Couple Brisket questions for you fellas

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los

Assistant Cook
Joined
Feb 15, 2006
Messages
22
Location
Austin, Texas
Hey guys,

I have a few questions for you Brisket pros!!

1) What temp is the flat when you guys take it off the pit? I've read 165 and 180...which one is best.

2) We aren't going to eat the brisket until tomorrow. What do you guys think the best reheating technique is? And what should the internal temp be when its reheated? I've read 140...is that true?

Thanks guys!!
 
Im a between 180 and 190 myself...As far as reheating, Im a fan of the microwave. If I find my brisket to be a tad dry, I make an au jus and warm it in that. Those that vac seal like to boil the bags in water to reheat. I also reheat my vac seal bags in the microwave
 
los said:
Hey guys,

I have a few questions for you Brisket pros!!

1) What temp is the flat when you guys take it off the pit? I've read 165 and 180...which one is best.

2) We aren't going to eat the brisket until tomorrow. What do you guys think the best reheating technique is? And what should the internal temp be when its reheated? I've read 140...is that true?

Thanks guys!!

I cook briskets in the smoke until they hit 165º, then foil and continue to cook until the temp hits 180º.....at that point I begin to check for doneness every 5º by probing the meat. if there is resistance when you insert the probe, then the brisket needs to cook longer. If it goes in with little to no resistance it's done, typically in the 190º range. Each piece of meat is done and I've had them read as early as 180º. Bottomline, don't go by temperature to determine doneness, go by tenderness by probing the meat.

The way I reheat if I'm serving the next day is, I'll slice the brisket after it's rested and cooled the day I cook it. I'll put the slices tightly together into a pan and then pour all of the juices from the foil into the pan and then wrap the pan tightly in foil. The next day pull the brisket out of the fridge and let it begin to warm up by letting it sit on the counter for a couple hours, then place the covered pan into a 350º oven until warm, NOT HOT. If you over heat you will have pot roast. Keep the foil on the pan until ready to serve.
 
Larry Wolfe said:
los said:
Hey guys,

I have a few questions for you Brisket pros!!

1) What temp is the flat when you guys take it off the pit? I've read 165 and 180...which one is best.

2) We aren't going to eat the brisket until tomorrow. What do you guys think the best reheating technique is? And what should the internal temp be when its reheated? I've read 140...is that true?

Thanks guys!!

I cook briskets in the smoke until they hit 165º, then foil and continue to cook until the temp hits 180º.....at that point I begin to check for doneness every 5º by probing the meat. if there is resistance when you insert the probe, then the brisket needs to cook longer. If it goes in with little to no resistance it's done, typically in the 190º range. Each piece of meat is done and I've had them read as early as 180º. Bottomline, don't go by temperature to determine doneness, go by tenderness by probing the meat.

The way I reheat if I'm serving the next day is, I'll slice the brisket after it's rested and cooled the day I cook it. I'll put the slices tightly together into a pan and then pour all of the juices from the foil into the pan and then wrap the pan tightly in foil. The next day pull the brisket out of the fridge and let it begin to warm up by letting it sit on the counter for a couple hours, then place the covered pan into a 350º oven until warm, NOT HOT. If you over heat you will have pot roast. Keep the foil on the pan until ready to serve.

This seems to be the prevailing method across the four forums I read and it works well for me. There can be a big difference in doneness temp based upon the piece of meat.
 
Nick Prochilo said:
Why don't you leave it on the smoker to finish?

It is easier for me to control the temperature, and since it is wrapped I no longer need to burn the charcoal. In the heat of the summer, I finish on the smoker, so as to not heat up the house.

Steve
 
I generally go to 200* in the thickest part of the flat, which is just where the point overlaps it.

