Shot myself in the foot... Brisket

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

3 weeks ago while planning our 4th festivities, I told our neighbor I'll cook whatever their 17 year old son wants as long as he helps me. He likes my brisket and I figured that's what he would ask for, but as teens do these days... crickets. Until last night. He texts, Hey I would like Brisket and I took the 4th off to help. Um no buddy. I would have gone all out and got a Wagyu one but since he short noticed me I still wanted to uphold my end of the bargain and my wife was going to Sams anyway and offered to grab one. She thought she got me a Prime (it's not a prime, but it looks good enough), she gets an A for effort. Told the youngin' to take the 2nd off and I'll have him trim and salt it. I was going to do it MAK only on the night of the 3rd but I might have him come back over around 5pm to throw some pepper on it and start it on the roughneck to teach him fire building and such.

Regardless, I get to blame the end result on him so

I'll post pics as we learn together. To be fair, he will be assaulted by my dogs for the first 20 minutes of the lesson which should add extra hilarity.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Not sure why pics didn't go...

[Mosca]

The Sam’s Black Angus choice are pretty good. The only drawback is that the prime is only 10¢/lb more. But if I wanted brisket, and they were out of prime, I’d buy the choice and not look back.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

This one isn't as marbled as I would have liked but it feels like a good one. For shopping over the phone she did a good job. At the end of the day, it's the kids fault for not communicating sooner After we trim it, I might inject it. I might not, we'll see.

[Jerod Broussard]

Man I so hate last minute calls for something like that. I did a last minute brisket one time and it did not come out very well.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

That will be part of the lesson for sure, but also I made a promise so even if he didn't communicate in a timely manner I am upkeeping my end of the deal. Worst case, he learns how to make chilli.

[Mosca]

I wouldn’t worry about the lead time, the only thing that was affected was which brisket, and that’s a crap shoot anyhow. I’m still thinking about if I’ll do one or not, or ribs, or a pork butt, or just burgers and dogs.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

the lead time would have had me getting a quality brisket mail order, it's more so a discussion piece for the young man in timely communication. Heck my best brisket was a Wally World select cut.

[Mosca]

Gotcha. Makes sense, too.

[TripleB]

Good for you. Great teaching moment. I hope he is as enthusiastic as you are. Look forward to the report and pics.

[Uncle Bob]

I might have told the story here, but it fits so here it is...

A few months back my neighbor shows up at the door with a solid frozen 18 lb. brisket asking me to cook it for him. It's not an intrusion, he's a great neighbor and when I've been incapacitated he mows my lawn for me. It's a great back and forth, genuine friendship. It's just that folks who aren't really deep into this kind of cook don't realize the ramp up time and process. I didn't have fridge room at the time so I sent him home with the brisket to thaw in his refer and laid out the whole time line for the process. He had no idea it was going to add up to six days before we'd sit down to eat it. And he'd bought it "on sale" at a Kroger while visiting his son up in the Panhandle so it was a select grade. Anyway, it turned out fine and we had a great dinner together.

[jfmorris]

That looks better than a lot of the brisket I see at Sam's. I look through the choice and prime, and so many of theirs tend to have a ton of that hard fat on them - not the fat on the back, but on the top side. Your's looks better than most.

I may go over tomorrow or Wednesday, the mornings I see stuff marked down, and see what I see. As others pointed out, Sam's is 10 cents different now between Angus Choice and Prime, but I feel I've never gone wrong with the Angus stuff. I've smoked a LOT of choice briskets that were top notch.

[HawkerXP]

Can't wait to see the rest of the story!

[Duanessmokedmeats]

I like their Black Angus briskets.
It will come out delicious.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Ended up trimming and salting today. Honestly it was a funky brisket, the flat is thick all the way almost felt guilty cutting off a chunk for the slicing guide. Mr Tristan worked the silver skin and bottom of the brisket as well as the point, then I did the fat cap on the flat. Of course I forgot to take a shot of the fat side before it got rolled over.

He did this all while being barked at and having his turf injuries from football licked by wild heathens... he dun good.

Tried to get him to do a salt Bae pose for his mom, but he wasn't having it.

But he learned how to select a brisket, how and why to trim it, knife safety and honing, how to save the fat for tallow, how and why to dry brine, and how to set up the coals and wood chunks for smoking (even though I might only use the MAK)

[Uncle Bob]

That is very cool to see. He's now in the upper few percent of his age group that has any clue about BBQ technique/process much less cooking in general.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Uncle Bob he's a good kid, his brother is quite a few years younger than him and gets a lot of the attention so I make sure to provide him opportunities when possible. Of course he does young people dumb stuff from time to time... but I hope he enjoys this process as much as I am since we don't have our own kids to teach.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Well, everything ended well... other than some feelings. Leftovers of everything, except the brisket so some people were jealous. I gave half of the tallow to Mr Tristan to fry up some eggs or whatever.

[Jerod Broussard]

Nice.

[TomfromtheSoo]

Thanks for sharing. All very cool!