Sous vide + smoked brisket

I didn't get a pic of it in the sous vide ☹️

I've been craving brisket since moving last year. At the old place I had a big offset smoker, but it was 1 or 2 seasons from retiring so I couldn't justify the space it would take up when moving across the country. I bought a 22" SnS kettle grill shortly after the move and it works great for ribs, but can't handle a whole brisket. Then, a few weeks ago maybe I saw a post on here about doing brisket in a sous vide what a great idea!

So I cut my brisket into 4 pieces, seasoned them, bagged them up, and ran them at 155 for 36 hours. Then I took them out, seasoned again, and threw them on the smoker until 205 internal. The results were seriously impressive for the amount of work I saved. I'm all about finding the easiest way to get the results I want and this definitely beats tending a fire for 24+ hours. No more dealing with the stall, no more waking up at 4am to add wood, and all of the fat was perfectly rendered!

And I saved all the juices from the bags, removed the fat, and ran it all through a fine mesh strainer – now I've got an excellent base for French onion soup later this week.

A couple of things I learned from this experience:

1. Make sure the bags are sealed well! My vacuum sealer is on its last leg and I missed a weak seal on one of the 4 bags – came downstairs to check and the house smelled like beef soup!

2. I missed that pink smoke ring. Next time I'll run them in the smoker for 3-4h first to get the ring before sealing in bags.

3. Work faster to get them on the grill. I didn't have the grill ready when they came out of the sous vide and internal temp dropped to 130 before I got them smoking so it took longer to reach target temp.

4. Make sure the dogs are securely put away when transferring between sous vide and grill. Bastards got loose while I was starting the grill and stole the TWO CENTER CUTS!