3 day make ahead smoked brisket, reheated with sous vide.

[BurgerBob]

I go on a golf trip every year with 11 other guys, and I'm tasked with making 2 dinners for everyone. I try to make as much beforehand as possible to cut down on time spent cooking at the rental house. We leave Thursday morning (driving), and don't have access to a fridge till Friday afternoon, so it all has to be in a cooler for over 24 hours. I've done ribs and pulled pork several times before, but was ambitious and wanted to try a brisket this year. I couldn't find a guide how to pull this off, so I said F it and winged it. I got a 16lb prime from Sam's Club and cooked it as I usually would on my Recteq 590, starting at midnight Tuesday with a smoke tube with post oak chips and pellets too. I pulled and butcher paper wrapped at 8am, and it was probe tender at 203F at noon Wednesday. I let it rest for 2 hours on the counter, then vac sealed it in a Foodsaver expandable bag with the juices and put it in an ice bath in my cooler. Note: Those bags don't seal the edges very well, so put several seal lines on it. Wednesday night I dumped the ice and refilled with fresh ice and packed the cooler with everything else I was taking. The cooler sat in a car till Friday afternoon, then the brisket went into the fridge as we'd be eating it Saturday night. Before our afternoon round I put it in the cooler with a water bath and turned my Joule sous vide device to 140F at 2pm and pulled it out at 6pm. It was jiggly, but not crispy outside, so I put it in the oven at 500f for 5 minutes. When I carved it, it was as juicy as any other brisket I've smoked after the rest. Everyone swore that it was the best brisket they've ever had, and I couldn't argue. Smokey still, and the fat still melted in your mouth. So anyone faced with a similar timeline, and has a sous vide device, can easily make it ahead with no worries.

TLDR: Smoked a brisket, vac sealed it, chilled, reheated sous vide 3 days later and it was delicious.

[Oakgrovebacon]

Great job! Next year you will be tasked with all the meals after pulling this off.

[RonB]

This is the sign of a BBQ Pitmaster. Ya figured it out with the knowledge you had.

[fzxdoc]

Well, now you've done it. I wouldn't be surprised if your golf group will be wanting to have quarterly "golf trip planning meetings" at your house, with brisket on the menu from here on out.

You really thought this through well. Congrats on doing such a great job.

Two questions:
How large was your brisket?
and
Did you happen to temp the brisket when you took it out of the sous vide? I'm always curious to know how long it takes for the core to heat to the set SV temp in a huge piece of meat. I read the charts for "cylinders" etc. but translating that to real life is iffy for an irregular piece like a packer brisket.

Kathryn

[fzxdoc]

SVQ or QVQ for brisket and chuck roast, so far, has worked well for me, Jim , jfmorris , because I don't chill the meat all the way down. I chill it until it's cold to the touch but still sort of warm in the center, then I smoke it for the last step.

That said, I prepped/smoked 5 pastrami points over the weekend, wrapped in foil and stored overnight. I reheated a few slices last night for Reubens for dinner. No problem with that "warmed over" flavor. Maybe curing helps with that?

K.

[BurgerBob]

It was probably 12 or 13 pounds after the cook, and it temped at 140 when I took it out of the bath. Since I wasn't cooking it, just warming, it didn't need to stay at that temp to break down connective tissue like you would for a full sous vide cook. I'm guessing an hour or two would have been sufficient to warm it, but it was still fine at 4 hours.

[fzxdoc]

Just for future reference, BurgerBob , you may want to SV the meat to 165° as the FDA recommends for safely reheating foods. I swear I live my cooking life, seems like, on 4 numbers: 40, 140, 165 and 203!

Thanks again for the enjoyable and informative writeup.

Kathryn

[rlozinak]

Nice going.

[jfmorris]

Well done BurgerBob ! I would personally have been nervous about the outcome with the long hold in the cooler, but glad it all worked out!

[fzxdoc]

Me too. Such a long hold in ice would have had me temping it repeatedly over the ensuing hours to make sure it stayed below 40° the whole time. Unless, perhaps, if the brisket was frozen and the cooler was a Yeti.

K.

[BurgerBob]

It was a Yeti cooler, and I definitely made sure it was buried in ice the entire time. The initial ice bath after the hold got it down to temp quick, and it stayed close to freezing the entire time in the cooler.

[fzxdoc]

You really covered all the bases, BurgerBob . Nice job!

Kathryn