- Mar 16, 2019
- 5
- 1
Hi...all.
I'm a bit worn down at the moment from last night's disaster.
I'll keep it brief.
I bought a 3.125 lbs corned beef brisket point so 2lbs after brine solution is removed. I ended up desalinating in water for 24 hours - putting a rub on it - in the oven at 5 PM starting at 34 degrees F. By 8 PM it reached 160 F - By 9 PM 162 F and by midnight - 164 F. I pulled it out at this temperature - prodding all the areas with the thermometer probe to confirm.
A cake tester went in with no resistance (I'm not kidding...I'm sensitive to this). I then assumed "it's ready" and STEAMED it to 203.
Sliced it - took my first bite - ended up tasting like rubberized meat pellets. Not good. Literally felt like tiny rubber bands in my mouth..meat also looked ...very....tough and compacted little groups of muscle fibers on every slice against the grain. I realized it's bad.
Here are pics:
Going in for "slow roast"
(At 12:00AM)
Pulling with great force with my index and thumb away from each other. It wanted to "snap" back pretty bad. A lot of resistance to be stretched. See the circular pockets of meat? Imagine long meat cells that taste like rubber if i broke them apart and tried chewing on one.
I decided to put it in the pressure cooker (no hope). After 30 minutes at PSI of 15, it was still rubbery....after 1 hour...better but rubberish...after 1 hour 55 minutes (as most recipes say cooking brisket *FROM RAW*) - it was actually edible and tasted like meat with pleasing texture but of course - super waterlogged like stew meat and gross.
In both instances the cake tester went in the same and felt EXACTLY the same. My theory is the cake tester just went right through pores or little holes in the meat - probably a lot of fat created easy pockets for it to slide through despite it being awfully and disgustingly undercooked - which tells me that "touch" or "poking" is not an accurately consistent measure to when tough meats are actually done.
This is my 2nd epic failure with beef brisket.
My first massive failure was following a ChefSteps recipe of 9 day cured corned beef and then sous vide for 36 hours at ...I forget what temp but it was about 155 I think. That one wasn't rubbery and it was quite edible - just tasted disgustingly dry.
I'm 2/2 in massive fail. For this last night cook I sourced multiple recipes and websites that mention that for a meat like this 3-5 hours is ideal. And yet - I ended up with a rubber roast that had to be pressure cooked as if it were never roasted!
Any thoughts anyone has? Am I seriously that unlucky or did I technically mess something up? In which case the site's I referenced ....didn't do a great job at making technicalities known as I followed quite an agreeable consensus.....
I'm pretty much ready to give up and stop wasting money in the pursuit of this.
I'm a bit worn down at the moment from last night's disaster.
I'll keep it brief.
I bought a 3.125 lbs corned beef brisket point so 2lbs after brine solution is removed. I ended up desalinating in water for 24 hours - putting a rub on it - in the oven at 5 PM starting at 34 degrees F. By 8 PM it reached 160 F - By 9 PM 162 F and by midnight - 164 F. I pulled it out at this temperature - prodding all the areas with the thermometer probe to confirm.
A cake tester went in with no resistance (I'm not kidding...I'm sensitive to this). I then assumed "it's ready" and STEAMED it to 203.
Sliced it - took my first bite - ended up tasting like rubberized meat pellets. Not good. Literally felt like tiny rubber bands in my mouth..meat also looked ...very....tough and compacted little groups of muscle fibers on every slice against the grain. I realized it's bad.
Here are pics:
Going in for "slow roast"
(At 12:00AM)
Pulling with great force with my index and thumb away from each other. It wanted to "snap" back pretty bad. A lot of resistance to be stretched. See the circular pockets of meat? Imagine long meat cells that taste like rubber if i broke them apart and tried chewing on one.
I decided to put it in the pressure cooker (no hope). After 30 minutes at PSI of 15, it was still rubbery....after 1 hour...better but rubberish...after 1 hour 55 minutes (as most recipes say cooking brisket *FROM RAW*) - it was actually edible and tasted like meat with pleasing texture but of course - super waterlogged like stew meat and gross.
In both instances the cake tester went in the same and felt EXACTLY the same. My theory is the cake tester just went right through pores or little holes in the meat - probably a lot of fat created easy pockets for it to slide through despite it being awfully and disgustingly undercooked - which tells me that "touch" or "poking" is not an accurately consistent measure to when tough meats are actually done.
This is my 2nd epic failure with beef brisket.
My first massive failure was following a ChefSteps recipe of 9 day cured corned beef and then sous vide for 36 hours at ...I forget what temp but it was about 155 I think. That one wasn't rubbery and it was quite edible - just tasted disgustingly dry.
I'm 2/2 in massive fail. For this last night cook I sourced multiple recipes and websites that mention that for a meat like this 3-5 hours is ideal. And yet - I ended up with a rubber roast that had to be pressure cooked as if it were never roasted!
Any thoughts anyone has? Am I seriously that unlucky or did I technically mess something up? In which case the site's I referenced ....didn't do a great job at making technicalities known as I followed quite an agreeable consensus.....
I'm pretty much ready to give up and stop wasting money in the pursuit of this.