So lately, I have been obsessed with finding a way to do 12+ hour brisket holds as I'm convinced it will make life easier by giving the ability to cook today for tomorrow's dinner so I don't need to choose between staying up all night, or waking up at 4AM etc. when I want brisket. It will also potentially lead to a better end product, I mean hey... this is what Franklin and most of the real Texas places do and many think it is one of the keys to why their briskets turn out so great (in addition to starting with a quality piece of meat and their consistency).
Unfortunately, my oven's lowest setting is 175 which is way too hot, and I also have a feeling it runs hotter than the set temperature. It also has a safety shut off feature that automatically shuts the oven off after 4 hours.
After checking all the settings I found some good news and some bad news. The good news? I realized there is actually a setting that will put me in the temperature range I want... 145 - 155! The bad news? It is absolutely the worst setting you could possibly use... dehydrate. But, none the less I decided to do some testing. I stuck an ambient probe for my Fireboard 2 in the oven and set it on dehydrate at 145 and left it in for 2 hours. I was right... my oven runs hot.. it was ranging from a low of 156 to 165. So the next day I adjusted it and tested it for multiple hours at 130. It ran between 145 - 155 for 6 hours.... which also told me the auto shutoff does not apply to the dehydrate mode.
So now it was just a matter of how do I use the dehydrate mode without actually dehydrating my brisket? So my theory is that it is multiple factors that contribute to the dehydrate mode working as intended... 1. Very low heat, 2. the convection fan on constant, 3. very thin layers of meat or whatever you are trying to dehydrate. Well, a brisket certainly isn't thin, and I WANT the low heat, so the only thing I'm thinking I need to avoid is the effects of the convection fan, which can easily be done by containing the brisket in it's own environment that is unaffected by the fan.
So.... it was time for a real test. Now... I am a believer that you have to test things to know how they will work, and sometimes things pan out, and sometimes they don't so I was fully prepared to completely ruin a brisket if I attempted this and it failed. But if it doesn't fail... well, it will probably mean I change the way I do my briskets permanently, and the benefits of that out way the cost of ruining 1 brisket if it fails miserably.
So I went to Costco and bought a 12lb Prime packer yesterday morning, trimmed it up, and after trim it was about 9lb.'s. I got it seasoned with SPG and it went on the reverse flow stick burner yesterday afternoon at 4PM cooking at 275. It got wrapped in butcher paper at 8PM, and I rendered some tallow from the trim which was applied to the butcher paper wrap. The wrapped brisket went in to a large foil pan and back in to the pit. It was done by 10PM, probing tender and about 208 in both the flat and the point.
I left my probes in and left the wrapped brisket in the foil pan. I set it on the counter and allowed it to cool to about 160. It took about 2 hours to cool to 160 so about 12AM I covered the foil pan with foil to seal it (so it would be unaffected by the fan), and it also appeared to have plenty of moisture from rendered fat in the bottom of the foil pan. So in the oven it went on dehydrate at 130, and I set alarms on the probes to a low of 140 on the point, the flat, and an ambient probe. I stayed up a couple more hours and by 2AM the internals had dropped to 152. I went to bed, but woke up a couple times and checked and it was still holding steady with internals around 150, so it appeared everything was working well.
I got up around 9AM today and it was still holding steady but had dropped a little bit to 148.I would prefer to keep it at a minimum of 150, so I bumped the temp up just a little to get it to climb back up to 150, then lowered the oven temp back down.
At 6:00PM it was time to see if this was a success or a failure. So I pulled it and got it ready to slice. First impressions?
OMG... YES this was definitely a success. In total it was a 20 hour hold including 2 hours on the counter top to let it cool when it came out of the pit and 18 hours in the oven fluctuating between 145 and 155.
Moisture was definitely NOT a problem, infact the butcher paper was absolutely DRENCHED when I pulled it out and the whole thing jiggled like jello. Only the very tip of the flat felt a little harder when I squeezed it which worried me, but it actually sliced like warm butter from end to end.
I will say that after a 20 hour hold I was a little paranoid that if my probes were off it could be unsafe, so I double and tripple checked it right when I pulled it out with two different Thermapens just to make sure they agreed with the Fireboard. Checking multiple spots in the point and flat both Thermapens read above 140 in all spots, most between 143 and 145.
Unfortunately my camera sucks so the pics didn't come out to great, but they are good enough to show how drenched the butcher paper was when it came out and you can definitely so how juicy it was on the point shots, the flat shots came out a little blurry though. I need a new camera...
