Reheat brisket and pork


 
T

Todd Randall

TVWBB Pro
Hi All,

I know this has been talked about a million times and I'm sorry for asking again. I've tried to read most all of those posts, and I just can't seem to put my finger on the best way to handle this. I'm feeding a bunch of family this Sunday around 4PM. The BBQ portion of the menu is sliced brisket flat and pulled pork, plus Barbie's beans. I'm planning on starting Friday night after happy hour I better take it easy at happy hour this Friday :-)

Butts and full packer done sometime Saturday morning / early afternoon. Pull off the wsm, wrap, and cooler for an hour or two. Then I was planning on pulling the pork. Cooling it and storing it in the fridge in alum pans. I'm doing 2 butts, but one will go into vac seal bags and frozen. So, I'll be reheating just one of the two butts for Sunday, or about say 3 to 5 lbs worth of pork.

Now on to the brisket and my first question. I've read some people slice now and then cool and store. Others say, don't slice until it's reheated. What would most on this board do, slice and store or store and slice?

I'll pull the brisket point probably by hand like the pork and most likely vac seal and freeze and save for chopping another day.

Now on to Sunday. I'll be doing Barbie's beans on sunday and will probably get them started on the wsm about 9-10AM for a 3PM finish. Maybe put them in a crock pot or alum pans and inside a 150 degree roaster oven until 4PM.

I know the trick of adding apple juice to the pulled pork during reheat. Should I use the oven? Use the wsm, it'll be hot from cooking the beans. Roaster oven? I also have some smaller chaffing dishes I could use. For reheating this pulled pork, what temp and for how long?

For reheating the brisket, what temp and for how long? I was thinking of serving the brisket in the chaffing dishes with some beef broth to help curtail drying out.

Thanks in advance for any responses and advice!
Todd
 
Originally posted by Todd Randall:
Hi All,

I know this has been talked about a million times and I'm sorry for asking again. I've tried to read most all of those posts, and I just can't seem to put my finger on the best way to handle this. I'm feeding a bunch of family this Sunday around 4PM. The BBQ portion of the menu is sliced brisket flat and pulled pork, plus Barbie's beans. I'm planning on starting Friday night after happy hour I better take it easy at happy hour this Friday :-)

Butts and full packer done sometime Saturday morning / early afternoon. Pull off the wsm, wrap, and cooler for an hour or two. Then I was planning on pulling the pork. Cooling it and storing it in the fridge in alum pans. I'm doing 2 butts, but one will go into vac seal bags and frozen. So, I'll be reheating just one of the two butts for Sunday, or about say 3 to 5 lbs worth of pork.

Now on to the brisket and my first question. I've read some people slice now and then cool and store. Others say, don't slice until it's reheated. What would most on this board do, slice and store or store and slice?

I'll pull the brisket point probably by hand like the pork and most likely vac seal and freeze and save for chopping another day.

Now on to Sunday. I'll be doing Barbie's beans on sunday and will probably get them started on the wsm about 9-10AM for a 3PM finish. Maybe put them in a crock pot or alum pans and inside a 150 degree roaster oven until 4PM.

I know the trick of adding apple juice to the pulled pork during reheat. Should I use the oven? Use the wsm, it'll be hot from cooking the beans. Roaster oven? I also have some smaller chaffing dishes I could use. For reheating this pulled pork, what temp and for how long?

For reheating the brisket, what temp and for how long? I was thinking of serving the brisket in the chaffing dishes with some beef broth to help curtail drying out.

Thanks in advance for any responses and advice!
Todd
Click to expand...

Todd,
I would suggest vacuum sealing the food you are serving Sunday and simply reheat the bag in a pot of water until the meat is warmed through. This will in my opinion give you the best finished product by reheating.

Saturday
Pull and season your pork, cool promptly and vacuum seal and refridgerate.

After resting the brisket, pour the foil juices into a bowl and refridgerate the juices and defat Sunday. Cool the brisket, slice and vacuum seal.

Sunday

An hour before serving time remove the fat from the foil juices and pour into a sauce pan and mix with equal parts Cola or leftover morning coffee and reduce by half. Tweak the seasonig with the same rub you used to cook the brisket to suit your taste. For a little extra richness and sheen you can add a pat or two of butter.

Fill a large pot with cold water and place the bags of meat in it and bring to a boil. Once the water begins to boil turn the heat off and let the pot rest with the lid on for 30minutes or until you're ready to serve. Place the pork in a serving pan and cover with foil. Arrange the brisket slices and pour the sauce reduction overtop and foil. Serve and enjoy!
 
Originally posted by Todd Randall:
Thanks Larry,

I've done this with pork a few times and I think I simmer it for too long or maybe simmer is too hot of a heat? Pulled pork seems more forgiving, but with some loin last week, I think I heated all the juices out of it. There were lots of juices in the bag and the chops were dry.

From a frozen state, about 1" or a tad thinker cut, one per bag, I simmered them for 20 minutes.

Typically, how hot do you get the water and for how long?

Todd
Click to expand...

I think I was adding to my post when you posted.

You can certainly overheat/cook vacuum sealed food. All you want to do is warm it through. If you boil the bag for too long, the meat will cook and cook and as soon as you open the piping hot bag of meat it will begin to dry out.

If you happen to leave the bag in the boiling water for too long, remove the bag from the water and place it in an ice bath for a couple minutes to cease the overheating.
 
The boilin' bag method is my favorite method to reheat also. I like to put the sealed bags in the waterpot, but bring it up to just barely a simmer, to the point that you can see the water moving around but no bubbling going on. My reason for this is that I've had the seal on two Foodsaver bags give way on me when the water had come to a full boil, and I don't want to take chances on losing those good meat juices to the waterpot.
 
