Proper Cooling

in Minnesota I believe we cant cool and reheat, why not serve it fresh?

How are ribs giving you the most difficulty? They are thin and easily cooled down. I would think slicing your brisket then slicing to cool and reheating would make it dried out.
To cool pork, I would pull it then cool it, it should reheat faster and not dry out as quickly with reheating. Brisket you can cut into quarters and separate the meat a little so it has space to cool. If you have a big enough freezer, ie walk-in, you could put your meat in there until it reaches 40, then put in cooler.

You can reheat in Minnesota, as long as proper cooling and reheating techniques are followed. Otherwise there wouldn't be any restaurants, bbq or otherwise.

FDA food code specifies the time frames to go from hot to cold for storage and the temps that it must be held at (below 41 F). Once you remove from cold to reheat or serve, you're allowed two hours or you must reheat to above 160F, IIRC. The rules from your local HD may vary, but the FDA code is a pretty good guide.

Its 2hrs from 135 to 70, then 4hrs from 70 to 41.

Having commercial refrigeration equipment is a must, home style fridge and freezers have a very low cooling rate and food will take way longer to hit a safe temp than I would want to deal with. also quality goes down hill the longer it takes to get there, airflow will pull moisture out of the foods pretty quick.

On the commercial side of things, check out blast chillers... but bring your your checkbook. You might be able to find one in the used market.

When I smoke my cook ahead briskets or ribs, I do a foil finish so there are juices in the pouches for reheating. I vent them to 155°, reseal and put into double zipper bags, then into an ice bath in a 120 quart cooler. Ribs get to <40° really fast, a 14# brisket might an hour but I leave them in for 80 to 90 minutes just to be safe.

Blast chiller is they way to go - but pricey.

One way to start is what I called my "Redneck Blast Chiller" I filled at large cooler with lots of ice and water, then took a pulled pork butt(s) (sometimes right out of the Cambro and still HOT) put the meat into a quart-sized Ziploc freezer bag and tossed it in. The meat cooled very quickly and went through the danger zone in no time flat, like under 20 minutes. You could also use vacuumed sealed bags if that what you sent leftovers home in.

This method would work for any of your catered meats. I did it at the end of every event that I stayed for and helped host. It gave me the piece of mind that the food wouldn't be stuffed in a fridge and not cooled properly and lead to sickness.

We have food safe plastic bags that will easily hold whole butts/briskets. We wrap them in foil during the cook, and then vent and put them in the plastic bags. In a cooler with an ice bath, and it gets them there pretty quick.

There is always crash cool in ice bath. Sealed of course. I've done it with brisket in a bind. It worked well.


Just my .02 and good luck.