Which Brisket

See what you can get from the bigger town.

A case,will typically be 5,or maybe six, packers.

Weight 55-65 lbs.

Price should be under $2/lb.

In a dedicated refrig,at 33º-36º, they will hold up to around 8 weeks from kill/pack date.

They will freeze one to two years.

Comp cooks will cold age them 5-8 wks,and many like to freeze them,as part of the aging process.

Wallyworld gets select,but also may get choice-same price.

Go thru them ,everytime you pass by,and sort thru to see what looks better than the rest.

When they get close to date,they'll mark down to under $1/lb.

Buy some,and learn to cook them.

Sort thru Kroger,and hope you get lucky.

Hope this helps a little.

The speed of the grading process is far from precise.

Just an addendum to Tom's comments. When he speaks of freezing a raw brisket, he is speaking of freezing them in a dedicated deep freezer. Since deep freezers go through very few or no defrost cycles, the formation of ice crystals in the meat is decreased. And when it is decreased, the length of time they can be kept frozen is lengthened.

Yep, just don't ask how I know how expensive that can be.

Remember that Select is a portion of the cow being graded Select. Some of the best briskets I have done have been select but the yielded the best results.

I recently picked up several select whole packers that were 11 - 13 pnds. Usually I will have a hard time fitting these in my 009 due to width. However, these had such thick flats they were not as wide as many I have seen in the same weight range. Smoked my first one this weeekend, 11pnds, 225, 18.5 hours to get it to 190, yes 18.5 hours. It was great, the point meat lean (for a point) and very very good. The flat sliced big nice 2" slices.

On the other hand I have seen many choice packers where the flat side ranges from 1/4 inch to 1 1/2 inches on the same brisket.

I have learned to look for the best brisket regardless of grading and have been very happy with my results.

Like we said.

Sort,pick,and save.

If wally has a case out front,and two cases in the back-ask to see them.

If Sam's has six cases,build your relationship and sort them all.

We have 2,or 3 teams ,south of us that are top brisket teams and buy all from wallyworld.

Probably the only beef/pork in the store that is not injected with salt water.

You have to want to be a brisket cook,and you have to work to get the keepers.

on the ones that have the very thin portions of the flats I have done those anyway and saved those thin pieces to be added to beans!

On the freezer note, an inexpensive option might be a very small chest freezer. I bought a small 5 cu. ft. one at Sams Club for $145. It's a manual defrost (do it yourself). It's not opened often, maybe once or twice a week and after months of use only has a thin layer of frost. It'll get 10 below no problem.

Another important question is what do you intend to do with the brisket.

If you are traveling 2000 miles round trip,with a 40 ft trailer,several people on the team,spending 5 days at the cookoff,expenses in the thousands,all this can be very critical.

If you are getting one to cook at the house,buy the best available/closest packer-cook and eat it.

Thanks guys,

I'm sorry I guess I should have said it's just for me....

Cook eat and freeze, but now with the FEC I'm getting pretty choosy as there are fewer things to blame for a bad product....

As a side note I made the 125 mile trip down to Denver yesterday and checked out several stores.
1. Super thin flats with no fat cap.
2. Brisket? Sure we have corned beef....
3. Major National Fufoo chain (I just can't identify). Brisket sure look at this (super trimmed flat)... What grade? Why Select of course, less fat and better taste!

Well that was educational

Guess I'll just look over things locally and continue to ask where to go in the city......

Find a butcher or talk to the butcher in any meat market (store) ask them where to buy whole packers.

Find a restaurant closer than the big city, find out what food wholesaler supplies them.

I go to my local food supplier (US Foods, etc) and go to the walk up window and buy a case of brisket at a time. Call the Food wholesalers in Denver before you go and ask them.

Still a rookie, but I did try one of the choice flats from Costco recently and I thought that it turned out pretty good. Not dry, not a whole lot different from the flat section of the whole choice brisket that I had done earlier. I was able to find a flat that was relatively even in thickness and smoking it to 185F worked out well.

One caveat, though, was that the flat was bought from one of the Costco Business Centers and it was the whole flat with the fat in cryovac. The local Costco had only trimmed choice flats in packages, not cryovacs.

Tom, can you shed some light on how comp cooks cold age the brisket for 5-8 weeks?

Most of us try to use a dedicated refrig,so it isn't opened a lot,and stays around 34*.

Make sure you have no leaks in the cryovac and toss it in.

Most try to get at least 30 days,60 days would not be unusual.

Some teams have been known to hold up to 80 days.

Some of the Tx teams, that teach,believe in the "at least a week frozen",to facilitate breakdown.

