Forget the Towel: Try The Rest EZ BBQ Blanket For Holding Your Next Brisket
Holding ovens are common in restaurant kitchens. As the name indicates, they are designed to hold cooked foods from the time they’re done to when the waiter brings them to your table, looking, smelling and tasting fresh as ever. These ovens are essential for large roasts in a commercial setting, but unnecessary for most home cooking—with one notable exception: low and slow smoked, backyard barbecue.
AmazingRibs.com readers and members of our Pitmaster Club know that the value of bundling up your smoked meat: wrapping a brisket or pork butt in foil and then in thick towels or a moving blanket for one to four hours helps tenderize the meat by allowing some carryover cooking which melts tough connective tissue. A faux cambro, typically a large cooler, is frequently used to maintain heat and extend holding time.
Rest EZ’s BBQ Blanket takes the place of your towels. Tailor-made for holding smoked meat in the manner described above, it’s composed of recycled, stain-resistant PET material with a durable exterior shell and heat-reflective interior lining. It comes in your choice of black, khaki or green colors. Dimensions are 21.25 inches L x 16 inches W x 8 inches H.
Let’s get down to business and rest!
Our whole packer brisket was hot off the smoker and probe tender at 205°F, double wrapped in foil and placed on a serving tray to catch any leaks. Drip EZ states their blanket is, “Designed to handle even the largest cuts, the wide-mouth opening and heavy-duty zipper make loading easy, while the heat-reflective interior ensures consistent resting from edge to center.”
Into our faux cambo, aka cooler, it went. We enjoyed not having to fiddle with a big old fluffy movers blanket that took up the whole cooler. But we wondered if the relatively small and thin Rest EZ would be as effective?
After 4 hours, we opened the lid and were greeted with a cloud of steam. Our juicy brisket temp was 145°F. Magnifique!
Conclusion
If you already have a faux cambro and moving blanket and think you don’t need the Rest EZ BBQ Blanket, you may be right. But if you had one, I bet you’d like it. And if you don’t have a holding set up, Rest EZ costs more, but no one’s handing out free moving blankets and this bespoke product is nice, neat, effective, and custom made for your smoked meat. We Give the Rest EZ BBQ Blanket our AmazingRibs Best Value Gold Medal.
Drip EZ took poetic license naming their blanket. It’s actually meant for holding meats, not resting them. Want to know the difference? Read Meathead’s extensive treatise, “Resting Meat: Why I Think It Is A Mistake, And Why I think Holding Some Meat Is A Good Idea“
We thank Drip EZ for providing a blanket for this review.
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