I smoked and stuck a 12.5lb packer into the bath about 46 hours ago at 140 degrees. What would happen if I bumped that temp up to 155 and left in for another 24? Would it develop more of a traditional brisket texture and moistness or should I just leave as is and eat?
Good question. 155°F/36 is my standard cook for brisket, as I prefer the traditional doneness and texture. Given that you’ve already had it in the bath for 46 hours at 140F I’m speculating that there’s a good chance that you could in fact get the desired results by bumping the temp up to 155°F, and possibly in less time than 24 hours…maybe 12. But I’m not certain, so I say this is an excellent opportunity for an experiment. I doubt that you’ll ruin it in any way, as I wouldn’t think you’d take it from it’s current firmer texture to mush in such a short time.
I think @DParker is right, but I’m really curious how things turn out!
Please post your results, whatever you decide to do!
I cooked a corned beef brisket at 135 for 48 hours, opened it and it was a bit to chewy. Resealed, bumped the temp up to 165 for another 12 and it came out perfect.
OK, I’ve actually never used my sous vide for my Texas brisket, so please excuse my ignorance. I’ve always shot for 205F in my smoker. Why wouldn’t I set my Anova for the same target temp?
So I ended up leaving it at 140 for a total of 70 hours.
I took it out and seared using a weed burner torch. This is the only way to do, IMO. Made short work out of it for certain.
It tasted great! It was fork tender in that I could simply use the fork to cut it into bite size pieces after having sliced. The texture was not traditional brisket texture. I will definitely bump that up to 155 next time. It was firm, like a steak. While the extended period in the bath removed much of the moisture it was not dry at all. Very, very good. I was able to capture the juice and it will become the basis of beef stock in the future.
For one thing your SV cooker likely won’t get the water that hot. But more importantly, the reason you cook to that temperature using traditional cooking methods is that you have to get the meat that hot in order to get the connective tissue to break down and the fat to render before the meat dries out. With SV you acheive the same effect at lower temperatures because you can cook for much, much longer without the risk of drying out the meat.
Having finished several briskets in the smoker with excellent results…including a few pastramis…
You may find these of interest:
I smoked it to start. I’ll give finishing in the smoker a try though.