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Brisket won’t fit in cooler
If youre brisket won’t fit inside of your ice cooler, then you have come to the right place!
If it’s not fitting, you’ll most likely need to find another storage container to hold your brisket. The preferred alternative would be to place it directly into a warming oven. This will not only provide excellent heat insulation, but will allow you to also set a desired ambient temperature to hold the meat for extended periods of time.
What to do if your brisket won’t fit in your cooler?
If you noticed that your brisket is not fitting inside of your ice cooler, you should not be trying to slice the brisket up to make it fit. That would destroy the entire purpose of resting the brisket.
When you rest the brisket, you’re intentionally not slicing the meat because the internal temperature is way too hot, and would evaporate any moisture the second you were to do that.
That’s why It’s suggested to simply just place the brisket inside of another container device. The most common and effective of which, is to begin placing your brisket inside of a warming oven located in your kitchen.
You can choose to modify the ambient temperatures to manually control how quickly the brisket comes down to 165°F, or you can simply let it calm down naturally while taking a vantage of the insulated properties of the oven.
Why are briskets so big?
Briskets are so big because they are technically two cuts of meat in one. Specifically, they are derived from the breast area of the cow, and are composed of both the point and flat muscles.
Depending on whether or not you get a packer style brisket, you can expect the average weight to be anywhere between 10 to 20 pounds.
Since you’re dealing with such a large cut of meat, its important to take some measurements of both your brisket and cooler, or have a rough idea of whether not it can be fitted
Where to put your brisket if it won’t fit in a cooler?
Deciding where to put your brisket if it wont fit inside of a cooler can be an easy task, if you are well prepared. All you have to do is simply slide it inside of your warming oven in your kitchen for adequate resting.
It can be unfortunate if your brisket won’t fit in a cooler, but just know that there are always methods you can begin to employ if one doesn’t workout.
That’s the beauty of learning how to barbecue.
It’s an art form that requires understanding of how meat reacts to certain stimuli, and once you understand that, you can start to use other methods to begin to manipulate certain factors throughout the cook.
Who needs to be handling the brisket if it won’t fit?
Whoever the PitMaster is that smoked the brisket, should be the one handling the brisket after it has been pulled off the smoker and ready to be placed inside of a cooler or warming oven.
It doesn’t really need to be that complicated in terms of who handles a Brisket after it is done smoking. It’s just that whoever is cooking the brisket will more than likely be the one to begin handling it and deciding where to place it in order to ensure that it rests appropriately.
Should I put my brisket in a cooler?
Deciding to put your brisket inside of a cooler versus a warming oven can be a great choice and allows for significant portability. You can’t easily transport a warming oven considering it’s implanted into your kitchen wall.
You can however, take your ice cooler with just your hand and begin walking it around and even drive it to a specific destination if you need to. Not to mention, in terms of the insulation properties of both devices, they both provide excellent heat retention and will fully allow your brisket to come down to the right internal temperature.
Why should you be putting a brisket in a cooler in the first place?
For starters you should always consider putting in Brisket inside of a cooler simply due to the excellent keep retention that these types of devices can bring. This heat retention last brisket to sustain resting periods between 3 to 12 hours.
Over the course of this time frame, the collagen and connective tissues within the meat are very hot but will begin to slowly render back down in their internal temperature meaning that that uses will soak back into the meet. This is what creates the famous jiggly Brisket.
The brisket will slowly basically turn into gelatin, which is exactly what you want
Resting your brisket without a cooler
If for some reason your brisket won’t fit inside of your cooler and you need to begin resting it with other means, then you should absolutely do so. You should not let an unfit cooler disrupt your resting times.
You always want to consider resting your brisket no matter what. Simply place your brisket inside of a warming oven, or even just leave it on the kitchen counter to rest appropriately.
The single most important thing in brisket is when you pull it out the smoker and how long you let it rest. Dont’ let a brisket not fitting inside of your cooler change anything with this stage in the cook.
Final Thoughts
If you happen to have a brisket that won’t fit inside of your cooler, then consider placing it inside of a warming oven or on top of the counter. There’s two options are always available to any PitMaster looking to rest a piece of barbecue, and can produce amazing quality results once the brisket has arrested after about 3 to 12 hours.
Robert is a certified Pitmaster, with over a decade of experience in smoking the best meats you’ll ever feast upon. He also has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio. When he’s not researching technical topics, he’s most likely barbecuing in his backyard.