Yup - that's me. Pushing limits. lol
I posted before about my 90-day (or so) wet aged brisket and a lot of people were flabbergasted. I just buy 'em at Costco (or Sam's), keep 'em cold, leave 'em in their factory cryovac and throw 'em in the fridge in the garage. I'll flip 'em over every week or two, to make sure all the juices in the cryovac are rolling around inside, etc. I dunno if this makes a difference, I just do it.
Doing this helps the meat tenderize. Doesn't add the flavor of a dry aged steak, but I have noticed them being more tender.
However, often when they've wet aged a while, when you open 'em up, they're gonna have some funk to 'em. Matter of fact, my wife thought the last 90-day one was bad. It was pretty ripe. Not a rotten smell, really, but a really, really rich meaty smell. It's got some funk. When I took it out of the bag (in the kitchen sink), I rinsed the bag and the brisket itself off, rubbed it down a bit briskly when rinsing, then patted dry with some paper towels. It was great. Cooked up fine, nice and tender, I loved it. I've done it several times in the 60-to-90-day range and always had good results.
I've been too busy lately - I don't have room in the freezer - I needed to use this one - I didn't get around to it. So yesterday I pulled it out of the fridge because I was doing 4 pork butts for our annual Walk A Mile In Her Shoes fundraise, and decided to cook on Big Bertha and might was well use the space, right? Right!
I didn't realize quite HOW long it had been, I knew it was a little over 90 days... but... yeah. The "Sell By" date on the label was Dec 27, 2023. I've been 'told' that this is usually about 2 weeks from the packing date, which isn't usually listed in my experience. So... calculating from Dec. 13th to yesterday, that makes it 127 days.
Ok, wow. Yeah. I didn't intended to push it that long. But, I was cooking out at my buddy's shop on The Big Pit and thoguht, well, this is the perfect time to open 'er up - since I'm outdoors, I'm in the open - AND, there are a ton of chikkins out there, if it turns out it's TOO rank, and I don't think it's safe, I can just chunk it up and throw it to them and they'll go to town on it. Of course, I'm not sure how long it would take a couple dozen chikkins to scarf down a 19 lb brisket, but oh well. I've given them a couple of pre-cooked hams I picked up at Christmas sales for like $0.50/lb and didn't use in time and they loved it. Took 'em a day or two to eat each one. They're chikkins, those critters'll eat anything - like a possum. But we eradicated the possums locally.
Anyways, I got out of work at 11, went home, changed clothes, loaded up and headed out. Got the big fire started and laid down some foil on my side shelf (didn't want to 'contaminate it' if it was bad) and opened 'er up - waiting for the smell to hit me... and smelled... nothing. NOTHING. Literally. No funk, nothing. Now, to be fair, I had been starting up the fire in the firebox, and was sitting in front of the smoker, but still... nothing. I even leaned in a few times to see if I could catch a whiff of something - like I said, it's usually a rich, meaty, ALMOST rank odor when they're wet aged this long, but I literally got NUTHIN'.
Ok, cool! So at least I know it ain't BAD. I mean, even if I got smoke in my nose, I think I'm gonna smell ROTTEN meat, and it wasn't. So, I trimmed it up, man this was a beast - 19 lbs, this may be the largest brisket I've ever done, or close - and shaped 'er up, just laid down a good layer of Morton's Kosher Salt and 16 mesh black pepper (just Costco bulk coarse ground black pepper). I was in a hurry and forgot my granulated garlic, so this'un is gonna be just S&P.
No Smell-O-Vision, but I'm sure ya'll wanna see some pics. Oh, and the pork butts went on, too, Kosher salt and Head Country rub - I had a big bottle left from my last giant rib cook for work. It got good reviews and people chose it over my MMD+ ribs in a side-by-side, so I guess it's good. I don't think I ate any of those, after cooking alll day. So, on to the pics! Not a lot, I get busy with the cook, tending the fire, and was working on my latest shop build at the same time.
This one is maybe an hour, hour and a half in? I dunno. I ran pretty hot yesterday due to the late start.
I ended up with about... oh, 6 hours or so on the big smoker, then got everything wrapped up and brought it home to my house, fired up the Yoder pellet smoker and threw the brisket on there in a foil boat at 300ºF on the top shelf (set point about 325ºF I think) monitored with my Fireboard - temp was at 158ish degrees, only took about 2h or so to get up to 195ºF. Maybe 2.5h. Anyway, that foil boat method is nice, although I struggle to get it 'right'. Just... hard to make a boat out of foil, for me. Anyways, pulled, wrapped and set for a hold of 24h in my toaster oven at 145ºF.
