Sous Vide Brisket

[salmonmaster]

Went to the chef store to pick up some boneless pork butts that were on sale, and they had a good deal on beef brisket too, so I picked up one of those. I’ve been looking at a lot of sous vide recipes on line, and as usual, there’s lot’s of opinions. Some use cure#1, some don’t. Smoke before, smoke after sous vide. 135° for 36 hours, 155° for 24 hours. I know a lot of you guy’s have been doing this, just wondering if anybody has perfected their technique. I Want it very tender, not fall apart tender, cut with a fork tender I guess you would say, and smokey. So if anybody has a great Idea, would love to hear about it.

[Tex_77]

salmonmaster I’ve only done it with pork butts, but if I were doing brisket I would do the higher temp, and probably smoke after.

[Jonathon]

salmonmaster I’ve done it before. Smoked for 10 hours then as I was leaving for the night I put it in the sous vide until I got back in the morning and put it back in the smoker to dry it out a little more and recreate the bark. No matter which way you go I highly recommend finishing it up for at least a few hours in the smoker.

[salmonmaster]

Tex_77 that kinda what I was thinking. 155° for 24 hours, then into smokehouse for 3-4 hours. Have a few pieces to mess with, so if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.

[salmonmaster]

Jonathon did you like it? Was it tender? What temp. In smokehouse? One more thing, what breed is your dog? Our kids are thinking about getting a dog that looks a lot like yours.

[Jonathon]

salmonmaster Yeah, it was tender, I pulled it when he IT was around 170 if memory serves me. One of those things that I thought I could get it in the smoker earlier than I actually could.

Big one is a Boerboel also known as a South African Mastiff. If that is the dog I can’t recommend them highly enough, awesome, loyal, and funny, but don’t expect them to like strangers or always want to listen, VERY stubborn. The little guy is mix of Staffy and American build go, mostly Staffordshire, he was a rescue but he’s a good boy too other than he eats my doors.

[salmonmaster]

Jonathon the kinda dog they were looking at is a black mouth cur. Just checking to see if it was a kid eater. briskets in sous vide now. Decided on 152° for 24 hours, then into smokehouse at 225°-250° for 3 hours or so. We’ll see what happens. I’ve got 2 more tries after this to perfect my technique

[Mcjagger]

salmonmaster Following this thread…keep us updated please

[salmonmaster]

Mcjagger Will do. Pulling from sous vide about 1 p.m. my time. That would be 24 hours at 152°. Might have to finish this one in oven, we’re suppose to get a storm blowing thru here this afternoon. Don’t want to fight 50 mph winds to try to smoke.

[mdseaside]

https://www.seriouseats.com/sous-vide-barbecue-smoked-bbq-brisket-texas-recipe Check this site out it a good read about doing brisket.

[glen]

mdseaside Thanks for the link, good info and I plan on using it.
The only thing I would take issue with is if you want a slight faux smoke ring he arbitrarily adds 10 grams of cure #1 to the rub. I think in most cases this would be excessive

[salmonmaster]

mdseaside ya, that’s the one I’m going off. We’ll see if it turns out like the pictures. It does have some good info.

[salmonmaster]

glen I’ve got two more pieces of brisket to experiment with after this one. This one doesn’t have the cure on it, just a rub that I bought from store. Next one I’m going to put the cure on to compare. The piece I have in there now is the thinnest end of brisket, and I put some liquid smoke in it. We’ll see what happens. I’m not sure how the cure works. Maybe the longer you leave it in refer before you start the cooking process, the deeper the pink ring gets in meat? And I wonder if after you start cooking, the cure stops making the ring? We’ll see what happens. I’m sure it’s going to be good no matter what

[glen]

salmonmaster Great experiment, I look forward for your opinion Have fun!

[salmonmaster]

glen O.K. play by play action. It’s dumping to put it mildly! Raining hard and blowing 35 mph. Great day for smoking hacked my bbq to make sort of a smokehouse, no way I’m going to try it in my regular unit. Pulled brisket after 24 hours, dumped juice out of bag, then put brisket in bag in cold water till 70° or so. Put some more seasoning on it, and into smoker- bbq at 275° or so. Have a pan of chips in there, we’ll see if I get smoke. Just looked, starting to get smoke the pictures are bbq on back porch, brisket meat side up, and fat side up, and with seasoning on it. Now the wait.

[salmonmaster]

Mcjagger well it’s done, turned out VERY good! Only could get a little under 3 hours of smoke, weather really went down hill, but pulled it at 170°, and let it rest for a half hour. Not much of a smoke ring, but really didn’t expect one with the short smoke time. It was juicy, not really juicy, but still very good. This was the leanest part of the brisket too. Could cut with a fork, not fall apart, and I wasn’t looking for fall apart. Next time I think I’ll do 155° for 24 hours, and hopefully get a good 4 hour smoke.


Now, over to the what did you cook today thread

[glen]

salmonmaster Good to know, nice job, thanks

[johnsbrewhouse]

salmonmaster Good looking piece of brisket. Glad you kept the heavy wind and rain down there in the Long Beach area. We only took a few heavy gusts and some steady wind this afternoon and a bit of rain, but we are 100 miles inland from Grays Harbor. Glad things worked out for you.

[salmonmaster]

johnsbrewhouse longbeach was a few years ago, now were up in the hills above hoodsport. Probably not to far from you as the crow flies. Probably couple inches of rain today, and lot’s of wind, but it turned out alright. I’ll look at the forcast a little better before I decide to use smoker again.

[johnsbrewhouse]

salmonmaster yes, that’s about 60-70 miles, I was in Union in December in the snow and the power went out where I was staying. Does get windy up on the Hood Canal. I used to hunt off of FR-23 and all the area are the steel bridge.