ottawa foodies

So i have a friend that is coming up for the weekend, and we decided to have a Brisket Cook off, he is a traditional low and slow guy. He will be using a my Big Green Egg for a 24hr cook.

i've opted to use my Sous Vide Supreme - so i'm going through a few different scenarios before the final brisket goes in for a "soak" on friday night.

i've bought two 5lb briskets, one has been cut into two pieces and was brined last night in a salt, corriander, cumin, fresh thyme, and a few cloves.

i vac sealed them today and one is cooking for 24hrs @ 80c - and the 2nd is 48hrs @ 57c

we are thinking of using a rib sauce that we bought at Ribfest this weekend, and thin it out alittle with the juice from the brisket.

trying to decide on using liquid smoke in the brine mixture?????

any other ideas???

the tasting will happen on Thursday evening to decide on which cooking temperature, and i will have to put the "primary" brisket into the brine mixture on Thursday evening

Liquid smoke?

Sorry, but your buddy wins on that one alone.

Blech

If you ain't gonna smoke it, don't pretend you did!

Will be interested on the results of the taste test though. Will it be blind? Single or double? Who is judging?

My heart sides with Zym on this one, but my brain tells me the liquid smoke is the way to go. Unless your friend is really good with the smoker I think you'll win, as brisket is hard to cook without drying it out. Brining is probably enough, but you could also try doing an injection on the one you didn't start yet. I'd include some JD or bourbon in the injection.

i will put the liquid smoke back on the shelf....haven't used it yet.
also note that to get the final crisp on the brisket, i stoke the bge up to 700 and sear it off.

the judges are 8 friends that are coming up for a party.....and yes it will be a blind test.

more than anything i'm super curious to see the difference between the bbq and the sous vide - neither of us have done brisket before.

Brining that brisket will turn it into smoked meat. I also agree, no liquid smoke! I just did a 13 pound packer and a 13 pound pork butt on fathers day. 15 hours in the WSM at 225. It was smokey and moist, on par with anything I've had in Texas. I don't think you can turn out a better brisket in a sous vide rig than a smoker, but I'd love to see your results.

i44.photobucket.com

i44.photobucket.com

My $0.02CDN re liquid smoke...
it only tastes like something that tastes like it's supposed to taste like it's been smoked. It doesn't come close to the real thing and next to the real thing it really fails.

Am wondering whether you could get away w sous vide with a finishing run on a grill.

ok, so the first brisket came out of the sous vide tonight - it was cooked at 80c for 24 hours. i had planned on searing it, but frankly it was almost like a pulled pork consistency in the meat and i couldn't cut it, it just pulled apart.

we decided to give it alittle taste, it was sooo good....omg.

we put it right onto bread, and made a bbq sauce that we poured all over and it was really, really tasty.

honestly totally shocked that it didn't need to get seared - tomorrow night, the 2nd brisket comes out - it's been cooking at 57c since last night.

ok, the 2nd brisket came out of the sous vide tonight - totally different, more like a traditional brisket as you can see

i fired up the egg and dropped it on at 600 degrees, lathered up with some olive oil.

all finished off, it's got that yummy traditional appearance

it held well together so i broke out the deli slicer to serve it up.

you can see how much it looks like traditional brisket here

and the final simple sandwich

so three of us all agreed that we prefer the "pulled pork" version we had last night, the texture was so soft and we felt the taste from the brine came through - a much meatier taste.

Looks good - when do we get to try :-)

What kind of slicer is that?

looks awesome!! lots of kitchen toys.

The second brisket looks really good! The only thing missing is the traditional "bark" which you only partially got. I bet it was actually pretty moist too.

I'm also interested in that slicer, details please!

www.cutleryandmore.com

It looks like the model 630

bobby fillet is right on picked it up from ca paradis

the 2nd brisket was very moist and tasty, doing a bunch of reading last night and Thomas Keller has a recipe with a temp of 64 degrees for 48hrs.

however, we are opting for the 80c temp for Sunday nights "contest". Now we are onto the BBQ sauce

we have all the meat juice from the last two briskets saved and are going to make a traditional bbq sauce and thin it out with a reduction of the brisket juice.....any other thoughts

so to recap the final product for sunday's competition is as follows

5 lb brisket

Step 1. Brine Created with water,salt,cumin,allspice,fresh thyme,fresh garlic
Step 2. 24hr Brine in fridge
Step 3. 60 min. smoke on BGE at 200F for smoke flavor and appearance
Step 4. Vac Seal and place in Sous Vide at 80c for 24hrs
Step 5. Create BBQ sauce and add juice from sous vide bag
Step 6. Open Bag cut off "fat cap" and shred gently
Step 7. Eat
Step 8. Win Contest

i think you already have the 'win' part of step 8 covered.

i opted to throw my brisket on the egg for an hour before it hits the sous vide

my buddies brisket hits the egg at 225 for about 10hrs

here's his final product off the egg.....the last hour he bathed it in bbq sauce and wrapped it in alum foil.

his sliced up nice and easy

my sous vide came out of it's water bath after 24hrs at 80c, it pulled apart easily

so in the end, the sous vide was so super tender....again very similiar to a pulled pork - the low and slow smoked version off the egg, had great flavor but was for sure something you could use a knife and fork to eat.

they opted not to vote on a winner.....but secretly i was told the sous vide was better :)