The wrapped pork butts got put in my Camp Chef Smoke Vault 24 - first time I've used this in... jeez, a year and a half, maybe? - at about 300ºF. No smoke, no wood chunks, just some water in the pan. Took those an hour to start coming back up to temp, but in 2h they were done, as well. Removed the briskie to the toaster over, wrapped the pork butts AGAIN (4 layers of foil on 'em now) and placed in the Yoder for overnight hold at 150ºF. Checked on 'em when I got up and she's still runnin'. I didn't temp 'em, as I don't want to pierce the foil, since I'm transporting them. They'll be fine.
Overall, a good cook, and got some little amt of work done in the shop as well... I needa do some updates on my latest build. It's been a little crazy lately.
I post this for posterity as much as anything, for folks who are doing research on aging or holding briskets. I would NEVER do this with pork or chikkin, but I've done briskets this way numerous times (although this is the longest) and always had no problem. Results aren't staggering, but it does seem to help a good bit with tenderness, and using the foil boat and long hold, pull at 190-195º, hold for 10-20 hours - it really has made for incredible brisket for me. I have another one aging now in the fridge, it's only a couple weeks' in - The Wife isn't a huge brisket fan, so I don't do it often, and usually give away most of the meat. Last time, I ate a slice of flat and a couple burnt ends when slicing, loaded up 2 bags' worth for a friend who loves brisket, and left the rest at my buddy's house for him and his family - rental for using his shop, I guess. lol. So I only ate a couple bites, but I enjoy cooking brisket, and I enjoy the experiment as much as anything.
Here's what that one looked like - it was about a 60-day aged one, I think?
Hope this helps someone... this is only my experience, and I leave these briskets in my garage fridge, not my main household fridge, so they stay pretty consistently cold without a lot of door opening and closing, etc. I was nervous doing this in the past, my first foray in the 90-day wet aged brisket was for Christmas, I think maybe 6 or 7 years ago? Something like that, but now I've done it 8 or 10 times and always had good results. YMMV and everyone must take risks to their own comfort level. This one was pushing it a bit for me, and I don't see any real REASON to go beyond 90 days. Heck, I think 45-60 is probably a good place, but like I said, I just don't do brisket very often, it's a huge cut, my wife isn't really a fan, and with everything going on in life and in business, it's been tough to find time to cook ANYTHING, much less a giant hunk like this.
But, I'll post up after we cut it up, likely this evening, let ya'll know how it tastes. I'm sure it'll be great!
I posted before about my 90-day (or so) wet aged brisket and a lot of people were flabbergasted. I just buy 'em at Costco (or Sam's), keep 'em cold, leave 'em in their factory cryovac and throw 'em in the fridge in the garage. I'll flip 'em over every week or two, to make sure all the juices in the cryovac are rolling around inside, etc. I dunno if this makes a difference, I just do it.
Doing this helps the meat tenderize. Doesn't add the flavor of a dry aged steak, but I have noticed them being more tender.
However, often when they've wet aged a while, when you open 'em up, they're gonna have some funk to 'em. Matter of fact, my wife thought the last 90-day one was bad. It was pretty ripe. Not a rotten smell, really, but a really, really rich meaty smell. It's got some funk. When I took it out of the bag (in the kitchen sink), I rinsed the bag and the brisket itself off, rubbed it down a bit briskly when rinsing, then patted dry with some paper towels. It was great. Cooked up fine, nice and tender, I loved it. I've done it several times in the 60-to-90-day range and always had good results.
I've been too busy lately - I don't have room in the freezer - I needed to use this one - I didn't get around to it. So yesterday I pulled it out of the fridge because I was doing 4 pork butts for our annual Walk A Mile In Her Shoes fundraise, and decided to cook on Big Bertha and might was well use the space, right? Right!
I didn't realize quite HOW long it had been, I knew it was a little over 90 days... but... yeah. The "Sell By" date on the label was Dec 27, 2023. I've been 'told' that this is usually about 2 weeks from the packing date, which isn't usually listed in my experience. So... calculating from Dec. 13th to yesterday, that makes it 127 days.
Ok, wow. Yeah. I didn't intended to push it that long. But, I was cooking out at my buddy's shop on The Big Pit and thoguht, well, this is the perfect time to open 'er up - since I'm outdoors, I'm in the open - AND, there are a ton of chikkins out there, if it turns out it's TOO rank, and I don't think it's safe, I can just chunk it up and throw it to them and they'll go to town on it. Of course, I'm not sure how long it would take a couple dozen chikkins to scarf down a 19 lb brisket, but oh well. I've given them a couple of pre-cooked hams I picked up at Christmas sales for like $0.50/lb and didn't use in time and they loved it. Took 'em a day or two to eat each one. They're chikkins, those critters'll eat anything - like a possum. But we eradicated the possums locally.
