Brisket prices

Hey,Bruce......There is brisket and there is brisket......There is demand and what the market will bear....Some of the "bronto briskets" can come off old bulls and dairy cows that are usually" pounded out" at auction or sold to be used for lean ground meat....It can then be sold in 50 lb. frozen blocks and mixed with available fat at the retail site.....A large chain might buy up the briskets and sell retail if they have a market.....The pork market works the same way....They will select out the ribs from old sausage sows,now that the price is high at retail.....If they are large enough,they might get a mix at an average price or they are being sold as loss leaders to get us into the stores.....If your local butcher has to order one special for you,he may have to buy a case and will pay wholesale and need to make his 30%-40% on the sale.Hope this helps a little.

Bruce, as Tom has said, there are brisket and there are brisket. Sometimes you can get a great deal; other times you pay through the nose. However, We've never seen Choice brisket near a buck in years. Are you sure this was not Select grade?

Many on the web have advised cooking with Select because we cook low and slow. We've had Select once in our lives, and that was enough for us.

From our perspective, it's bad enough that we have a very difficult time finding Prime steaks.

We buy Choice...and upgrade from there at a price to Angus Beef...for our briskets. You might give one a try, if you haven't already done so.

Regards, Mike

Hey,Bruce....Mike is sure right there....One thing you might try that works sometimes, if you have a Superwally in the area,is ask to see the meat manager -if they have briskets out for sale.....They get a mix in of mostly "bronto"/select briskets.....Because of their buying power ,wholesalers sometimes complete their orders with what is available to ship.....Thus,they also get cases of 9-11 lb. choice and they get mixed in ,because it is the same price code and profit %.....I praise him for his expertise and wait till he has time for me and usually he'll help select.....When I find some ,I buy several at $0.99/lb. He usually has access to nice 2 pk butts in cryovac that he will find for me, also.......Occasionally I cook up an extra butt or brisket,make up a jug of sauce and drop it off for him to share with the meat dept. Hope this helps some.

Find a good butcher, work a deal with him by cooking a brisket for him. Then you'll have a friend for live after the quality CS product and you can work a deal.

It's not where you live for brisket prices, it's who you know.

By the way, over the weekend Wal-Mart had Choice on sale for .49cents a pound.

Don't accept Select, it's not worth it. Also make sure the meat "flexes" when you try to bend it. If the brisket doesn't bend, it's probably from an old cow. If it bends easy, buy it.

Just Smokin' Okie

Tom, that is great knowlege to have about WallMart getting their orders filled in, etc. Thank you! We buy our butts there and shall check into the Choice briskets at a buck per lb because we''re paying close to $2.50 for Angus Choice.

Regards, Mike

Hey, Guys (a southern/northern hybred greeting, not quite "hey, Y'all" and still more removed from "hi, you guys!")
Anyway . . . dropped into the local Sam's Club figuring on browsin the pork butt and just happened to ask the counter girl if she had any whole fresh beef brisket . . . she walked out with two (one 9 1/2 # and one 12 #) still in the cryovac choice briskets for $1.19 a pound . . . expecting $2.00 + , I snapped 'em both up and would have taken more if they would have taken my flavor of plastic! I'm going back tomorrow with my check book and do some real damage! By the way, what is the freezer life of of these things once I get it home? With a Smokette, I figure that I'll be one-at-a-timing them and freezing a lot of vacuum packed cooked product as well.
(OH CRAP!! I just realized that my hometown is identified in my profile . . . now everybody is going to raid the place!)

Hey,Cog.....I don't know the max life of those briskets,but you can get an easy year. I've had them given to me to cook and split the proceeds that were 18 mos. and had no problems.Evetbody ate them and couldn't tell the difference.

Thanks Tom! That's very interesting info that has me contemplating the purchase of a larger freezer . . . kinda reminds me of the old joke about the guy who buys a $600 chainsaw, a $20,000 pickup truck to haul his wood and 10 cords of wood at $180 dollars a cord . . . so he can 'save' $100 dollars a month on his heating bill!
The Smokette (too small, am contemplating a 50 or even a 150), spices, thermometers (that can be read from outer space with a thermal imaging device, of course)a vacuum sealer,new coolers, . . . the list goes on, and now the freezer! Sam's is going to have to start paying me to take their brisket so that I can continue to support the various allied industries!
I know that it can be done with less, but I do love my toys! But I guess that's why this is a hobby for me instead of a business!

A good rule of thumb is pick the size you can get by with and then go up 2 sizes.
don't look at price,the extra $100.00 will pay off in the long run trust me.
I buy briskets 10 at a time and for big events the cookshack and 3 day you can have them done I cook 3 at a time then they go into foil and straight in to the freezer,until the weekend..

Well, I got some good news today. I talked to a guy I know who's a salesman for a meat wholesaler here in Minneapolis. He said he could sell me a 60 pound case of choice brisquet for $1.29 per pound. Since I've got the freezer space, and since I also enjoy curing my own corned beef, I've decided to take him up on it.
Bruce

Bruce,
Good deal! However, I still don't understand how National Beef briskets (out of Kansas City, Mo.) is selling for $1.19 a pound down here in Georgia. I might think that it was a loss leader item by Sam's Club except it wasn't advertised and, given the fairly low demand for whole fresh brisket, it don't make a whole lot of sense to me! I did go back today to stock up and the butcher brought out two whole cases ond one partial . . . not a brisket under 17 pounds in the lot! Grrrrr! I will keep checking though . . . you bet'cha, yah!

Bruce, what size are those Choice briskets? We can't get remotely close to your price in St. Louis, buying by the 70 lb case (7 x 10lbs each). If they're 8-12 lbs each, you've got an outstanding deal.

Regards, Mike

Bruce, I live near a Neighborhood Walmart, a small WallyWorld in my subdivision. Same prices as the SuperWalmart. I check the briskets, they carry flats and untrimed briskets (with the point attached),and they run about $1.50 lb., look at the date, my store will throw them out the morning of the date so I go in the evening before and they usually already have them reduced 30% and I talk to the manager and ask if they will reduce another 20% because you're going to throw them out anyway, and they usually do. It's a win/win situation, I get the meat half price and they make a sale on something they're throwing away. I've also done it on ribs and butts, eapecially if you buy all they got. Hope this helps.

Vic