Brisket1_12.jpg


How I cook mine

John
 
Now I aint a brisket pro by any stretch of the imagination..but I do know some:) Fat down 3 hours in the smoke at 250 mopping once an hour with some good mop/sop kept hot inside the pit in a SS sauce pan and applied with a SS Tablespoon being sure to neva touch the meat... then 3 hrs lean side down in the foil with about a cup of the mop/sop you mopped it with earlier. (No ghurantees that it will poke easy on hr 3..depends on the size leaness etc). Also cut back on the heat a bit once it gets wrapped. 220 or so work just fine. Should be reading real close to 200 if you want to poke it along the way. Let it rest in the hot box for at least an hour or two..cool is down very slowly. Best way to reheat brisket is to pour off..save and defat the leftover sop from the brisket. At an hour or two before eating slice the cold brisket and reassemble it like a jig saw puzzle in a Sams pan or foil or both. Pour the left over sop over the top along some fresh sop if you aint got enough. Dont need much liquid..about a cup is plenty. Fan the slices out like a deck of cards to make sure the sop gets in some contact with all the slices. Get it all wrapped up tight and stick it in the pit or oven till it reads 160 in the middle of the packet which will roughly conincide to when it starts smelling real good. I like a variant of the mop/sop shown at the link below:

http://bbq.about.com/od/moprecipes/r/bl00513a.htm

bigwheel

Ps..Use Oak.

los said:
Hey guys,

I have a few questions for you Brisket pros!!

1) What temp is the flat when you guys take it off the pit? I've read 165 and 180...which one is best.

2) We aren't going to eat the brisket until tomorrow. What do you guys think the best reheating technique is? And what should the internal temp be when its reheated? I've read 140...is that true?

Thanks guys!!
 
I cook until it hits 190 to 195 (more to the touch than the temp) after foiling at about the 160 mark. Will normally be very tender, but not mushy. If you leave in the foil and chill, you can bring it back up in an oven and it will pretty much taste like it just came off the pit. Just dont leave it too long as it will steam out the smoke. If ya dont have a lot of natural juices in the foil, slice, put in a good zip lock bag or plastic microwave container and re-heat at a med temp. Amazin how moist and tastey it will be. If in a bag, be sure not to overheat as it will melt holes in the bag. Note, I do this with packers and given the fat content, it works well. A flat might be a bit risky as the fat content is not as prevalent.
dj
 
Well, I pulled my flats off and I didn't get any bark. I was trying a new rub that I might use in competition next month. The taste is good, but I don't know if I might have put too much rub on? I scraped it off the top and gonna slice it up. The rub has coffee in it, so I didn't want it to be bitter. Any suggestions on what I did wrong? The flats cooked until 165, and then I foiled. I did use aluminum pans and put tinfoil over the top. I wonder did it turn it in to a steam bath and not harden the bark? One thing for sure.. it is very tender! It would hurt me at a comp, but just for eatin, you can cut through it with a fork...no problem....
 
nakedpigbbq said:
Well, I pulled my flats off and I didn't get any bark. I was trying a new rub that I might use in competition next month. The taste is good, but I don't know if I might have put too much rub on? I scraped it off the top and gonna slice it up. The rub has coffee in it, so I didn't want it to be bitter. Any suggestions on what I did wrong? The flats cooked until 165, and then I foiled. I did use aluminum pans and put tinfoil over the top. I wonder did it turn it in to a steam bath and not harden the bark? One thing for sure.. it is very tender! It would hurt me at a comp, but just for eatin, you can cut through it with a fork...no problem....

Chuck,
Foil is going to soften any bark due to the steam, it's just the nature of the beast. However, you can build up a good bark that will hold up better than others by using a rub with a good sugar/salt combination. Sugar, salt and natural moisture will caramelize and create a good thick bark. The type of sugar helps as well, I find turbinado sugar holds up to the heat and moisture better than white or brown sugars do. It also has a higher burn temp as well.

Regardless of the rub, when you open up the foil, take the brisket and lay it away from the juices in the foil and the bark will slightly firm back up away from the moisture.
 
Well I have tried that old return to the fire trick a time or two. All I could see that it did was make it cough up copious amounts of juice which would tastes mo betta inside the brisket than on the pit floor. Maybe I wasnt holding my tongs right:) Now cooking in those pans is a whole nother ball game. Sorta like cooking on a stew pot with a lid. I like to wrap em up tight in foil like a second skin. I have tried plastic wrap but I always get entangled in the stuff and wind up forming into a ball and throwing it away.

bigwheel
 
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