dear fellow cooking scientists,
Does the speed at which meat is rested at change the amount of juice going back into the meat?
background: getting into smoking meat (using GE indoor smoker) and all the smoking lore guru's indicate a long slow rest is necessary but I'm not convinced yet.
re-read this but didnt get a solid idea: https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-have-juicy-meats-steaks-the-food-lab-the-importance-of-resting-grilling
by wahooza
3 Comments
Ok so this is far more complicated than it appears on the surface.
When you rest meat, you have what’s called carryover temp. This is excess energy from your cooker that is not fully absorbed into the meat. Generally speaking, larger cuts of meat and higher temps have more “carryover”. For example, if you cook a rib roast at 350f, you will want to pull it around 120-125f. Lightly tent with foil and it will “carryover” up to around 135f over a 10-15 minute period.
Whereas that same roast, cooked low and slow at 225f, if you pull it off the cooker at 200f it will carryover only to 203-204f.
Smaller pieces of meat carryover less.
So aside from that, think of most meats as lots and lots of tiny tubes. These tubes are full of moisture. If you pull meat directly off a cooker and slice it open, the tubes dump the juice all over the plate. If you let the meat rest, the juice has time to soak “out” of the tubes and is retained by the protein etc in the meat.
It is important. It is noticeable if you remove a steak/ribs/roast from a cooker and just cut into it, juices just gush out. Versus when you let it rest a bit, it noticeable retains more juice and is more tender.
I’ve found it’s particularly important with large pieces of meat that are cooked low and slow. Things like brisket, with a proper long rest in a faux cambro, does amazing amazing things to the texture of the meat. Vs yanking a brisket off the cooker, letting it sit 5 minutes and slicing it open.
“Resting” a brisket is a totally different process from “resting” a steak. Don’t equate them.
Resting a brisket has nothing to do with locking in the juices or anything like that.
You need to understand what you’re trying to do when you smoke a brisket. Yes, you’re giving it nice smokey flavor, you’re forming a flavorful bark, but first and foremost, you’re taking a tough cut of meat that’s full of connective tissue made of collagen, and you’re turning that tough collagen into silky soft gelatin.
The reaction that converts collagen into gelatin occurs most at temperatures above 160°. It still happens at slightly lower temperatures, but not fast enough to matter much. But even above 160°, that chemical reaction takes **time**. Lots of time.
The key to making a good brisket is to keep it above 160° for as long as you can without drying it out. One way to make sure that happens is to bring it up to tenderness slowly. That’s the whole philosophy with low and slow BBQ.
But another important tool in the smoker’s tool kit is simply the opposite scenario, bringing it back down to temperature slowly as well. That’s where the long rest comes in. The time spent coming from 203° back down to 160° is doing **just as much work** as the time spent going from 160° to 203° in the first place.
A long rest isn’t always **necessary**. If you did your brisket REALLY low and slow, and you’re a complete pit master, sure maybe you’ve already converted enough of that collagen into gelatin that the rest time isn’t going to make much of a difference.
But conditions are always different. Sometimes the cut is a little thinner than usual and comes up to temp too fast. Sometimes the air is a little bit dryer and all these reactions happen more slowly. Sometimes you let the temperature get a little too high and it cooks too fast. Some people live at altitudes where the lower air pressure means you can’t get your brisket to 203°. These are all scenarios where a long rest is invaluable. The long rest will take all the variance out of your cooks and make sure that they always turn out perfectly tender, with no risk of overcooking the meat.
Resting down to 140° in a cooler for as long as possible is good. Doing a heated rest at 150° to 160° in a warmer or oven for up to 12 to 16 hours is even better.
Sometimes a heated rest isn’t necessary, but I guarantee you it will always improve your finished product, and it will never hurt.
Heated rests are also an incredibly good way to ensure that your BBQ is done when you actually want to eat it. Every novice smoker has had that awful feeling when they realize they’ve been smoking something all damn day and it’s still not going to be ready until midnight. With a heated rest, you can smoke that brisket the day before and hold it at temperature until whenever you’re ready to eat it the next day, and the only thing that’s going to happen is it’s going to get juicer and more tender.
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