Cooking Brisket in a Restaurant.

OOMPDADDY said:

Thanks for the reply. So at your restaurants you use a southern pride or ole hickory? You like the product just as if you were smoking on a offset?

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Southern Prides. I've owned 4 of them so far. I also used a nice Sherley offset alongside the SPs at my original location. If you use a southern pride correctly, and use the same wood you're using in say a big offset, the end result is almost indistinguishable. On busy days I'd be serving brisket (and other meats) that come off the offset and SP and you really couldn't tell which was made on which.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people making bad BBQ on rotisserie machines. Just like there are a lot of people making bad BBQ on old stick burners. So you still need to know what you're doing to some extent. But the beauty is you don't have to tend to a fire (oro hire someone you trust and have high labor costs) constantly.

If you have the space at your location to run offset pits, and you don't mind working the pits all day everyday yourself, or have the money to hire someone who can cook your level of BBQ for you, then that's certainly a good way to go. But if you want to do volume, or don't have the space that regular pits require (don't forget wood storage space), investing $15-20k in a commercial smoker will ultimately save you a lot of time and/or labor, save you a ton of space, and if done right, produce very consistent product.

There's no right or wrong answer, it just depends on what you want to do, what your physical location limitations are, and making the best of it.

For example, I'm now right downtown at this location and there's just no room for the Shirley or other pits at the restaurant. So, we built a platform and hoisted an SPK500 up on it at the back of the kitchen. Have to work with what ya got.

OOMPDADDY said:

This is helpful. When you say they are pulling briskets at 1 am how are they holding them for 12 hours? Can a cvap or alto shaam really hold food for that long safely? Do you have a BBQ joint that you do this in?

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I use CVAPs for holding our meats. They work wonders and I have held meat that long in them (big cuts anyway). But you have to be careful because local health departments differ. In some cases they say hot food can only be held for 4 hours before being tossed. Granted, many places may skirt rules like this when it comes to BBQ, but if you have a strict health department, or a stickler inspector, they may nail you on it.

In my case, I load the smoker with brisket/butts at around 6pm every evening and they cook until about 8am the next morning. When I get in I pull the brisket and butt and reload with ribs/chicken/tips/sausage/etc. which cook in time to be done by lunch service at 11am. Then the smoker is used from 11-6 to continue to cook the shorter timed meats.

OOMPDADDY said:

This is helpful. When you say they are pulling briskets at 1 am how are they holding them for 12 hours? Can a cvap or alto shaam really hold food for that long safely? Do you have a BBQ joint that you do this in?

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Franklins takes the briskets off the smoker and allows them to cool down for an hour or so until they get down to probably 150-160 degrees and then puts them still wrapped in the butcher paper into a holding cabinet set at 145 degrees. They have two Vulcan cabinets behind the counter that they pull from for service. Not sure if there are more in back but he has said he uses Cvaps or Alto Shamms in interviews. And yes they will hold for 12+ hours. The Cvaps have a humidity control on them and thats what I use. They can keep food crispy or moist depending on the setting. I dont have a brick and mortar, I am just starting out and doing pop ups, events and catering a few days a month. So I will cook the brisket and pulled pork the day before and put the brisket and pork in the Cvap overnight to hold until I transport it to the event.

marubozo said:

I use CVAPs for holding our meats. They work wonders and I have held meat that long in them (big cuts anyway). But you have to be careful because local health departments differ. In some cases they say hot food can only be held for 4 hours before being tossed. Granted, many places may skirt rules like this when it comes to BBQ, but if you have a strict health department, or a stickler inspector, they may nail you on it.

In my case, I load the smoker with brisket/butts at around 6pm every evening and they cook until about 8am the next morning. When I get in I pull the brisket and butt and reload with ribs/chicken/tips/sausage/etc. which cook in time to be done by lunch service at 11am. Then the smoker is used from 11-6 to continue to cook the shorter timed meats.

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Just out of curiosity, How would they know if you held it at 4 or 12 hours? Would they seriously sit there and wait 4 + hours just to nail you on technicality? And unless nobody tended to it, how would they know if you pulled some out at 4 hours or put some in?

SmokeRingsMatter said:

Just out of curiosity, How would they know if you held it at 4 or 12 hours? Would they seriously sit there and wait 4 + hours just to nail you on technicality? And unless nobody tended to it, how would they know if you pulled some out at 4 hours or put some in?