Anyways, I got out of work at 11, went home, changed clothes, loaded up and headed out. Got the big fire started and laid down some foil on my side shelf (didn't want to 'contaminate it' if it was bad) and opened 'er up - waiting for the smell to hit me... and smelled... nothing. NOTHING. Literally. No funk, nothing. Now, to be fair, I had been starting up the fire in the firebox, and was sitting in front of the smoker, but still... nothing. I even leaned in a few times to see if I could catch a whiff of something - like I said, it's usually a rich, meaty, ALMOST rank odor when they're wet aged this long, but I literally got NUTHIN'.
Ok, cool! So at least I know it ain't BAD. I mean, even if I got smoke in my nose, I think I'm gonna smell ROTTEN meat, and it wasn't. So, I trimmed it up, man this was a beast - 19 lbs, this may be the largest brisket I've ever done, or close - and shaped 'er up, just laid down a good layer of Morton's Kosher Salt and 16 mesh black pepper (just Costco bulk coarse ground black pepper). I was in a hurry and forgot my granulated garlic, so this'un is gonna be just S&P.
No Smell-O-Vision, but I'm sure ya'll wanna see some pics. Oh, and the pork butts went on, too, Kosher salt and Head Country rub - I had a big bottle left from my last giant rib cook for work. It got good reviews and people chose it over my MMD+ ribs in a side-by-side, so I guess it's good. I don't think I ate any of those, after cooking alll day. So, on to the pics! Not a lot, I get busy with the cook, tending the fire, and was working on my latest shop build at the same time.
This one is maybe an hour, hour and a half in? I dunno. I ran pretty hot yesterday due to the late start.
I ended up with about... oh, 6 hours or so on the big smoker, then got everything wrapped up and brought it home to my house, fired up the Yoder pellet smoker and threw the brisket on there in a foil boat at 300ºF on the top shelf (set point about 325ºF I think) monitored with my Fireboard - temp was at 158ish degrees, only took about 2h or so to get up to 195ºF. Maybe 2.5h. Anyway, that foil boat method is nice, although I struggle to get it 'right'. Just... hard to make a boat out of foil, for me. Anyways, pulled, wrapped and set for a hold of 24h in my toaster oven at 145ºF.
The wrapped pork butts got put in my Camp Chef Smoke Vault 24 - first time I've used this in... jeez, a year and a half, maybe? - at about 300ºF. No smoke, no wood chunks, just some water in the pan. Took those an hour to start coming back up to temp, but in 2h they were done, as well. Removed the briskie to the toaster over, wrapped the pork butts AGAIN (4 layers of foil on 'em now) and placed in the Yoder for overnight hold at 150ºF. Checked on 'em when I got up and she's still runnin'. I didn't temp 'em, as I don't want to pierce the foil, since I'm transporting them. They'll be fine.
Overall, a good cook, and got some little amt of work done in the shop as well... I needa do some updates on my latest build. It's been a little crazy lately.
I post this for posterity as much as anything, for folks who are doing research on aging or holding briskets. I would NEVER do this with pork or chikkin, but I've done briskets this way numerous times (although this is the longest) and always had no problem. Results aren't staggering, but it does seem to help a good bit with tenderness, and using the foil boat and long hold, pull at 190-195º, hold for 10-20 hours - it really has made for incredible brisket for me. I have another one aging now in the fridge, it's only a couple weeks' in - The Wife isn't a huge brisket fan, so I don't do it often, and usually give away most of the meat. Last time, I ate a slice of flat and a couple burnt ends when slicing, loaded up 2 bags' worth for a friend who loves brisket, and left the rest at my buddy's house for him and his family - rental for using his shop, I guess. lol. So I only ate a couple bites, but I enjoy cooking brisket, and I enjoy the experiment as much as anything.
Here's what that one looked like - it was about a 60-day aged one, I think?
Hope this helps someone... this is only my experience, and I leave these briskets in my garage fridge, not my main household fridge, so they stay pretty consistently cold without a lot of door opening and closing, etc. I was nervous doing this in the past, my first foray in the 90-day wet aged brisket was for Christmas, I think maybe 6 or 7 years ago? Something like that, but now I've done it 8 or 10 times and always had good results. YMMV and everyone must take risks to their own comfort level. This one was pushing it a bit for me, and I don't see any real REASON to go beyond 90 days. Heck, I think 45-60 is probably a good place, but like I said, I just don't do brisket very often, it's a huge cut, my wife isn't really a fan, and with everything going on in life and in business, it's been tough to find time to cook ANYTHING, much less a giant hunk like this.
But, I'll post up after we cut it up, likely this evening, let ya'll know how it tastes. I'm sure it'll be great!
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