Brisket, how many days in the bag?

[Scott Mark]

carne wrote:

quote :

Good luck with your new Costco. I hope they will carry the prime grade beef for you. Not all Costco’s are the same. Mine doesn’t carry it. I get prime grade meat from a local butcher shop.

There are five Costco stores within 12 miles of me. The one I go to is 3 miles away. It is the biggest and busiest Costco in my area. There will usually (70% of the time) be prime grade whole tenderloin available, but that is a cut I’m not interested in dry aging. All other beef they sell is choice grade. A couple times a year around major holidays they will get some prime grade ribeye or NY strip loin in.

I just got a Sam’s Club membership, so I haven’t figured out what grades of meat they are carrying. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some prime grade beef. The three inch thick Angus brisket flat I got there a few weeks ago made an awesome pastrami.

I’m just now beginning to learn about CostCo. My neighbor says that this one sells prime beef, so I’m going to plan a trip up — if this one has prime I might join. If they don’t — thanks for the visit, not much point in memberfying.

This will be the closest CostCot to me — 40 minutes by car, and I’m guessing they won’t have a helipad. I’ve got a Sam’s Club (choice, not prime) much closer, so it’s going to be a bit of an issue (and, yes, more “experiments”) to decide if there’s significant difference between choice and prime.

Through the years, I’ve worked with maybe six Sam’s clubs. Some don’t do grocery / fresh meat at all. The rest carry choice and they present sub-primals of strip loin, ribeye, tenderloin, and brisket. And they offer sirloin but only if you ask for it. That’s all I know.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info about the Sam’s Club meat, toasty.

None of the Costco’s in my area have helipads, but then I’m in a city. What a way to beat the traffic. 🙂

[Scott Mark]

I’m pretty satisfied with the Sam’s Club sub-primals, but there’s a few things to know.

1) They don’t put sirloin sub-primal out. You have to ask for it. And I haven’t done a Sam’s Club sirloin sub-primal yet, so I’m speculating about the fat content from here on, based on a sirloin sub-primal I got from Roundy’s / Pick and Save / (I think they have another name as well.)

2. The Sam’s Club ribeye has MUCH fat. and I don’t mean intramuscular marbling, I mean trimmable fat. I think I carved 4 lbs from a 16 lb ribeye. That’s just something to think about, not a downcheck. Ribeye is pretty good.

3. The Sam’s Club strip loin has less fat than the ribeye, but I’m not sure how it compares to the sirloin. Tonight I serve my first strip loin, but it’s been marinating for a long time in this and that, and I’m not sure if it’s a good example. It’s still got a healthy chunk of fat.

I haven’t bought a brisket, but it’s got a good fat cap. I’m not sure that a good fat cap is a bad thing. For a steak, probably not. We want to get all the extra-muscular fat off, and then cook quickly. But for a brisket, we want to put that fat on top, and slow-cook it, and have that fat melt into the meat.

Will anyone be surprised if I say that I need to do a few more experiments?

Toasty

[Charlie]

I was watching a BBQ competition on tv and several of the pros were trimming the fat caps off the briskets so that they could get more dry rub flavor and smoke ring into the meat. They did leave the fat on the vertical sides though. It was very interesting to watch them prepare the beef.

Charlie B)

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