First brisket - trimming question

[Obi-Dan]

Hello BBQ Bretheren.

I just finished shed trimming my first ever brisket. After cutting the hard pocket of fat out I just went and separated the point and flat as they were just barely hanging on. I'll post pictures tomorrow of the whole process once we are done. But my question is this: Does that happen sometimes when you just have so much fat in there it almost comes apart or did I way over from? It was a USDA Prime Packer from Costco.

I guess another way way to ask it is Is that just how the brisket sometimes crumbles?

Thanks in advance.

[Huskee]

The fat pretty much holds the two together. If you remove it all, you're separating them as you found out. I do that but stop just short of separating fully since I still prefer to pull a big "full" brisket out to carve up, company likes to see that...more of a caveman "we are men" impression to the guys on brisket night! Lol.

[Obi-Dan]

So are you not supposed to remove the entire hunk of hard fat?

[Huskee]

I don't think there's any right or wrong way. I personally like to remove it all because the flat has a fat cap, and the point has generous marbling, so I feel I don't need it. Aaron Franklin doesn't trim it out. If I recall correctly Neither does Chris Lilly. Other folks here prefer to separate the two, which entails trimming it away for the most part. like you've done. I believe Meathead is in that camp.

[Obi-Dan]

Excellent. Thanks for the reply.

[Jerod Broussard]

High quality cuts can probably render down with respect to that inter-muscular fat you speak of. Smoque BBQ, Meathead's favorite brisket maker, trims that fat down some. I saw it in a video and the owner explained that it wasn't rendering down as much as he liked.

I like to take most of it out as Huskee mentioned. I get to the point where I'm just about to separate the two muscles. I try to get all the fat I can off of the point. And removing that fat off that slope on the point gives me another surface to maybe get some more bark developed.

[Nate]

Here are a couple of brisket trimming videos i watched recently and found interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-fI7n7eqJM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fUClEdzB3k

[Obi-Dan]

Thanks.

[GadjetGriller]

Nate Thanks for those Links! I dont trim off anywhere near what he did. Then even more for the comp stuff!! the other thing I took away from those videos I need a good Boning knife!! I use a chief knife and it gets heavy and awkward real quick time to go check out my old Friend Amazon and prime shipping!

[Nate]

I thought it was interesting how much fat he scraped of as well.