Holding brisket in a turkey roaster

[IdahoJim]

Well, my brisket for dinner tonight finished a few hours earlier than I planned. I've got about 5 hours until dinner. I've done the cooler and towels thing before with success, but from my experience, with my cooler, this is too long. I decided I wanted to try the low temperature active hold thing and pulled my 18qt turkey roaster off the shelf in the garage. I have it at about 155 degrees right now and the brisket is wrapped in two layers of foil and cooling down in a turned off oven. I was going to put it in the roaster once it hits about 165.

Does this sound like a decent plan?

I am worried about burning the bottom of the brisket in the roaster. The roaster has a rack that raises the meat up about a half on an inch and the brisket is wrapped in foil, fat cap down. Should I put a towel between the roaster bottom and the brisket? Maybe add some water in the roaster as a sort of buffer/heat sink? Or will I be OK just putting it on the roaster rack?

[RonB]

What's the lowest temp you can set your oven to? If the oven is available and can be set below 200°, that might be the way to go. I've help stuff in our oven set to 170° without problems.

Warning: using the oven will make your house smell wonderful. But not everyone in your house may agree.

[IdahoJim]

Our oven goes down to 170, but when it's set to 170 it swings from about 170 up to almost 200 degrees in a nice sawtooth waveform.

[RonB]

All ovens cycle like that. I wouldn't worry about it. The average temp is supposed to be what it's set to.

[Bob K]

I think this is brilliant. I would go with the water and maybe borrow a rack from the toaster oven, some extra foil balls, or an upside down bowl or something to get it a little farther from the heat. Probably not necessary but makes sense.

[LA Pork Butt]

I would use the roaster since the temp setting can go lower, and I would follow aformentioned suggestions to raise the brisket. Water in the roaster wouldn’t hurt either.

[TripleB]

I've had this happen too. It sucks when the meat is early and looks perfect. I've done the towels in the cooler thing and then brought the beef and ribs back up to serving temp in the oven or on the grill. The beef gets a bit wet, soft crust from being in the towels. But bringing it back up in a 170 d oven or grill gives the bark to set a bit. FWIW...

[Santamarina]

Not sure about the turkey roster, but I’ve held many briskets in a 170° oven for up to 12 hours with no problem!

[fzxdoc]

I've held briskets, etc. in the oven at the lowest setting, 170°. I stick the handle of a wooden spoon in the door opening to keep it open about 1/2 inch. When I do that, the oven stays closer to 170° the whole time without the wild swings up to 200°.

Kathryn

[jerrybell]

I like the oven for holding also. I set to 170 and heat it up. Place the brisket in and turn the oven off. It will take a few hours until the the brisket drops to 160 then I restart the oven at 170. It's about 2 more hours or so until the Brisket rises in temperature to 170 then turn the oven back off. Repeat. This is not as much work as it sounds like.

[briano52]

Yes, we sometimes get our cook done early and its better than being late! I use two methods with success. The faux cambro (i.e. cooler) or the oven. You can greatly extend the effective time of warm holding in a cooler by pre-warming the cooler with hot water halfway up or so for 20 minutes or as long as you have time for. I usually fill with hot tap water and add up to a gallon or so of boiling water. Drain water and hold.

I have a warming drawer on in my outdoor kitchen that works great. I use and ambient Thermoworks thermometer to check on the heat as the drawer does not have temp settings, just 1-4 settings. I also have used the plate warming setting on my Miele oven. It can be set as low as 125. If your oven can't go that low, set it as low as it will go and open it periodically to avoid getting too hot. If you can go to 170 degrees, that will work for quite a while . Maybe cycle it off every hour or two for 15 minutes. Hope these ideas help.

[texastweeter]

Yep, warming drawer set to 140° is my go to at hime. I think the turkey roaster would be fine with a wire rack in the bottom, skip the water though.

[fzxdoc]

I have an Advantium Trivection oven, built in, in the kitchen. It has 3 Keep Warm Settings too, 125-140, 140-160 and 160-195. It's where I usually faux cambro my smoked meat. But when I do 8-10 pastramis at a time, the overflow goes into the oven at the lowest setting with a spoon in the door to keep the temps around 170°.

Kathryn

[IdahoJim]

Holding in the roaster worked great. It was a good thing I used it instead of an oven because we ended up using both ovens at different temps for roasted potatoes and cornbread muffins. Below is the graph of the cook from my Thermoworks Smoke. At the beginning the yellow line was the flat and the red line was the point. Then I removed the red probe while the brisket cooled in the turned off oven. Then, into the roaster with the red probe just above the bottom of the roaster. You can see it just slowly wiggled varying by only about five degrees. I didn't add any towels or liquid to the roaster. Just the wrapped brisket on the roaster's rack. The bottom of the brisket was fine, not burnt or dry. There was a little bit of liquid in the foil when I unwrapped the brisket. I would definitely do this again.

[DennyWoo]

This sounds like it worked great. What did you wrap with before going into the roaster?

[DTro]

Looks like a great way to hold a brisket.

[Smoke em if you got em]

I held my last one in a turkey roaster at 150 degrees for 13 hours. It has the rack inside. I put 1/2 cup of water in the bottom and it was perfect. You won’t burn the bottom.