The Almost Perfect Sous-Vide Brisket

Photo Via http://www.newyorkjets.com

The Almost Perfect Sous-Vide Brisket

Not quite the final say on sous-vide brisket, but definitely a step in the right direction for all technological foodies out there!

Okay, what do I mean by this statement? A quick search of sous vide brisket on your preferred search engine will yield a ton of results from foodie blogs, magazine articles, and sous-vide forums all asking the same question: how do I cook my brisket sous-vide? What's frustrating for a home chef trying their hand at sous-vide cooking is the sheer number of different responses to this question all claiming to have the correct answer and most of which are dead wrong. A little background:

Sous-vide cooking, for those of you who don't know, is a style of cooking where the product is cooked using an immersion circulator, which is a piece of equipment that regulates liquid to a very specific temperature, so that the product is cooked thoroughly to the same consistent temperature. This means a piece of meat, for example, a strip steak, would be poached in this circulating water bath at an exact temperature, let's say 135 degrees f, or perfect medium rare, so the entire piece of meat is exactly medium rare. This may sound gross to a lot of people... why would I want a poached piece of meat? Well, the goal here is to have perfect medium rare all the way through instead of just a small sweet-spot in the middle which is what usually happens during conventional cooking methods. The outside of the meat would then be seared or grilled super hot to replicate how a normal piece of meat would look, and the finished product is just amazing. If you ever look to try your hand at sous-vide cooking and don't want to break the bank, go pre-order the Sansaire for $199 and I'll recommend a really easy recipe at the end of this post. 

The SousVide cooker from PolyScience is the professional version and runs a very steep price.

Brisket is a tough piece of meat with a lot of connective tissue. It's best cooked either brined and baked like corned beef, cooked low and slow on a smoker or BBQ rig for days, or braised for a couple of hours. The goal with a piece of meat like brisket is to let the collagen, elastin, and other connective tissues holding the protein together turn into gelatin so the meat stays juicy and tender. This can either be done above 180 degrees f  when collagen and elastin break down with heat, or by pounding the shit out of the meat. Beating your meat is always an option, but won't yield a traditional looking brisket, and heating the meat to 180 f is also an issue because the meat dries out. It's all about temperature and time to yield a juicy piece of meat with all of the connective tissue broken into gelatin... it's not so easy. I personally have failed at brisket every time I've ever cooked it, until now. Here's how I did it, and what I would do differently next time:

Brisket, post brine

Brisket needs some help. The best way I've found to offer a boost in the flavor and tenderizing categories is to brine the meat. A brine is a mixture of water, salt, and flavoring that helps displace the water in meat with the salt from the brine. This helps make a piece of meat very tender, and also works great for keeping juices sealed in after cooking for dry pieces of meat like chicken or turkey. In this case, we're looking at making the protein softer and helping it maintain its juiciness as well because it's cooked at such a high temperature for beef. Here's my brine recipe that you can follow:

• 2 quarts water
• 2 cups salt
• 6 ripe figs
• 1 tbs whole black peppercorn
• 1 tbs yellow mustard seed
• 1 tsp whole cumin
• 1 tsp dried chipotle pepper flakes
• 5 bay leaves
• 3 lbs ice 
• 4 lbs flat brisket 

One thing you'll notice right away is the addition of figs to this recipe--dried figs will work as well. The addition of figs wasn't just because I have 30 pounds of them sitting in my freezer... it's because figs have an enzyme called Bromelain. Bromelain is a popular meat tenderizer and helps break down proteins. Using it in a natural form like in figs or in pineapple just sounds a lot better to me than buying the enzyme in bulk. Using a small amount during the brining process will help break down the proteins furthering the tenderness of the meat--it worked. You can also substitute pineapple if you can't find figs... I'm sure it works just as well.

Take some water and the figs and put them in the blender. Blend until smooth, put into a stock pot with all the ingredients except for the ice and the meat, and bring to a boil. When it reaches a boil, remove it from the heat and add the ice to cool it down. Once it has been cooled, add your meat. At this point you can use a meat syringe to inject the brine, but this isn't necessary. I let my brisket brine in the refrigerator overnight for about 15 hours. 

