 at 1:08 pm to LNCHBOX
quote:
I'm not seeing the point,
sous vide requires less attention than traditional smoking
quote:
you got a product substandard to what you're used to making.
he admitted that this might be because of the technique that he used
I probably wouldn't sous vide a brisket
Posted on 9/19/16 at 1:09 pm to LNCHBOX
quote:
I'm not seeing the point, and you got a product substandard to what you're used to making.
I did, and that's OK with me; I'm trying to figure out a better way to cook these things (for me, I know this isn't for everyone) and I figured this was worth a shot.
If I could make a brisket that's as good as something you get in a great bbq shack 9x out of 10 then I probably wouldn't do this. But my briskets are usually hit or miss for whatever reason (fire management over a really long cook is probably chief among my issues). I love brisket, but I hate two things about it: the variability I get in final results, and the time it takes. If I can improve on this technique, I think I can eliminate both of those issues. First shot, not so much, but hopefully others can learn from my mistakes if they're in the same boat as me.
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