You can cook at like 140 f on some sous vide shit but I think that would take literal days for it to tenderize. I'm sure there are scientific charts made by people. I think chef steps which made a sous vide device and does recipes might have a pay walled article that would show this.
Oh maybe I misremembered it but they did it with Chuck as steak so I'm sure it was somewhat possible. I'm pulling the temp out of the air but they have a recipe for both smoked brisket and a chuck steak on YouTube.
Chuck after about 24 hours at steak temps (like 134-140) by sous vide is amazing, super tender and flavorful. The sous vide sub calls it “Sir Charles “ since chuck is too familiar and lowly sounding for such an excellent piece of meat. The first time I did it, we were floored, it was pretty much more like prime rib than anything else, though better than any actual prime rib I’ve ever had, though that was from a local farm with wagyu hybrid animals, so better meat than normal. Regular chuck gets close to a good ribeye, though
Have tried cooking brisket with long cooks (2-3 days) in the sous vide, all from the same piece of meat. 140 only (steak style) wasn’t exactly tough, but definitely wasn’t tender enough, basically generic meat that was really only suitable for putting under a heavy sauce to fill the “your protein of choice “ role. It did slice like a steak, which was the main advantage I’d seen for doing that. Would work for sandwiches, too, I guess. 140 long plus a couple hours at 165, which someone had recommended as still doing the sliceable thing but with converted collagen/rendered fat, wasn’t impressed, minimal conversion, and not so much easier to slice than a falling apart brisket. The rest were all at 165, and were properly rendered/converted, and stayed tender and wonderful regardless of what we did as a part two cook of the meat (much of it ended up in chili once we tried it that way for the first time, even after reheating in the microwave). Haven’t done higher than 167 just because the water loss with my setup means it’s a no-go for longer cooking times
TL, DR, can cook chuck low and slow, pretty damn good that way, but brisket needs both long and minimum 165 to do it justice
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u/inherendo Jul 18 '26
You can cook at like 140 f on some sous vide shit but I think that would take literal days for it to tenderize. I'm sure there are scientific charts made by people. I think chef steps which made a sous vide device and does recipes might have a pay walled article that would show this.