72-hour Sous Vide Brisket - Cooked Medium Rare

With this Instructable we've produced a video recipe (embedded in the next step) and we're also broken down the stages for you in text too, feel free to use both or whichever you find easiest to follow.

Firstly, we're cooking with a Sous Vide Water Bath, if you're not sure what this type of cooking is (wrongly referred to as boil in the bag by some) check step 2 where we give a little background

We're cooking with brisket but this would work for a lot of other tough cuts of steak such as chuck, short rib etc.

Step 1: VIDEO RECIPE

Watch the full video recipe method here!

Step 2: Understanding Sous Vide

Sous Vide is french for "under vacuum" which means your meat. vegetable, fruit etc is placed in a food-safe vacuum pack and totally sealed, then placed in a water bath of an exact and continuous temperature. The food will never cook above the temperature set, so whilst cooking can take longer, it is hands-free cooking and you can't really overdue your food. Temperature affects colour (steak, medium-rare to medium for example) and Time effects tenderness (the longer in the bath the more the proteins break down).

The machine we are using is the Burton Sous Vide: www.burtonsousvide.co.uk

In the next few stages we're going to take a very tough, hard working piece of muscle from the cow - the Brisket, and immerse in the water bath and leave for 3 whole days, unattended. So slowly those fibres break down and we go from very tough to nice and tender - and thanks to low temperature cooking, we'll never creep over a medium rare finish.... Are you READY?!!

Step 3: Sous Vide Cooking the Brisket

We're setting our Sous Vide water bath @ 55C / 131F

The brisket is sprinkled lightly with sea salt, some rosemary is added to help flavour the outer layer of the meat and the purge (the juices that are released throughout the cook) which makes an amazing au jus/gravy.

The beef is then shrink wrapped and ready to go. Tip: Put it in on a Thursday morning for a Sunday Afternoon roast!

Step 4: The Sear

Well, that was quite a wait....!

The meat is now perfectly cooked and tender throughout, however it's not ready to serve.

Everyone loves a seared crust on their beef and this is one area Sous Vide can't do, so it's over to the traditional HOT cast iron pan.

As you can see from the 1st picture, the meat looks a little drab & wet and we want a nice crust, so dry the outer layer with paper towels and then heat up your heaviest frying pan.

Get the pan smoking hot, add some more seasoning and a little oil to your beef then SEAR it all over (keep turning the meat so you only cook the crust not through to the lovely pink meat).

When you've seared the entire joint, take it out of the pan and put it on a chopping board (no need to rest like oven cooked beef, as the meat has never gone above the desired temps)...

Step 5: Carve, Serve and Enjoy!

Hopefully you've had your potatoes and other sides cooking away in the meantime (hey you had enough time to prepare them).

When they are ready carve the beef brisket and place on the table/plates to serve. Then sit back and watch your guests marvel over the wonderful tasty meal you're provided.

Thanks for viewing!!