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Storing brisket for next day
Storing your brisket for the next day is a very important step in the cooking process. There are several things to consider.
The first of which is whether you can or should let your brisket rest overnight. In other words, is it really necessary? The answer to that question is pretty much always yes. If you’re at the point to where you need to pull the brisket off the smoker, you are going to need to let it rest anyways. That’s standard for any cook.
Once you pull the brisket off the smoker, you should try letting it rest in a warming oven, ice chest, or on the counter for about 30 minutes to an hour before placing it in the fridge.
When you are ready to begin serving or re-preparing the brisket the next day, you should consider what you’re trying to do with it. Try simply just reheating it in a warming oven. This allows you to control all of the ambient temperature within the cooking chamber, and allows you to gradually and safely bring the meat back up to temp before serving for either just yourself or your party.
Making a brisket the day before can also be a very useful tactic when cooking a brisket. Usually, a lot of the times a brisket will take over 12 hours just for the cooking time itself. Not even counting the resting time required. So, when you consider cooking one, it becomes a very common question in terms of if you should just consider it to be cooking the day before and letting it rest overnight before serving it the next day.
That is usually what happens most of the time. As mentioned, this is a very useful tactic and is quite common among Pit-masters. It provides you a lot of leeway in terms of error correction just in case your brisket happens to stall longer than normal or if you happen to take a lot longer to prepare the actual taking event itself, smoking a brisket the day before is a very useful approach in any type of BBQ setting.
Can I let my brisket rest overnight?
You can absolutely let your brisket rest overnight. This is a common tactic among many Pit-masters throughout the community. Often times, a lot of BBQ will take the entire day anyways, and they usually need to rest anyways as well. This makes it a great excuse to let BBQ or a brisket in this case, to rest overnight.
The average resting time for a brisket can be around six or so hours. This is because all of the connective tissue and collagen within the meat needs to begin settling down an internal temperature. I letting all of the temperature and juices settle down, you do not have any risk of obtaining a very dry piece of barbecue. Basically, when the temperature has slowly come down, it will not present the fact of vaporizing any moisture the second you slice into it.
Moisture evaporating as soon as you slice into it is a very common concern and a completely valid one. But, by allowing your piece of meat to adequately rest long enough, you are effectively protecting yourself against this phenomenon.
How long should brisket rest before refrigerating?
In general, a brisket should rest for about minutes to an hour before letting it begin resting in a refrigerator. This protects the other continents within the fridge, and ensures that they don’t experience a rapid increase in ambient temperature and decreases the possibility of them spoiling.
To refrigerate a brisket, make sure you let it rest for about an hour or so. Then, wrap the brisket and foil and place it in a large metal container that is just big enough to fit the brisket but small enough to fit inside of the refrigerator. Once you wrap the brisket, and placed it inside the metal container, just slide it into your refrigerator. If you’re concerned about other contents inside of the refrigerator spoiling, just make sure that the brisket has its own rack and is not close enough to warm any of the other contents.
What do I do with my brisket the next day?
When you’re ready to begin potentially serving the brisket the next day, you’re more than likely going to have to reheat it. A lot of people choose to do this for the entire brisket itself before they even slice into it. Other people, try to slice the brisket while it is cold and then reheat each of the individual slices. This is entirely up to you and how you were going to consume the barbecue.
Once you identify what part of the brisket, whether that be the whole brisket or just a few slices, you can then start to consider how you actually want to reheat them. Most people will just take the foil in casing that the brisket is wrapped in along with the metal container, and slide it directly into a warming oven. This is a great choice. It allows for excellent ambient temperature control, while also maintaining the integrity of the meat.
In other words reheating a brisket in the oven can be a great way to ensure it stays moist and tender while also reheating it to a reasonable serving temperature.
How to keep brisket moist for the next day
Keeping a brisket for the next day is one thing, but keeping it moist for the next day is another thing as well. If you’re overly concerned about maintaining a very juicy and moist brisket, just make sure as soon as you pull it off the smoker you follow these next steps:
- Let the brisket rest for about an hour
- Wrap the brisket in foil
- Place it in side a metal container large enough to fit the meat
- Slide it inside the fridge
These four steps will directly impact how moist and juicy the after product will be. The main factor for ensuring a juicy brisket would be the fact that you let it rest before you did anything to it. This is absolutely critical and is the main cause of a dry brisket in any scenario.
How long will brisket keep in fridge
Brisket in general is a very hearty piece of meat once you’ve cooked it. Basically a brisket will stay edible for about a week or two if you stored properly inside of a refrigerator. You don’t want to let it rest inside of a fridge longer than two weeks.
At that point, you should probably just consider vacuum sealing it and placing it inside of a freezer. There’s no shame in doing that, and actually I encourage that because you don’t want to ruin the meat and get mold all over it.