So I am having a crawfish boil on Saturday 5-11 and I usually smoke a brisket and pork butt the night before for all the non-crawfish eaters. I am unable to do this the day before so I was wondering was the best course of action would be.

I am able to smoke them this Friday (8 days before) or Monday (6 days before). Do you think they would keep ok in the fridge or should I go ahead and freeze them? How would you re-heat? Thanks in advance for any tips.

In reply to WALTON LOADS! I'd vac seal em and just leave in the fridge/freezer till you need to serve em. You can reheat in a water bath if you have one of those sous vide dealios or just a big pot of almost boiling water.

Freezing is fine. I'd advise freeze whole, don't slice/pull.

Ideally, vac seal them. If not then do plastic wrap super tight, then foil.

If vac sealed and if you have the device, a sous vide circulator is literally perfect at reheating stuff like this.

If vac sealed but you don't have the sous vide, bring a pot of water to a boil and submerge it in the vac bag. Boil maybe 30 min or so, then cut the fire off. The hot water should carry it up to a decent temp. Maybe not serving ready but close.

If no vac seal, remove from plastic wrap and foil and put it on a rack in a pan with 1/2" of 50:50 water and beef stock in the bottom. Cover in foil tight and go in the oven at ~250*F. I'd say probably 2.5 hours from frozen but that'll vary depending on the size of the brisket/shoulder. Keep an eye on the liquid every half hour or so. Don't run dry. Keep liquid in it. Should come out fine, but your bark won't be super firm.

If you're even occasionally cooking for enough people that a crawfish boil requires both a brisket and a pork bucket to feed the picky, you definitely need to invest in a circulator. And you still have enough time to get one for this event.

Sous vide/immersion circulators, vacuum bagging, and big BBQ feeds without sufficient lead up time immediately before the event are made for one another.

Quickly thawing raw frozen food for other cooking methods and quickly reheating frozen BBQ for service are my primary uses for my circulator.

I preface this with I do a nice sized boil each year and have a big party so I know what it's like to do all the work!!

maybe I'm an exception here....but if you can smoke it on Monday it will be fine in the fridge till Saturday.

Just store in airtight ziplocs or tupperware to help keep from drying out. Leaving it in aluminum pan and covering with foil wouldn't work.

cooked stuff like that is fine in the fridge for 6 days.....isn't that why fridge was invented!?!?

no need to go thru hassle of freezing then reheating. IF you do go that route what I would think an easier way would be to freeze it but put in fridge to thaw on friday. Then on saturday reheat using the oven. Can heat it low and slow to not dry out.

Another idea, what I do for the non-crawfish people.....hot dogs....bring crawfish water to boil before spices dump in hot dogs and cook up....takes 2 minutes and then put into a chafing dish to keep warm