Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

Unfortunately I lack the vacuum sealer and the sous vide setup.

Looks like I'm bringing chips and soda again this year... ;P

 

I’m sure @bvbull200 has some suggestions he does stuff like this a lot.

 

I save them all the time and even freeze them. When your done cooking the briskets, let them cool down wrap them tight in cellophane, I use high temp, wrap in foil. You can reheat in oven at low temp, put each one in a metal foil pan just in case it leaks.

 

Thanks for the info, but there won't be an oven available for reheat.

Also, given I've only ever done one, I think I'm better off sticking with sodas for this year, and practicing for next year.

 

How far are you traveling to get to the party, can always preheat a cooler and place in it for travel

 

I have warmed up brisket after 2months or more in freezer vacuum sealed . I save juices I save from wrapping brisket, bag in Ziploc pour juices in bags and put in fridge to jell up juice .Then latter date I vacuum seal and freeze .Ziploc if you don't have sealer is good to if not freezing to long .

Take out of freezer to fridge couple days before. To warm up I just micro in bag couple min at a time so don't over do it .Or you could just put in oven in pan ,foil and warm in oven at 350 till hot
In pic can see juices I saved .Poured over brisket and put in fridge for next days party. Warmed at 350 for about an hour (till hot) Then off to party. We use the foil pan warmers and sterno to keep it hot at party.

That's the way I do it and seems everyone like it
Got couple 10lb brisket going do tommorow to freeze for unexpected holiday parties parties



Also put juices in freezer first so can scrape off fat

 

Great ideas, gents, and I will use them in the future. But for now it's too much untested for me (mainly being I've only done one brisket- and as it happens, someone else is already bringing one).

 

I know the mind has been made up, but I was tagged, so screw it. I'll beat the dead horse. The horse is only dead because @hemitruk nailed it already .

If you know you are cooking ahead of time with the goal of cooling, then reheating, then there are only two real keys.

1. Cool it quickly.
2. Reheat it slowly.

Forget the resting phase if you are going to be freezing/refrigerating a whole brisket. Wrap it up and crash cool it. If you can get a good seal (i.e. vacuum sealer), an ice bath is ideal, but otherwise wrapping tightly in foil and putting in the freezer for a bit works, too. If you are reheating in a few days, refrigerating is fine. If a week or more, consider freezing.

Either way, wrapped with a little juice in the foil, then slowly brought up to "warm" (say 150* or so?) and you can have a brisket that most would be hard pressed to tell you cooked a week ago.

Chips and soda works in a pinch, though .

 

Hey, good info is good info, and MUCH appreciated.

At my advanced age, I ought to know a hell of a lot more about this sort of thing. Sadly, I spent way too much of my youth eating out of the frozen food section, or brown paper bags.

I'm trying to catch up, and get the young man to come along on the trip with me, before he finds himself in the same situation.

 

So make a test brisket for yourself! Cook it, slice it, eat half, freeze half. No vac? use a freezer ziplock. Get all the air out you can, and all the juice in you can.
A month later thaw in the frig. Then nuke on defrost for 3 minutes. Let rest for 3 minutes. Repeat till warm, not screamin' hot. This is important. When ready to serve, you can nuke it more to the temp you want. I've done this for years on meat and it tastes like it just came off the smoker.

A word about freezers... a refrigerator freezer is NOT a deep freezer. Temps vary during defrost cycles from 0 to 30f or more. My deep freezer is turned as cold as it will go, -20f. The colder, the better for long term storage. One other thing. If you have multiple bags to freeze, don't stack them together. Seperate them til frozen, then you can stack them. You want them to freeze as fast as they can.

And my wife STILL!!! stacks unfrozen meat in the refrigerator freezer!!!

 

What are you cleaning on the WSM's?!?! Never clean them that ruins the seasoning.

Run them dry and replace the water pan with either a pizza pan or heat shield wrapped in aluminum foil. Toss the foil and done. I will throw the grates on the gasser and heat them up and then brush.

BBQ Guru for the win.







I only have to walk out to the backyard and throw my ash over the bank though so very little clean up there.

But if you do want a pellet pooper go for it. Enough cooks are done on here with them that prove they produce a great product also.

Only thing you left out that my Ex used to say also was add in economically depressed

Sister year younger than me has lived in Buffalo for last 40 years and they have some great food also. All of the Twin Tiers and Upstate has great food, and people. You can tell the importance of food there by the number of us on here LOL. Averages 20° colder per day here than back there in the month of January. But it is a dry cold, because it is so damn cold the air can't hold any moisture. The sun does come out a lot more here.

Moved to Mn. from Asheville, NC where I did my twilight tour before retiring from the Navy 23 years ago. Mother and youngest sister live in the Raleigh area and all 3 of my sisters will likely retire near there. Me, I'm not sure, I did like WNC a lot. Minnesotans seem to think salt and pepper are major spices I'm thinking SE Az. for winters but seeing all the great things about Texas especially food on here still up in the air.

 

That does it.

I need to figure out WTF a BBQ Guru is... off to google...

 

It is an ATC. Automatic Temperature Controller. If your handy you can get a basic PID Controller (Proportional, Integral, Derivative) and make your own. I spend enough time working on computers at work last thing I want to do when I get time off is work on them again LOL. So I don't mind paying for an off the shelf ATC that someone has already done all the work for me BBQ Guru is just one of several, but they are a good one.

 

Right there with you. I'm a computer network security engineer. I can't remember the last time I fired up a computer at home (although in truth, there isn't much I can't do on my phone anymore).

 

Nailed this flat brisket today!
Sorry wife forgot to take pics while it waas smoking
The only job she got! But, whatcha gonna do?

 

Honestly...it isn’t that bad working with the WSM as far as prep and cleanup but just not as easy as filling a hopper and turning a dial.

I’m just looking for an excuse to buy a pooper but I’ve pretty much talked myself out of it already.

 

Ok,on further pondering, believe I was being mislead by the probe.

I have it laying atop the bird, which is in shrink wrap and a trash bag, not laying on the bird or the ice



Present temp is indicated as 42 degrees. The bird ja still palpably solid.

Don't believe the meat is in danger. I think I'm just reading the air temp, which is surprisingly warm.



EDIT - don't know why I didn't think of this to begin with... used my IR laser thermometer I use for cooking, shot the top of the shrinkwrapped bird. 37 degrees. Pretty sure we are totally fine.

 

Why so?

 

I went for the pitmaster IQ110. Worked great until the probe died. Didn’t want to spend $30 for another probe. So it’s been sitting in my garage for the last 6 months

 

I don't think you can go wrong adding a pooper to the line up. As long as you have the space for it. Kind of like saying you have too many tools. Said no man, ever!