Sous vide que brisket turned out dry

[ilant207]

Hi all, my first post here (hurray!)
So I've tried the sous vide que brisket and it turned out quite dry. I did not follow the recipe precisely (unintentionally) and made the following deviations: Dry brining was in a closed container, when the meat was taken out of the bags after the sous vide I had something like 4 cups of fluid left in the bags instead of two for 7 pounds of meat, the cold bath wasn't that cold so it cooled down only to about 80f, I smoked it in a kamado at 250f instead of 225 until it reached 125f. What do you think were the major causes for it to turn out dry? I suspect the excessive fluid loss after sous vidding but I don't know why it happened.
Any thoughts/pointers for next time?
Cheers,
Ilan

Edit:
I'm from Israel and most of the meat here is kosher, that is it's brined after being butchered though not as thoroughly for slow and low techniques. Turns out I need to use smaller amounts of salt due to this, maybe this was the cause. Will post an update.
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[Jerod Broussard]

Was it a brisket flat?

How many other briskets have you cooked non-sous vide que?

[ilant207]

It was a flat, not the point. This is the second time I've tried brisket, first was in the kamado only and I didn't wrap it well enough once it got to stall so it dried out completely, turned out to be a yummy corned beef heh.

[shify]

Can you give us details on time/temp in the bath?

[ilant207]

30 hours at 150f

[Troutman]

You also need to tell us the quality of the brisket itself as well. If it was of select quality versus prime or Wagyu that’s one reason for dryness, lack of intramuscular fat.

With all that purge, however, I suspect something occurred in the bath to suck that much moisture out of the meat.

[Troutman]

Flats, depending on the thickness, are notoriously prone to drying out, there's simply not enough fat content in the meat to keep it moist. You can try injecting it with a commercial injection (like Butcher's) or with something as simple as beef broth. You might also want to drizzle an entire can of beef broth slowly over the meat itself before you wrap. It will absorb a lot of that and provide moisture. Or you can do what I do and make corned beef out of it !!!

[ilant207]

Do you think the point will turn out better?

[Troutman]

Points generally turn out much better due to their fat content

[RonB]

Welcome to The Pit. I can't help...

[Ernest]

What temp did you run the sous vide, how long?
Why did you smoke it to 250? I bet you didn't run sous vide at 250.You negated all the advantages of sous by smoking it at high temp.

[tdimond]

He smoked at 250, not to 250. He pulled at 125. I don't think a 25 degree difference in pit temperature would have caused those kinds of problems. My guess is the high amount of purge would point where to look.

[smokin fool]

One theory I always toss in the ring is, you can do everything right and too the letter but if you brought a brisket that came off some tough old bull or milked out cow there ain’t no way no how you can cook it and have it taste good
Its the luck of the draw

[Ernest]

tdimond Here is what I do with SV smoked briskets. Sous at 155 and smoke temp no higher than 180. It's already cooked. Basically just reheating in the smoker