The Briefing Room
General Category => Grassroots Activism and Living => TBR Kitchen => Topic started by: Elderberry on October 05, 2019, 01:57:18 pm
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ThermoBlog by Martin Earl
Brisket is meat alchemy. You take a tough, useless cut of meat full of iron-like connective tissue and turn it into smooth, soft, smoky, savory meat pudding! But, if there’s anything to dislike about brisket, it has to be that it takes seemingly forever to cook. 12 hours? 18 hours?!? There’s no way to cook a brisket on a whim and have it the same day. Or is there?
Though the low-and-slow method of brisket cookery is by far the most classic method, there are those who also swear by a hot and fast method. Here, we’ll discuss the temps and tricks you need to cook your brisket in half the time. Buy it Saturday morning, have it ready for an early dinner! What a concept.
Faster brisket: what’s happening?
The traditional method of smoking a brisket low-and-slow evolved to handle the high collagen content of brisket, thought the pitmasters at the time didn’t know that. Given the origins of BBQ in small pithouses and fields and the lack of aluminum foil during said evolution, it makes sense that the lower, slower method predominated. But there is another way.
You see, collagen breakdown is a function of both time and temperature. That means that it breaks down faster at higher temperatures. And that means that by increasing the temp of your BBQ cook, you can get your brisket done significantly faster.
Are there challenges to this method? Yes. You can’t just chuck a full packer into a 325°F (163°C) smoker and come back in five hours to find melty, juicy perfection. There are some thermal considerations you have to take into account.
First, with a higher temperature, the bottom side of your brisket is more likely to get scorched, so it’s important to cook it fat-side down. (Most pitmasters recommend this anyhow, but it’s especially important with this method.)
More: https://blog.thermoworks.com/beef/hot-and-fast-brisket-done-in-half-the-time/ (https://blog.thermoworks.com/beef/hot-and-fast-brisket-done-in-half-the-time/)
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I love brisket
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I love brisket
MeeToo! It's a dinner I won't attempt to "cook fast." I give it a loooong, 48 hour cook in a Sous Vide at 133F to render the gristle, then smoke it a couple hours for a sear. Cut against the grain to serve. Yummy eating, with steamed cabbage and soda rolls. It's the traditional St. Paddy's day meal at the Castle.