Sous Vide Smoked Brisket

We wanted something like slow-smoked corned beef brisket without the work, and this comes close. The effort is almost nothing, especially since you can prep everything months in advance; you just need a couple days notice before guests arrive.

We've done this a couple times with good successes, but without taking any notes. Well, dammit, we've done it again: almost no notes. This is the only evidence:

It's a 1.2 Kg brisket, cold smoked with the A-MAZE-N pellet tube we've written about before. We then rubbed it with a spice mix, then sealed it in a vac bag. We did several at the same time and then froze them until ready.  Then we cooked it sous vide, low and slow.

We heated a water bath to 57C/135F, then dropped the bagged brisket straight from the freezer, and left it for for a couple days -- well, 40 hours.

I'm really annoyed I didn't take pictures of the finished product. There was a fair amount of jus that came out of the bag which we used to moisten the meat on the platter. I sliced the meat thinly across the grain.

The meat had an deep red color not unlike corned beef. The fat was tender and provided a richness.  The meat itself could be a little more tender, but I wouldn't want to go so far as to make it "fall apart tender", I'm not looking for shredded beef here.  Maybe more of the fat would melt into the meat too.

So I could bump up the temperature, maybe 60C/140F, or give it another day.