would a brisket long hold follow sous vide rules?

[indygreg]

i specialize in the weird i know. we are doing a big tailgate saturday and i have a heated cambro which basically holds food at 145-155 indefinitely. it looks like this

i have found that i can pull a pork shoulder a few degrees early wrap it in foil and hold it for 18 hours or more and it just seems to get better. figuring out how to cook then hold things this way is tricky because there isn't much written about it but i am starting to think it is similar to sous vide cooking. so for brisket i see people saying to cook at 155 for 24 hours https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/08...de-sous-vide-barbecue-smoked-bbq-brisket.html. so i am thinking i might be able to pull the brisket early but not sure how early. in theory i could smoke it for 6 hours until i hit 155 IT and put it in the cambro for another 18 hours and it would be comparable to a sous vide cook but that seems way early. i did a test a couple weeks ago and overshot my IT by accident - pulled at 205 then cambro'd wrapped in foil until the next day. it was not bad but maybe a little over done. here is the IT graph

so i have 2 questions:
- what would be the risk of pulling it early? would it be tough? Dry?
- if i pulled it a little early, how early might i try? i would want to get through the stall but maybe i would pull it at 190 or so?
- this is a 17lb packer which i trimmed significantly. the last one i made was way fatty and bland. i believe too much fat kept the seasoning (SPOG) from getting to the meat. i may have trimmed too much. here is what i have going into the smoker tomorrow. i have seen competition smoke teams saying that the idea of keeping a big fat cap on them so they don't dry out is not real - that it comes down to how marbled it is. who knows?

anyway, sure would appreciate any advice folks here have.

greg

 

[zwiller]

Great chart! LOVE DATA. Yes, not much info about this. I don't have all the answers but my process is similar. I never eat what I smoke same day. Always reheat in low temp oven for serving or sear on the grill. I still take to regular pull IT. I tried early but not enough collegan breakdown. But for you with such a long rest (24hours in collegen breakdown area) I'd say you're fine. Based on this I agree you could pull early and I also agree the effect would be similar to SV. In terms on numbers, I'd say the final 10% like you said or so is where I'd pull. I also agree 155F would seem too early. Not sure how the bark would be or is enough smoke. I'd still want 90% it done on the smoker. A little overdone is fine with me.

 

[Fgignac]

Very interesting question. As a fan of both smoking and SV I have also been experimenting with ways of combining the 2. I really love that Temp chart!

Don't know how much insight I can offer you. But as Zwiller said, I feel it will come down to collagen breakdown. It is my understanding that this is a big part of what makes cuts like brisket and pork butt so good for long cooks. Over time, collagen breaks down into gelatin, which is rich, decadent, and delicious. The level of connective tissue (collagen) breakdown is also a major factor in texture. The more breakdown, the more tender the final product.

Collagen WILL break down at lower temps, but much slower than at higher temps. So I think this is what you're going to have to figure out. The combination timing of smoking/cambrio that will give you the optimal amount of breakdown. However, I can't think of another way of figuring it out other than trial and error.

I've worked out a great method of doing pulled pork using kind of the opposite method. I will SV it, and then finnish in the smoker. It took me a couple of tries with different timings and temps to get the texture just the way I like it. Keep us posted on your progress. I'll be very interested in your results because I also have access to a heated cambrio. For some reason I never though of using it that way ;)

 

[indygreg]

so the thing i always wonder is what makes meat dry. obviously if it is not a marbled cut it will be dry. we have all had a pot roast that was floating in broth but dry somehow. i assume it is because it is just not a good cut. but does overcooking it make it dry? too high a temp so even though the it is ok the outside got overdone? if that is the case then lower temp for longer might be good.

 

[Fgignac]

My understanding is that there are 2 main things that cause dry meat. Actual drying, meaning that if you take a cut with little marbling and little connective tissue and try to cook it a long time a low temp, it will loose what little moisture it has and be dry. The extreme example being jerky. Fat does not evaporate, and collagen turns to liquid gelatin. This is what makes fatty, connective tissue ridden cuts (like pork but) ideal for long low temperature cooks.

The other factor is heat changes the structure of proteins. That's what cooking mostly is, using heat to modify the protein structure of the meat. Different proteins react at different temperatures. That's what makes the difference between a hard or soft boiled egg, or a rare or well done steak. This notion is the whole basis for sous-vide cooking. You get to control the temperature of the meat which means you control its texture.