I believe they use at least a couple weeks aged in the refrig-maybe four.

Check the kill/pack date on the cardboard case,so you know what you are actually working with.

Some highend meat purveyers will ship to you with the requested weeks on it,so you aren't storing briskets.

Hope this helps a little.

gamer,
I just read a article that might help"Wet Aging". Hope that was what you was looking for.

Thanks Tom and Cal.

I read some article on refrigerator aging and one mentions wrapping the meat in towels and changing out daily. That sounds quite a bit different though from keeping it in the cryovac and letting it sit for 30-60 days (at the mentioned temp.) The suggested method sounds much easier I might add.

What all types of meat do you age in this fashion? Just brisket?

Thanks again for the help.

For me, beef is the only comp meat that I will age. When it comes to pork and chicken, I want them at their freshest possible.

Ribdog knows stuff.

If you want to get into dry aging,Smokin' Okie is the best one to guide you,if you REALLY,REALLY think that is where you wish to go.

That can be many moons,many hundreds of dollars,and a long way from being a smoker of most meats.

The FIND, at page top,can probably start you on this year's journey.

Let us know how you wound up the journey,and if it would have been cheaper,just to fly to a NY steak house,handed them your gold card,and said"sock it to me".

Have fun.

Tom, can you point me to information on how to age brisket in the refrigerator for up to the 8 weeks you mention?

gamer, I think they call it "dry aging". I know I reada thread in one of the beek sections.

quote:

Originally posted by cal:
gamer, I think they call it "dry aging". I know I reada thread in one of the beek sections.

No, he is talking about wet aging. He pretty much gives the details a few answers up in this thread. Leave meat in cryovac, in cold fridge.

Dry aging is a completely different animal and is usually done on fattier pieces of meat. But it is best left to professional meat processors, although some, myself included, have tried the dry bag process. Search for "dry bag" to see.

I've actually read quite a bit about dry aging and a friend of mine owns a steak house where he dry ages US Prime and Wyagu steaks.

But, I'm just looking to do BBQ Brisket and although I had read about wet (and dry) aging before, I had never heard of simply leaving it in the cryovac in the refrigerator for 8 weeks. I'm ALL about making it simple and am very interested in the process mentioned. Is it really that simple? Do you just leave it in the wrap and then remove to BBQ (or do you trim the outside like in dry aging for example, or something else)?

I ask because to obtain US Prime Brisket I have to order it by the case where I live and that means up to 90 lbs of meat. My main concern was what to do with what I don't BBQ in a few days. But, if I can actually keep it in a dedicated refrigerator for 8 weeks then I won't have a problem as I can BBQ that much easily over 8 weeks; hence, me asking.

I would appreciate some insight into this method (details.) If I'm going to order 90 lbs of brisket it would be nice if I didn't have to smoke it all in a few days and potentially waste it.

Thanks for your help.

When I purchase a case of briskets, I check over each brisket separately to see if the cryovac is still tight and no leaks are found. If there is a leak, the brisket either gets smoked immediately or gets frozen for later use in a stand-alone deep freezer.

The briskets with good cryovacs go into a refrigerator that does not get used much. And the briskets go on the bottom shelf in the fridge. Plus I keep a remote fridge thermometer on that fridge to make sure the temp stays at 34* give or take a degree. Then after 4-5 weeks, I either smoke or freeze those briskets.

Keep in mind that I have no problem putting a brisket in a deep freezer. Some might out there. But I have cooked previously frozen briskets at comps and done very well with them.

Hope this helps.

Wet aging really is as simple as leaving the meat in the cryovac for a period of time. Tom and others have mentioned knowing the actual "kill" date so that you don't run way too long. The KD will be printed on the case.

A dedicated fridge that sees little use helps keep temps low and constant, but isn't absolutely necessary. For smaller cuts I use my produce drawer.

There is no trimming required of the aged meat, other than what you would normally do to remove unwanted fat. I used to buy meat for a national steak house chain and we wet aged our meat for 35 days from time of delivery exactly as described. And I've let some of my personal meat go 10 weeks w/o a problem.

Thank you for the great information. I'm off to order a case of briskets now.

gamer,

Good luck, and keep us posted on what you think,because I might be interested if you can tell difference in meat quality. Beef has always been my favorite and I like some others believe if its treated correct you don't have to hide its flavor.

quote:

Originally posted by cal:
gamer,

Good luck, and keep us posted on what you think,because I might be interested if you can tell difference in meat quality. Beef has always been my favorite and I like some others believe if its treated correct you don't have to hide its flavor.

Will do. They can't order the case until Monday but I'll let you all know how it turns out when I get it in and when I smoke it.