(sous vide, pressure cooker) (brisket, pork shoulder) pick one from each and smoke?

I bought my wife an Instant Pot pressure cooker a couple of years ago (before they were a fad!) and we use it regularly. I bought an Anova Sous Vide cooker about six months ago and we like that too.

Maybe a year ago I did a pork shoulder in the pressure cooker; IIRC it took an hour. Pulled it, added vinegar finishing sauce, and it was quite good though no smoke, of course.

The pressure cooker and the sous vide gadget both offer the opportunity to cook good tender meat without all the hassle of monitoring on a smoker, thermometers, foil, etc.

So it seems logical to try for a hybrid recipe that involves smoking the meat before or after cooking it with one of the electrical gadgets. This can't be a new idea. Have any of you tried this? Tips? Warnings?

Bubblehead said:

I use my sous vide to complete BBQ cooks quite regularly. So much that friends have started calling it "aqua-que". It's takes a few times to figure our how you like the finished product but it's worth the time to figure out.

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Glad to hear. Can you give me some details? Type of meat, sous vide before or after smoke? Temp?

I'm especially interested in brisket, where I'd like to sous vide long enough to make it tender without having to take it to 205deg or go through all the probing. Hard to probe a sous vide bag.

Seems like smoking after sous vide would make the most sense. Maybe even be able refrigerate after sous vide if necessary, then warm up in the smoke? Or if its warm/straight from the water bath it seems like the smoke would diffuse into the meat faster -- less time needed.

WareZdaBeef said:

... once you go this route, theres no turning back unless you want all your foods to smell smoked. ...

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The thick silicone lid seal is known to pick up flavors. Some people have two or more seals, like one for fish and one for dead mammal. We have not tried this.

When you say that the smoke flavor stays, are you using a different seal ring for smoked foods? It doesn't seem like the stainless would hold flavors but there are a few nooks and crannies in the lid. Do you think that's a factor?

Actually what I am thinking about trying is to smoke a shoulder or part of a shoulder for a few hours, then to pressure cook it for maybe an hour. We did pressure cook an unsmoked piece of shoulder for 45 minutes and it was quite good and did pull ok, but wasn't totally falling apart. If I do try this, I guess I'll have to buy a second lid seal or maybe even two.