Anyways, I will say that for me, this was a game changer and I will probably be doing all my briskets this way going forward. A long as the foil pan is sealed with foil and there is a good amount of moisture inside there are no problems with using the dehydrate setting, and I won't be worried about adding any additional moisture, it doesn't appear to be needed.
And now for the pics... sorry about the low quality.
Unfortunately, my oven's lowest setting is 175 which is way too hot, and I also have a feeling it runs hotter than the set temperature. It also has a safety shut off feature that automatically shuts the oven off after 4 hours.
After checking all the settings I found some good news and some bad news. The good news? I realized there is actually a setting that will put me in the temperature range I want... 145 - 155! The bad news? It is absolutely the worst setting you could possibly use... dehydrate. But, none the less I decided to do some testing. I stuck an ambient probe for my Fireboard 2 in the oven and set it on dehydrate at 145 and left it in for 2 hours. I was right... my oven runs hot.. it was ranging from a low of 156 to 165. So the next day I adjusted it and tested it for multiple hours at 130. It ran between 145 - 155 for 6 hours.... which also told me the auto shutoff does not apply to the dehydrate mode.
So now it was just a matter of how do I use the dehydrate mode without actually dehydrating my brisket? So my theory is that it is multiple factors that contribute to the dehydrate mode working as intended... 1. Very low heat, 2. the convection fan on constant, 3. very thin layers of meat or whatever you are trying to dehydrate. Well, a brisket certainly isn't thin, and I WANT the low heat, so the only thing I'm thinking I need to avoid is the effects of the convection fan, which can easily be done by containing the brisket in it's own environment that is unaffected by the fan.
So.... it was time for a real test. Now... I am a believer that you have to test things to know how they will work, and sometimes things pan out, and sometimes they don't so I was fully prepared to completely ruin a brisket if I attempted this and it failed. But if it doesn't fail... well, it will probably mean I change the way I do my briskets permanently, and the benefits of that out way the cost of ruining 1 brisket if it fails miserably.
So I went to Costco and bought a 12lb Prime packer yesterday morning, trimmed it up, and after trim it was about 9lb.'s. I got it seasoned with SPG and it went on the reverse flow stick burner yesterday afternoon at 4PM cooking at 275. It got wrapped in butcher paper at 8PM, and I rendered some tallow from the trim which was applied to the butcher paper wrap. The wrapped brisket went in to a large foil pan and back in to the pit. It was done by 10PM, probing tender and about 208 in both the flat and the point.
I left my probes in and left the wrapped brisket in the foil pan. I set it on the counter and allowed it to cool to about 160. It took about 2 hours to cool to 160 so about 12AM I covered the foil pan with foil to seal it (so it would be unaffected by the fan), and it also appeared to have plenty of moisture from rendered fat in the bottom of the foil pan. So in the oven it went on dehydrate at 130, and I set alarms on the probes to a low of 140 on the point, the flat, and an ambient probe. I stayed up a couple more hours and by 2AM the internals had dropped to 152. I went to bed, but woke up a couple times and checked and it was still holding steady with internals around 150, so it appeared everything was working well.
I got up around 9AM today and it was still holding steady but had dropped a little bit to 148.I would prefer to keep it at a minimum of 150, so I bumped the temp up just a little to get it to climb back up to 150, then lowered the oven temp back down.
At 6:00PM it was time to see if this was a success or a failure. So I pulled it and got it ready to slice. First impressions?
OMG... YES this was definitely a success. In total it was a 20 hour hold including 2 hours on the counter top to let it cool when it came out of the pit and 18 hours in the oven fluctuating between 145 and 155.
Moisture was definitely NOT a problem, infact the butcher paper was absolutely DRENCHED when I pulled it out and the whole thing jiggled like jello. Only the very tip of the flat felt a little harder when I squeezed it which worried me, but it actually sliced like warm butter from end to end.
I will say that after a 20 hour hold I was a little paranoid that if my probes were off it could be unsafe, so I double and tripple checked it right when I pulled it out with two different Thermapens just to make sure they agreed with the Fireboard. Checking multiple spots in the point and flat both Thermapens read above 140 in all spots, most between 143 and 145.
Unfortunately my camera sucks so the pics didn't come out to great, but they are good enough to show how drenched the butcher paper was when it came out and you can definitely so how juicy it was on the point shots, the flat shots came out a little blurry though. I need a new camera...
Anyways, I will say that for me, this was a game changer and I will probably be doing all my briskets this way going forward. A long as the foil pan is sealed with foil and there is a good amount of moisture inside there are no problems with using the dehydrate setting, and I won't be worried about adding any additional moisture, it doesn't appear to be needed.
And now for the pics... sorry about the low quality.
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