In desperate need of a double-bag

Once the meat was ready I addressed the cooking process. I wen't off of a method I read from... somewhere. I honestly can't remember. I would cook the meat at 167 degrees f for 18 hours. Once the meat comes out of the brine, pat it dry and cut it in half. I wrapped each piece with extra smokey bacon and put them in a gallon Ziploc bag and took all the air out by submerging the bag in water to force the air out and then zipped the whole thing shut before any water could enter. Check it out here. (Scroll down half way) The bacon was added to the recipe to add some more fat to the brisket and also add a BBQ-like smoke. Notice I mentioned extra smokey... the brisket needs that.

Pro Tip: You may want to double-bag your brisket... one of mine opened mid-cook and almost ruined the whole experiment. 

Pre-seared brisket and bacon

Coming out of the circulator, the meat should be fall-apart tender and not so appealing to look at... like boiled meat. Either submerge the bag in ice water or move to the refrigerator to stop the cooking process. The next step was to grill the meat to get a char on the outside and enjoy with your favorite BBQ sauce!

After a quick grill session

Review: 

The meat was certainly tender and there was no tough connective tissue to speak of. The flavor was amazing... the brine did its job. The only downside to the whole thing was the meat being slightly too dry. The best part of the whole meal--the bacon! 

At the tailgate

Next steps:

I'm not stopping here... no. I'm so close to getting this thing perfected. I need to try again. My next steps are going to be to try the same recipe, but lower the cooking temperature and raise the time of the cook. I read many recipes that said 145 degrees f for closer to 48 hours will do the trick in breaking down the connective tissue while keeping the meat juicier. I might also try the same exact recipe but add butter in the bag with the bacon to hopefully inject more fat to the brisket. This one sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen. I might also look the the illusive point brisket. Notice in my ingredient section I specified flat brisket. This part of the brisket is what you will usually find at a butcher. It contains less connective tissue and is generally softer. There's a section that runs on top of the flat brisket called the point, which is thinner than the flat section and has much more connective tissue. This might actually work well for this recipe because of all the gelatin that would be formed. It was my initial thought to use this piece of meat, but I couldn't find one. 

The real thing I came away from after trying this recipe was that I had a winner... Maybe it wasn't a winner for brisket, but it was a winner for many other meats: short ribs, baby back ribs, pork belly, and pork butt... anything that has either a lot of fat or a lot of connective tissue. When I said the bacon was the best part, I meant it--it rivaled any pork product I've had in my life. I can't wait to try this same recipe but with a big four pound pork belly. My brisket might not have been perfect, but I think I'm onto something here. 

Wrap-up: 

The Tipped Tailgate went very very well. We had some Oktoberfest beers, played a few games of beer pong (we tied 1-1), and best of all, the Jets won the game with a last second field goal to go 1-0 this year! All-in-all, a perfect Sunday and a perfect start to my favorite time of year.

J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets!

Bonus recipe:

For everyone looking for that recipe, here it is:

• 1 thick cut NY strip steak
• Salt
• Duck fat

That's it? Really? Here's the procedure: Salt and seal your NY strip steak and cook at 135 degrees f in your new (or old) immersion circulator. To guarantee the meat is cooked all the way through, make sure it's circulated for 20-30 minutes. During the last 10 minutes of cooking time heat a good amount, about 1/2 inch in the pan, of duck fat. Heat it on high with the pan covered until the fat is smoking hot! The best pan to use for this is cast iron as it holds the most heat. You want to hit this steak with everything you can--really let it have it! Turn your ventilation hood to high and sear each side of your steak for 10 seconds. This steak is worth any 2nd degree burns or small grease fires you may have to deal with in the process, I guarantee it. 

Please be safe, however. Remember that grease fires can not be put out with water--smother them with a lid. Also, let your fat cool before disposing. 

- Adam from Tipped Mixology