My cousin from Austin swore by a 3 hour rest for brisket, but I tried it and it was cold

He said wrapping it in a cooler for that long was the key to being super tender, so I did it with my last one. The meat was tough and barely warm when we cut into it, which was a total letdown. Do you think a shorter rest with a heated cooler is better, or was my method just wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

davidh9017d ago

That cooler needs to be preheated like an oven, man. I throw in a couple quarts of boiling water, close it for 30 minutes, then dump it out right before the brisket goes in. Just a towel on the bottom. If the cooler is cold, it sucks all the heat from your meat and stops the carryover cooking. Your cousin's three hours only works if the cooler is already a hot box.

averywalker18d ago

Yeah, my last brisket rest was a disaster too. Felt like I was serving leather. Maybe the cooler wasn't hot enough to start with.