My wife and I threw a party for my daughter turning 6. She wanted brisket, so I had to deliver! Party started at 3pm with a 4pm dinner time. I did not want to wake up in the middle of the night, so I attempted the day-before smoke with a verrrry long hold without a professional warming oven keeping temps to a steady 150-155 F. Here is how I did it in my standard kitchen oven.
My oven only goes down to 170 F. But does it really? Ovens have wild temp swings and the old oven thermometer is likely not accurate, so I knew I couldn’t just set it and forget it overnight without monitoring.
I ran some tests (with a digital thermometer) and determined, yep, wild swings and waaay hotter than what is displayed on the oven.
My oven only goes down to a displayed 170F, but I found out I can calibrate my oven if I hold the “Bake” button for 5 seconds, I can adjust it 30 degrees up or down. I knew “down” was the answer, but using my Thermoworks digital thermometer, I discovered -10 and -20 were still too high of temp. So I bumped it down to -30. Hit “Start” after you adjust it down to lock in the calibration. Temps were still a tiny too high, but I found this trick in some random comments section on YouTube.
Put a finished wrapped brisket in a turkey roaster and use a metal wire rack (well, I used 2 metal wire racks) to lift the brisket up from the bottom of the roaster and fill the roaster with water below the level of the highest rack which holds the brisket (so the brisket doesn’t get wet). The water acts as a cooling agent around the brisket, plus it’s a temperature stabilizer. After testing, the temp was still a bit too high, so I put a wooden spatula between the door and the oven so the oven door wouldn’t close. This made the oven LESS efficient and a touch cooler. I put a digital thermometer on the wire rack to monitor temp, and voila. Instead of my 170 oven with swings to 200+ and staying in the 180+ range, my tricks were able to get a rather consistent temp of 165. Certainly maybe 10 degrees hotter than a conventional warming oven (of 155), but it did the trick!!
You will have to add water throughout the cook because it does evaporate after time. You can also add ice to the roaster which turns into cold water which cools the ambient temp. Sometimes I had steady 150-155 F temps which is perfect. But I didn’t sweat the 165 average.
I finished smoking the brisket at 11pm. My finishing brisket temp was 190 since it had such a long holding temp, and I heard that taking it higher with a long hold may turn it into more of a pot roast texture. I opened the butcher paper and let it cool to 180 (to stop the cooking) before I rewrapped it at midnight and put it in my Macgyver oven for 16 hours! At 4pm the next day, it was delicious!
Now don’t forget to calibrate your oven back!
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