Some people have all the luck

Yeah sometimes ya gotta be lucky....


See what I found at Sam's for 2.48/lb...Prime Brisket

Bothe are great stories.

I bought 10# of burger last summer for $1.75/LB and made many a smoked meatloaf. And I bought seven big roasting chickens (as in 8 pounders) also last summer for $2.50 each. Those were my best smoker fodder scores ever!

My freezer and two smokers and my new Weber Summit gas grill (and almost everything else we own) is in a moving van on its way from Maine to Florida as this is written.

I sure am glad it is Thanksgiving time. I'm gonna just about fill that empty freezer with holiday priced turkeys..saving a little room for my first trip ever to Costco, and Restaurant Depot (using my KCBS membership), in Orlando.

Where does one go in Central Florida to get good deals on smoker ammo? There are cattle everywhere you look in Florida...must be some deals to be had somewhere?

Just looking at that photo of the prime brisket brought a question to my mind. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff. How exactly do they grade meat? How can they tell a big hunk of meat is prime, select or dogfood? Does a single carcass produce cuts with different grades?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Hey Cal they had a bunch of prime briskets at my Sam's this weekend as well, first time I've ever seen them sell prime briskets. If I wasn't already buying $200 worth of eye of rounds I'd have picked a few up. They looked pretty good.

Typically when beef is graded, it's done by the side. The forequarter is separated from the hindquarter between the 12th and 13th rib. USDA inspectors determine the grade using a number of factors - conformation, quality and marbling.

While I've never seen grading done on site, I'm guessing the sides of beef are rolling past the inspectors at a quick clip. Making the determination to stamp Prime, Choice or Select comes (I'm guessing) with years of experience. No doubt (I'm guessing again) what might pass for Prime, on the low end of the grade by one inspector, might pass for Choice by another. The same probably holds true with lower end Choice vs Select.

In any case, Cal found a nice brisket. You can see the abundant fat striations in the flat and point up by the nose. At $2.48 @ lb...it's a steal

That's good to hear Don, Sonja and I stopped at a different Sam's then we normally do. They had a SMALL section that said "prime". There were only two briskets, one looked nicer then the other, so I took it. What I'm really proud of is the pair of 20 oz boneless rib steaks that was marked down for "quick sale" at 11.02/lb. Man, I've never seen anything in person as well marbled as these.

If my normal Sam's doesn't carry prime, I'll return to this one. It's not much farther to drive.

Thanks for that description MaxQ. It's got to take quite a bit of experience to accurately, grade meat. I think we all appreciate that when done well.
-Grub