Brisket at a Party. Smoke today - Serve Tomorrow

[Jake26]

Hiya Pit Crew,

I am new to the Pit and new-ish to smoking. I have done a few Pork Shoulders, ribs, Turkey Breast and chickens in my 22" Weber Kettle so I thought it was a good time to try the King of BBQ meats - the Brisket. I salted an 8 pound brisket on Thursday, cooking it today and serving it tomorrow to my Fantasy Football League.

I woke up at 3am this morning and had the meat on the grill by 4am smoking at a varying 210-230 degrees (the rain and wind this morning made temperatures hard to hold). At about 9 am, she stalled at 160 and did not move a degree so I wrapped it and placed the brisket into the oven at 225 around 10am to finish off (was I to put Apple Juice in with the wrapped brisket?). I intend to cook up some burnt ends tonight for dinner (the reason for starting so early) so it will be a two day feast.

My question comes to how to serve the brisket tomorrow. I thought I could slice the meat ahead of time and serve it from a slow cooker in some Mop Sauce to keep the cuts from drying out. Does that sound viable? If not, any ideas?

The idea is to have sandwiches available whenever someone wants to eat so slicing each sandwich will be difficult.

Thanks for any help. I will post a photo of my success (or failure) if I make it through the day

Jake

[jfmorris]

Ouch. While I understand the necessity it sounds like you started the brisket a day early! Left over brisket, which is what you will be serving, will be a good bit dried out if you cut it in advance. Ideally you would start that brisket tonight, to be done in the morning, then hold wrapped in foil in a "faux cambro" (wrap in foil, then towels , then put in a cooler) for up to 5 or 6 hours. Slice it RIGHT before the party starts, then put into the pre-warmed slow cooker with the mop sauce. Don't slice it the night before for sure if you can avoid it.

It will take you a couple of hours to reheat that left over brisket back to a safe holding temperature of 140F. I would do that in a oven, wrapped in foil, tomorrow morning. Try to keep the brisket intact in the foil with all the juices until you get it back to temp, THEN slice it.

I serve pulled pork all the time from slow cookers, but don't see that working as well for sliced brisket. Just my thoughts, with no experience doing this to back it up. All my briskets have been pulled hot out of cambro and sliced on a cutting board at the start of the meal, and I only sliced what was going onto a plate.

[Jake26]

Great advice!! I never claimed to know what I am doing.

We will be eating some of the brisket tonight (Burnt Ends and some slices off the flat) so I will enjoy one meal it seems. So tomorrow I will place it in the oven with some mop sauce, slice it right before the party to make the best of it. I have had left over brisket in the past so the guys will have to eat left-overs.

Thanks!!

[Jake26]

Well, the party is over and I survived the left-over brisket haula-ho.

The brisket on Saturday was fabulous. Using Meatheads hand-held recipe, my brisket was tender and juicy and the flavor was off the charts. Beats the oven brisket I made many times. I used the ends of the flats to make Burnt Ends and although I think I overcooked them, they too were wonderful. Crunchy and tender in the middle.

For my Saturday Football Party, I did as JFMorris suggested and slowly brought the remaining brisket to 140 degrees and I sliced the brisket and placed the slices into a slow cooker filled with the Mop Sauce from Meathead's recipe. Although the Sunday brisket was not quite as tender, it still was tender enough to be awesome. I received high praise as everyone gorged the brisket down within the first hour, leaving the host with scraps.

There is no doubt the Saturday cut was better and I need to better plan my brisket parties in the future but Meatheads recipe was so solid, even leftover brisket was a winner.

Success after all!!