So both of these need to be taken into account.

 

[indygreg]

and the fun begins. why 4 pieces? i asked the butcher to separate the point from the flat and he basically just cut it in two. not what i was expecting. but i wanted to try separating this time so i went ahead and separated it at home. so i have a flat that is in two pieces (the bottom right and middle) and the point (on the shelf above). then when i went to trim it the corner of the flat had a HUGE layer of fat in the corner of the flat. i ended up cutting that corner off and removing most of the fat and a very thin layer of meat from the top of it. i figured i will need to pull it early along with the other small pieces. not sure if any of the small bits will be edible but i really have enough meat in the main part of the flat for tomorrow.

after hacking on this thing for an hour trying to learn to trim a brisket i found out that a friend of ours used to be a butcher. this morning after watching a couple great videos on trimming brisket i realized that i didn't get all the membrane off of the bottom and my knives are crap so i ended up running over to joe's house and he trimmed it up for me. here are the videos i watched:

 

[indygreg]

ok i pulled the brisket at 190 and into the cambro for the night. then i threw on a mess of pork belly burnt ends and pig shots before i go to bed.

 

[schlotz]

Dang! What time is the party? :D

Matt

 

[RickNessly]

That last shot looks awesome!...you must be very popular on game day!

 

[indygreg]

we survived. the good news was that everyone loved the food. brisket came out ok but was a little dry. not bad but i think it would have been better had i left the point on and a little more fat. pig shots were a huge hit and burnt ends were also very popular but i will smoke them a little longer next time. the cubes were bigger than the test i had done last week. and the other good news of course is that Purdue actually beat Ohio State so the kids that went to the game got to flood the field and have a cool experience.

the bad news was that it was insanely windy and in the afternoon the temperatures plummeted. we have 3 canopies with sides and propane heaters but all of that had to come down due to the wind so it was miserable by the end. mid afternoon a huge gust of wind actually picked up a table and blew it into our food line knocking over all the cold food so i packed up the chafers and just walked around with chafer pans full of food from time to time and let the late arriving kids eat out of the pans.

thanks for the thoughts on this. i think pulling at 190 is fine with the cambro and i was able to hold the pig shots and burnt ends for 18 hours no problem.

 

[Robert Rich]

Another datapoint for you (I haven't read all of the above). I borrowed a relative's cook plan for brisket, and it worked very well. Similar to your scenario, the brisket is smoked for 6 to 8 hours (no internal temp taken, but I'd estimate it was in stall territory). At that point, you crutch it, then drop it in the oven (similar to your cabreau) for another 12 to 18 hours minimum, at 175. Very tender, and everyone liked it.

I have only done this once, so your mileage may vary, but it is really helpful when I don't have 24 hours to devote to the pit. It also makes for a nice, restful night of sleep.

 

[zwiller]

the other good news of course is that Purdue actually beat Ohio State

EDIT. Looks like I posted this by mistake. Not gonna be funny anymore LOL

So info I found by chance: "I'm no expert but the only good Q here in Ohio is those of us doing it in our own back yards.

Maybe some interesting info I picked up from watching a couple costumer interviews of Arron Franklin on You Tube and also one of his pitmasters The pitmaster said they put their briskets on at 10 am each day and pull them around midnight for service the next day. .

Arron said when they pull the briskets,they let them rest for several hrs. to cool down, then into a 140 degree warmer until they open at 11 am.

So off the pit at midnight. 2 hr. rest till 2 am. then hold them in the warmer for 8-9 hrs.

He also said he thought 203 was the perfect IT."

 

[fatbucky]

zwiller is spot on with what Franklin is doing. Other joints in Texas are holding even longer, not drying out their brisket and it is some of the best. I've seen butcher paper wrapped briskets pulled in the evening and held in a food warmer at 140º until service starting the next day at 11. These briskets were done, not pulled early. Not sure how well it is going to work with your Cambro if it is spending a lot of time at 155.

 

[indygreg]

it held fine. the cambro really doesnt get to 155 typically. it cycles down to 140ish and up to 150ish. probably the same as whatever food warmer they use in a bbq joint.