wgzn
Newbie
- Jul 30, 2020
- 6
- 1
towels are like mustard binder and fat cap direction. old myths that for some reason, people hold dear, and get really cranky when you propose they're just "mythunderstandings"
i bbq part-time professionally. and i can tell you from experience that towels are not by definition, a necessity. all towels do is slow down the cooling process. which CAN be a good thing. but if you already have a good insulated cooler / cambro, and you're not needing to hold for exceptionally long (6+ hours) durations, i'm not sure how valuable they are AT ALL.
i used to use towels (simply because thats what everyone said to do). but i started to wonder what they actually achieved. so i did some very un-scientific testing. and found that unless i needed to hold a cooked brisket for more than about 4-6 hours. using towels had no beneficial effect on finished product.
when im cooking for family meals i just rest my briskets (still paper-wrapped) on the kitchen counter or cool oven, to an internal temp of 140ºF (that's usually about 90-120 minutes for the average "full packer" brisket) then slice and serve
i'm going to shoot a video test of this in the next couple of weeks, tracking the resting temps and sliced results of 3 methods to see what (if any) real benefit towels are for typical home cooking.
i bbq part-time professionally. and i can tell you from experience that towels are not by definition, a necessity. all towels do is slow down the cooling process. which CAN be a good thing. but if you already have a good insulated cooler / cambro, and you're not needing to hold for exceptionally long (6+ hours) durations, i'm not sure how valuable they are AT ALL.
i used to use towels (simply because thats what everyone said to do). but i started to wonder what they actually achieved. so i did some very un-scientific testing. and found that unless i needed to hold a cooked brisket for more than about 4-6 hours. using towels had no beneficial effect on finished product.
when im cooking for family meals i just rest my briskets (still paper-wrapped) on the kitchen counter or cool oven, to an internal temp of 140ºF (that's usually about 90-120 minutes for the average "full packer" brisket) then slice and serve
i'm going to shoot a video test of this in the next couple of weeks, tracking the resting temps and sliced results of 3 methods to see what (if any) real benefit towels are for typical home cooking.