Originally posted by Keri C:
The boilin' bag method is my favorite method to reheat also. I like to put the sealed bags in the waterpot, but bring it up to just barely a simmer, to the point that you can see the water moving around but no bubbling going on. My reason for this is that I've had the seal on two Foodsaver bags give way on me when the water had come to a full boil, and I don't want to take chances on losing those good meat juices to the waterpot.
Click to expand...

Me too Keri! I always double seal my bags due to this! Haven't had any issues since double sealing (knock on wood)!
 
A lot of good info here. When I do brisket my point usually goes into Keri C's bean recipe. So I take as much of the extra fat off of the point and add it to the pan that houses my flat. When I go to heat it up I just add some water and my flat stays pretty moist. If you are doing the vac bags the water won't work but you will have plenty of extra fat to help keep it moist.
 
No surprise here, good and accurate advice from both Larry and Keri!!!

The reheat in the vac seal bags went perfect. I wouldn't have changed a thing. Thanks Larry for helping me to finally learn the trick with those. I was simmering them (keeping the heat on) for 20 minutes before which was just too much heat and cooking them in the bags and it'd come out dry. The process of bringing to a simmer then shutting off the heat and letting them sit for 20 minutes worked perfect. This was meat that came from the fridge. What would be your process for meat coming from the feezer? Bring to a simmer and let sit for 30 minutes maybe?

I will be doing the double seal from here on out, such a smart and easy thing to do for insurance of broken seals.

I really enjoyed this cook. This is going to be my new 2 butts and a brisket process. Thursday buy the meat, trim, rub, and wrap in saren. Friday night start the cook, finish Saturday sometime, prepare meat, vac seal, reheat on Sunday. It was so much more stress free on Sunday (guest arrive day, especially when you know there are a million other things around the house that you forgot to do).

There were still many things I learned, both good and bad. I still don't have the "fork tender" touch. I should have pulled the brisket when I said to myself, "...it's getting there, I'll give it 30 more minutes". Or, maybe I should have just rested it on the counter for an hour instead of resting it in a cooler for an hour. It wasn't falling all apart tender, but a full cut length of flat would break in half or in thirds 'kind of tender'. This turned out great to eat it this way on a roll, but I prefer brisket on it's own and it was too fall apart tender for me to eat it this way. LOL, a year ago I would never have imagined I'd be complaining about a piece of meat being too tender.

I chopped all of the point and froze it. I learned that keeping our kitchen aid food processor (the med sized one, 8qt I think) turned ON the whole time I'm feeding it brisket point chops it as fine as sand. Which I'm ok with cause it will just go into chili or some other soupy type meal probably just for adding flavor. But, I need to learn to use the pulse button better because I wanted to go for more of the size of ground beef for flavor and some texture. And I didn't want to chop it by hand (too lazy).

The metal enclosure I built for a weather screen really works great to keep temps even and saves fuel. We had wind and rain off and on friday night into Saturday and it never even phased the cooker inside of that. The meat went on 9:45PM Friday night. Minion start. Over flowing ring of unlit. I mean, I had trouble getting the 20 briqs that I lit to stay on the pile. I stayed up until 1AM. I started off with top vent 100% open (stayed that way for the duration), one bottom vent closed, and the other 2 100% open. Hour later had 200 at lid, went down to both 1/2 open. At the 2 hour mark the cooker was at 250. I made one last adjustment and a big one, both vents down to 1/8 open. Cooker settled right in at 235 lid. I went to bed an hour later with it still at 235 and didn't check it again until 7:30AM. 250 at lid. Perfect. I love this cooker. Brisket was on for 12 hours. The butts (two big 10 pounders before trimming) went 16 hours. By the 16 hour mark, 1 vent still fully closed, 2 fully opened, still running 265 lid. Unbelieveable. And I estimated I could have gone another hour that way before running out of fuel. 17 hours. I know a lot of people have a bad opinion about new Kingsford, I don't have an opinion because I've never used anything else, and sure the entire bottom was filled with ash, but hey, I can't kick on 17 hours of burn time.

Barbie's beans are good, but a little on the sweet side for my tastes. However, everybody else just loved them. I froze 1/2 of the meat that I cooked. And of the other 1/2 that I served, there was probably 2/3 of that left over. We had way too much meat. But, a few people didn't show as well. And with the beans, homemade mac and cheese, salad, fruit salad......just too much food. But everybody wanted to take some home so I guess that = a successful cook. I sent it all home with others leaving us just the frozen stuff which is fine. I still have over 1/2 to beans to freeze as well.

As always, thanks so much, there's just no other way of getting such good food in such a short amount of learning time (less than a year for me personally) without this community.

And sorry that I just can't bring myself to post a short response :-)

Todd
 
But, I need to learn to use the pulse button better because I wanted to go for more of the size of ground beef for flavor and some texture.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a great meal and a fun time. Win-win.

To pulse meat for ground or 'finely diced' (I like a mix of both for things like chili)--whether it is cooked or raw--cut the meat into roughly 1.5x1.5-inch chunks (size isn't critical; just try to make them roughly the same size). Place on a sheetpan (cover with parchment if available) then freeze till partly frozen, about 20 min or so. Load several pieces in the processor then pulse in 2- or 3-second pulses. Scrape sides as needed and pulse till the size you want. Remove from the processor and repeat with the remaining meat. Don't overfill; just do some (like no more than 1/4 of the bowl) at a time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top