Sous Vide Brisket

The most tender brisket you can imagine.

Beef Brisket is considered the acid test of a BBQers skill.  This cut of meat needs special treatment in order to be tender and smoky.  Most folks will smoke a brisket for a day.  Many will inject and brine before that. Mine is "dry brined" for two days. and sous vided for 54 hours.

I tried making a "smoky" brisket when I first got my sous vide rig, but it turned out weird.  Not smoky, but tender. Kind of like a braised brisket. This last weekend I think I really nailed it. Just in time for super bowl!

By luck I went on the Monday before super bowl to the local Costco and saw a vacuum packed whole prime brisket for $2.99/pound.  The largest that they had was 15.5 lbs.  I got it home and started trimming off the copious amounts of fat.  4.5 lbs of it.  Leaving just a small fat "cap" and a stripe of fat on the point end of the flat.

I then cut it into 3 more manageable pieces.

A wash of equal parts liquid smoke, molasses, and liquid aminos was brushed on to the meat.
Smoked salt was then generously sprinkled over the meat and it was loosely vacuum bagged for a 2 day rest in the fridge.

After the "brine", the bags were cut open and the meat gently patted down.  Then they were more seriously vacuum bagged for the long cook.

145F for at least 48 hours (mine went 54) will break down the connective tissues.

While these were cooking I had to make some more rub.  I modified the recipe that I used for my ribs by omitting everything but the salt, pepper, garlic, onion, and smoked paprika.

After the bath the pieces were unbagged, dried and brushed again with the rest of the wash.  Then I applied a liberal coating of the modified rub that I made.

The brisket pieces went into a 250F oven for just over an hour to set the bark.

The point end was shredded and mixed with half a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's for the best BBQ beef that I have ever made.

The small and med flat pieces were sliced and consumed quickly.

I served them on some torta bread that I bought at the Costco.  Many people added BBQ sauce, or mayo, or salsa, or pickles, or jalapenos, or some combination of the above.

I just slapped pieces into my food hole. Nom nom nom...

In the future I will cut the brisket the way that the competition BBQers do it by separating the two muscles horizontally.  I will also make some burnt ends.

I still feel like trying to simulate a smoker with sous vide is probably harder than just setting up a smoker (particularly the pellet type).  I guess that means that my outdoor kitchen will feature a Traeger pellet grill/smoker, a griddle or flat top, two burners and my sous vide rig.

2017 Chevy Volt

Electric commuting in style...

As I mentioned in my previous post, I took the plunge and am leasing a 2017 Chevy Volt for my daily driver.  I couldn't be more pleased.  My lease payment and monthly electric use is about the same as I was spending driving my Suburban around. Oh, did I mention the little green stickers that let me use the HOV lanes?

In case you (like I) were ignorant of how the Volt is different than a Prius here is the skinny.  Most hybrids are a parallel hybrid -- the internal combustion (IC) engine and the battery pack work together at all times to propel the car.  Sometimes it might be all battery, sometimes all IC, but they are both always on.  The Volt is a serial hybrid that can be driven in a parallel mode.  Serial means that this car runs on its battery until the energy is gone and then the IC switches on.  In fact, the IC isn't even connected to the wheels directly.  The IC powers a generator to provide electricity to the battery pack or the drive motor.  This is very much like a diesel-electric locomotive and allows a tiny 1.5L IC to drive this thing around.

The genius of this was unknown to me until early 2016.  My attention was paid to the Volt when it was announced and as I followed Chevy's struggle to find battery technology to make it the electric- only vehicle that it was originally supposed to be.  I lost interest when it came out in 2012 or so as a hybrid.  I thought that they had given up and just tried to compete with the Prius (Pious).  What I missed is that they simply realized that the range was too low to sell to the general public and added a range extender in the form of a small IC + generator.  Brilliant!

So I drive an electric car every day using not one drop of gas.  If I need to go farther I can let the IC fire up and take me where I need to go.  No "range anxiety."  Plus, with the 9 gallon gas tank and a full battery I can go about 420 miles.  Not that I would know since I am still using the tank of gas the dealership gave me.

A word about chargers.  The charging system is actually built into the car.  You simply have to provide a well-regulated 120V, 8 to 12A AC source.  Conveniently the car is sold with just such a device.  I call it the "opportunity charger."  This is all I am using to charge my car.  Currently (see what I did there?) it takes between 5 and 8 hours to recharge at 120V/12A since I rarely use more than 11kWh of my 18.5kWh battery pack.  I did not have to put any expensive equipment in the garage.  I am, however, considering just that.  If I install a 240V, 24 to 36A circuit and regulator in my garage I should be able to charge in about one-quarter of the time it takes now.

Next up a tour of the fit and finish of the Volt followed by a discussion of how to drive this unique vehicle and a summary of the state of the art in alternative fuel vehicles.

Sorry for the interruption...

Life gets in the way of blogging sometimes.

Sorry that I haven't been blogging much since summer.  However I have some new things to share with you.

First, my annual physical turned up that my cholesterol was getting higher and the doc wants me to lose weight in order to improve that (as well as my blood pressure and general health).  She has prescribed a low-carb diet.  So far this thing is producing tremendous results.  I have eliminated all processed carbs, and most bad carbs (other than alcohol) and have lost over 10 lbs this month.  Next month I may even quit the drink altogether in order to see how much I can lose.

You would think that this would curtail my cooking adventures but the opposite has happened.  Stay tuned to these pages for some low carb recipes.

Second, I am leasing a Chevy Volt as a commuter car.  The last two years I have driven my Suburban to-from work and on errands.  I was spending nearly $100/week on gas.  Now I use no gasoline for my daily commute and the electricity costs me $1.55/day ($9.30/week).  I will do a complete review of the Volt, electric driving in general and the state of your automotive choices soon.

Anyhow, sorry again for the interruption and we'll talk soon.