So if you are like me and sometimes have tons of leftover brisket that you have to freeze, I can recommend sous vide for reheating. It delivers brisket that is essentially fresh off the smoker and much better than the microwave and wet paper towel trick.
It is fairly straightforward. Defrost brisket and reheat via SV for 2 hours at 145. This should be fine for a few pounds. Excellent results.
I reheat ALL smoked meat via sous vide. It's absolutely foolproof (and I know, because I'm not your ordinary fool). Set the temp to your preferred serving temp, and let it go a couple hours. Bob's your uncle. Don't even need to defrost, especially if you've vac sealed. Just drop it in there and in 2-3 hours, you're ready to eat. Never over cooks, you cannot go wrong.
But to follow up, one does have to set the SV to the correct temperature! Some months back I'd made a beautiful prime rib, separating the center eye from the spinalis and the bones, and it was just fantastic on the day with a perfect medium rare from doing sous vide que, ended at 132F/55C. But when I reheated the leftovers some days later, I totally forgot that, and had food safety in mind and set the SV temp to 150F/65C. It was only when I pulled it out to serve that I realized what I'd done, oh the horror...!!
Told you I'm no ordinary fool... but that's a mistake I'll never make again (he says hopefully)!
Firstly, I don't have a sous vide device, as I don't have a solid use case for one yet. I am probably a black sheep here, but here is what I do with all my vacuum sealed meats that have been cooked and frozen:
Add frozen or thawed packs to a stock pot and cover with water
Bring to a boil
Simmer for 10 minutes
Remove from heat
Serve when ready
The food is already cooked and it always gets back to serving temp using this method. Call it the poor (or lazy) man's sous vide. I got this idea from back in the 1980's or 90's, when 'boil in bag' was all the rage.
I usually add just a little liquid to my bags prior to sealing so that they braise a little during reheating. I have resurrected dried out meats which end up fork tender. Long story short, it works very well, especially with my hectic schedule.
I actually do this a lot as well even though I have a couple of sous vide devices. Only di9fference is that I bring the water to a boil, add the meat and then reduce to a simmer in a zip lock of vac bag. If defrosted, it takes only 30 minutes to get to serving temp.
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