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Inspectors are generally smart people, many of whom have been in the industry before they got into this. If they know you're using one smoker and are cooking some meats for 12+ hours, they know that if you're serving brisket when you open at 11am and also at 8pm, and there's no brisket being cooked on your smoker during the day and it's full of other meats, it isn't hard to put two and two together.

I've met some who even required keeping logs for all the holding boxes recording what time meats were loaded, what temps they were at, when they were discarded, and all that.

But like I said, every jurisdiction is different, every inspector is different, and in some cases it isn't an issue at all. But you just have to prepare for the fact that they could really stick to hard and fast rules.

marubozo said:

Inspectors are generally smart people, many of whom have been in the industry before they got into this. If they know you're using one smoker and are cooking some meats for 12+ hours, they know that if you're serving brisket when you open at 11am and also at 8pm, and there's no brisket being cooked on your smoker during the day and it's full of other meats, it isn't hard to put two and two together.

I've met some who even required keeping logs for all the holding boxes recording what time meats were loaded, what temps they were at, when they were discarded, and all that.

But like I said, every jurisdiction is different, every inspector is different, and in some cases it isn't an issue at all. But you just have to prepare for the fact that they could really stick to hard and fast rules.

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Ok, maybe you have a shorter window since you open at lunch time. I was thinking more of a breakfast, lunch, and dinner restaurant.

OOMPDADDY said:

Thanks man. This is helpful. Do you have a BBQ joint?

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I'm running a BBQ food trailer business right now, but I might end up opening a restaurant in the future.

Very interesting, I've wondered how bbq restaurants held their meet for so long.

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marubozo said:

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I bought and moved an Ole Hickory EL-EW last month. I'd love to know what it took to get that cooker on this raised deck. I'm guessing a crane, those things are unbelievably heavy.

HBMTN said:

I bought and moved an Ole Hickory EL-EW last month. I'd love to know what it took to get that cooker on this raised deck. I'm guessing a crane, those things are unbelievably heavy.

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I don't know what you call it exactly, but it was like a fork lift on a front end loader kind of machine.

Best tpic and conversation on here in a long time. WELL DONE!

marubozo said:

I don't know what you call it exactly, but it was like a fork lift on a front end loader kind of machine.

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A Lull?

marubozo said:

You'll need $$$ but a southern pride or Ole Hickory or similar type smoker. I've been using them for 7 years now, and I cook brisket 14 hours overnight. You still get to use real wood, but you don't have to fuss with it every half hour all night long.

When I was between my two restaurants I got hired as executive chef at a place that wanted to start doing BBQ and their solution for brisket was to cook at 275 for about 5 hours and then finish in the oven rather than spend money on a good smoker. It was awful and needless to say I left there quickly.

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Some call a Ole Hickory or Southern Pride smoker a oven. I don't agree.

kynmo2010 said:

A Lull?

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X2

Look into our Big M Smokers.

All wood burning - thermostat controlled smokers. NO GAS

You get authentic bbq and can do overnight cooks with no pitmaster. You can run the Big M all day like a stick burner and load it up with wood or charcoal for long overnight cooks.

We build single door 9' versions all the way up to 4 door 15' versions.

https://mgrills.com/collections/commercial-smokers/products/magee-395-smoker?variant=29404984246341

OOMPDADDY said:

Hello,

I have been doing research on opening my own BBQ joint and I have a specific question about cooking. I want to do Kraft BBQ where you can smell the smoke and cooking from down the street. What are some of the best processes for cooking brisket where you don’t have to be up all night or hire someone to man the pit from 10 pm till 7 am? Is there a way to cook Brisket’s in the pit in the afternoon till close and then finish them in some kind of oven that will cook slow till the morning and hold with preserving a good bark? Is the only option to hire someone to cook overnight? I know there are some local BBQ spots in town but you can’t smell the BBQ I’m guessing them have electric smokers they let go over night but they don’t produce a great bark or smoke ring... Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks, Matt

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SmokeRingsMatter said:

Just out of curiosity, How would they know if you held it at 4 or 12 hours? Would they seriously sit there and wait 4 + hours just to nail you on technicality? And unless nobody tended to it, how would they know if you pulled some out at 4 hours or put some in?

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Its not a "technicality", its called food safety. Holding food above 135F slows the rate of bacterial growth, it doesnt stop it. Its been shown that within 4hrs, bacterial growth is to the point of being unsafe. They may not wait out 4hrs to see how long you are holding food, but if people start calling in about getting sick to the HD, they will probably come asking for your time and temp logs for holding food, both hot and cold.