Yesterday I was at BJ's looking for brisket. The one's they had were all flats, but nicely sized at about 8#. Problem is I needed more than 8#, but not as much as 16#, plus I didn't feel like paying $3.69 per pound.
So I kept looking(BTW, shopping at BJ's before you eat dinner is a bad thing to do). I ended up buying a 12# Beef Bottom Round Flat for $2.19 a pound. I put it in my 008 at 8:30pm last night at 225* with Montreal Steak and Montreal Chicken seasoning on it, and about 6oz of hickory. I set my therm for 195*. Meat was at 48*. CS had been on for about 45 minutes heating up.
About 12:30, I looked at therm before going to bed and it was already at 156*. I went down and reinserted probe because I thought there must be something wrong. It still read about the same, and since I didn't want to get up at 3:00AM to remove this thing, I cut the CS temp back to about 210*.
Anyway, the therm went off at 7:15am. I didn't have to work today and didn't want to get up right then, so I reset therm to 205* and tried to go back to sleep. No luck. Oh well. Therm went off again at 8:10 and I went down and took out this new cut. Very nice eye appeal. Minimal shrinkage. Good bark. Seems tender to tongs, but the proof is in the cutting. I foiled it because I didn't need it until lunch and coolered it right away.
So at lunch, pulled this boy out and sliced. Awesome is all I can say. Super tender. Nicely moist and juicy. The smell alone would have made a grown man cry. I think it would have sliced a little better at 195*(and maybe been even moister), but thicker slices were the order of the day anyway because this stuff was good! I fed about 10 people, and they ate like pigs. You'd think they'd never seen food before. Served it with Stubbs Original sauce and au jus, plus the usual sides.
So the point of this long post is to ask: Has anyone else used this cut of meat before? If not you should. I'll never do another brisket again. Not only was this cut less expensive but it had just the righ amount of fat cap to keep it moist, but not so much that you pay for a bunch of fat that has to be scrapped off. Any thoughts or other suggestions for alternative cuts that might be over looked?
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