I live in the great state of Texas. A state with a steep BBQ tradition and I would like everyone who reads this to know that I am risking life, limb, and my mentions to do this cook without using a smoker. Sooooooooooooo

The things I love about brisket are the deep bark on the outside to go along with the delicious, tender and juicy meat inside. The SV method will be perfect for achieving the perfectly juicy and tender doneness but without a smoker, getting the bark right will be a big challenge. I am going to get the bark by using the oven as I have seen this work for a lot of people. Let us see how it went.

🔪Prep Time 10 minutes

🛁Sous Vide Time 48 hour @155F/68.3C

👨‍🍳Oven Time 1.5-2hrs @ 400

🥩 Total Time 49 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 Whole Brisket trimmed to liking
• Generous helping of Meat Church Holy Cow
• Liquid Smoke (optional)

Instructions

I Started with a whole brisket. Already trimmed so not much work to do here. Another option would be if you wanted to separate the point and the flat at this time. But since I was going for easy and that wow factor presentation, I left it whole.

For my briskets I love a rub that brings out the meatiness. For that, I cant think of anything better than Meat Churches Holy Cow rub. Whatever I seem to put it on just enhances that meaty flavor (see Prime Rib Blog). So I started out by covering the entire brisket in the rub and set it in the fridge on a rack for 4 hours (you can do up to overnight).

After the 4 hours of resting with the rub on I took it out to bag. Obviously this mamma jamma wasnt going to fit in a ziploc so I did vacuum seal it whole. This trimmed brisket fit in my 11″x16″ food saver bags. Inside the bag I also used some liquid smoke.

If using a vacuum sealer, you can go ahead and place right in the bath. In place of a nicely vacuum sealed bag, you’re going to want to use the water displacement method which is achieved by submerging the protein in the water till most of the air is out of the bag. Then secure the bags to the side of the Sous Vide Container with binder clips.

Set your Sous Vide cooker to 155F/68.3C and place bag in bath for 48 hours.

After 48 hours pull your SV Brisket and while it is still in the vacuum bag, plunge into an ice bath. The goal with the ice bath is to bring the internal temperature of the brisket down so that it doesn’t overcook when you build the bark in the next step. Obviously it doesn’t look great yet. But thats what the next steps are for.

I then re-rubbed the entire brisket in Meat Church Holy Cow and set it in the oven 425 for about 1.5hrs.

After 1.5 hours the brisket had developed a pretty good bark in the oven. I had not expected it to get that dark but I was pleasantly surprised. I couldn’t wait to get inside.

And there it was. A moist and tender brisket with a sufficient bark.

Closer look at the bark.

Slice your brisket up and you’re ready to serve.

Conclusion

Alright, so let us get the number one question out of the way. Is it traditional brisket bark? No. I cant say that it was. Was it still a decent bark? Yes, I still enjoyed it and thought it tasted great but I just don’t want the BBQ people up in my mentions with their pitchforks. This brisket was juicy, tender and delicious. And for someone without a smoker, this is 100% doable with just a SV and an oven. My hope is to show that for all of us that don’t have a smoker, we can still do a good brisket. That being said, if you do have a smoker, I would SV and ice bath the same way. Then I would put it on the smoker till the internal temperature reached your desired level.

If you enjoyed this cook I would love to hear from you! Drop me a line in the comments down below and let me know what you liked or what you didn’t like, your opinion matters to me. As always you can follow this blog from the button below, as well as your favorite social media platform! Follow on Instagram and Facebook @JBSOUSVIDE to be the first to know when I post a new cook and share it with a friend!

Equipment List Links:

Vacuum Sealer: Anova Vacuum Sealer

Vacuum Seal Bags: Anova Pre Cut Vacuum Sealer Bags

Vacuum Seal Rolls: Anova Rolls Vacuum Sealer bags

Sous Vide Circulator: Anova Nano 

Sous Vide Circulator: Anova Pro

Sous Vide Container: Anova Sous Vide Container

Chef Knife: Wustoff Chef Knife

Meat Church Rub: Meat Church Rub

BBQ Sauce: Lillies Smokey Hot

Sheet Pan With Wire Rack: Sheet pan with a rack

Skillet: Skillet

Meat Tenderizer: Meat Tenderizer