Wagyu Brisket on a Weber 26"
This post is really a combination of firsts for me. I recently purchased a Weber 26" kettle to add to my arsenal and ran across a wagyu brisket sold in my local grocery which I have never cooked before. Let's see how well I did.
THE BRISKET
Previously I had posted that during a routine trip to my local grocery, HEB, I happened to eye a rather surprising brisket offering in the brisket meat case. It was labeled as American Wagyu. For those who are unfamiliar, breeders have brought some Japanese Wagyu bulls over here to the States and have cross bred with our Angus and other breeds to produce a product for our market similar to that found in Japan. The Japanese Wagyu production is simply too low to meet the worldwide demand for their product. Most of what I've seen and cooked is somewhere in between prime and true A5 Japanese Wagyu.
I have not had the opportunity to buy and cook an American Wagyu brisket so this got my attention. Cost wise I was looking at $5.99/lb, which for wagyu anything is fairly inexpensive, but 70% higher that the normal price of prime at $3.49/lb. This particular brisket was sourced through Mishima Reserve, a company out of Seattle that regularly sells American Wagyu. According to their website, their briskets sell for about $9.99/lb so not sure why this was marked down, unless it had to do with quality or some sort of volume purchase.
I stuck in in my meat refrigerator to wet cure for a few weeks until I could get it into my rotation. Upon initial examination it appeared to be about the same as a prime brisket. The thing that set it apart was the rich, dark almost mahogany color of the meat itself. Here it is after I gave it a good trim and applied my salt brine ....
...and just before the cook after 36 hours of curing. Again notice the rich, red color. As far as appearance, once again, it looked about the same as a prime packer only richer in color. So visually, on an A1-5 grading system for wagyu, I'd have to give it an A1 or just slightly above prime.....
THE COOKER
Although I own some high volume cookers, I don't have any charcoal models larger than a 22" kettle or WSM. You can cook a lot of food on either, but for larger volumes of food or large cuts of meat I simply wanted something larger. I've contemplated buying a cabinet smoker but the expenses aren't meeting the needs right now. That led me to just pulling the trigger on a Weber 26" kettle, the 6th Weber product that I own.
Most of you are familiar with the kettle so no need to go through a lot of detail. Price was $320 on Amazon, had it delivered to the house. Of course I had to go whole hog and bought the large SNS and stainless spin grate to have immediate low and slow capabilities....
...and of course I had to pimp my ride by add a fan port for my Pit Viper fan (for full automation) and a probe bladder to feed all my Fireboard probes into the belly of the beast....
So what better way to inaugurate this puppy then to cook an American Wagyu full packer!! So that brings us to ......
THE COOK
I normally run about 275* for larger hunks of meat like briskets and pork butts. So I hooked up my Fireboard/Pit Viper setup, a full load of charcoal (with about a dozen lit in a chimney to start things off) along with 4-5 hunks of pecan and cherry. Now I realize there may be some raised eyebrows as to the use of fruit wood, but it wasn't by design, I was simply out of oak and mesquite so what the heck?
Of course the kettle came to life and responded beautifully. Did take about 30 minutes to ramp up from 100* to 275* but that was to be expected. Once at 275* it stayed there rock solid for 3 hours, no issues whatsoever. What was unusual is the speed in which the brisket got up to temp. Within an hour it was at 85*, hour 2 it shot up to 135* and by hour 3 was pushing 175*. There was really no sign of a stall. I only lifted the lid twice to spritz with some beef stock but other than that it was getting close to being done in record time, at least for me anyway. I've noticed this with other cuts of wagyu, it has to be the heavy marbling and fat content that renders and allows for faster internal cooking.
So at hour 3 I temp'd it with my Thermapen and I had readings of 165* on up to 200* and probe tender in about 50% of the packer. Decided it was time to wrap in pink paper. Did so and placed it back on the kettle and raised my Fireboard temp to 300* and let her roll. Within 1 1/2 hours my two meat probes said 198* and 203* respectively so off she came. It felt probe tender everywhere I probed and was a big, massive piece of jello. Left the whole thing wrapped in paper on a sheet tray, covered in two layers of foil and popped it into a 170* oven for the next 3 hours (mainly because no one was home to eat yet).
Here's the meteorite fresh out of the oven and onto the chopping board.....
Here is the initial cut from the very end of the flat. It was very tender and juicy. In fact this may be the best flat, in terms of texture, tenderness and juiciness, that I have cooked to date. These end cuts are generally on the dry side but not these, they were more like center cut. Also began upping my use of celery seed to promote a better smoke ring. Although smoke rings don't really matter to the flavor, it does make for a nicer presentation, was happy with that result...
So what is the verdict and takeaway from this cook? My initial assessment was a grade A1 American Wagyu brisket visually. After the cook I think I might up that a bit and maybe go A2 quality. It was defiantly better than prime in terms of cook time, taste and tenderness. Here's a quick shot of the wrap test. What you don't see is I jiggled it for about 2 seconds and it split in two from my finger, so if anything I may have slightly overcooked it. It was almost at the pot roast stage but remained beefy and smokey as you would want in brisket.
The negatives? Probably the cost. The reason I've never tried American Wagyu brisket is because I doubted the bang for the buck was there. At least this gave me a chance to try it at a reasonable price. But was it 70% better than a good Costco or HEB prime cut? I don't think so. That being said I'd buy another just to have it for special occasions.
Although, as I've said, it had tremendous finish in the flat, when I got to the point it was a different story. Was so busy eating by this time that I didn't take pictures, but the other negative was the abundant fattiness of this part. It was almost too much. Fat was laced throughout and you had to carve a lot away to get to the meat itself. That's one of the things that's sort of off putting to me with A5 true Japanese Wagyu, is too much fat. This was sort of that way.
All in all it was a good cook. Got to break in a new cooker and cook something new to break it in with. Hope you enjoyed the journey, here are a few parting shots of this really good American Wagyu brisket cook....Trout is out !!
THE BRISKET
Previously I had posted that during a routine trip to my local grocery, HEB, I happened to eye a rather surprising brisket offering in the brisket meat case. It was labeled as American Wagyu. For those who are unfamiliar, breeders have brought some Japanese Wagyu bulls over here to the States and have cross bred with our Angus and other breeds to produce a product for our market similar to that found in Japan. The Japanese Wagyu production is simply too low to meet the worldwide demand for their product. Most of what I've seen and cooked is somewhere in between prime and true A5 Japanese Wagyu.
I have not had the opportunity to buy and cook an American Wagyu brisket so this got my attention. Cost wise I was looking at $5.99/lb, which for wagyu anything is fairly inexpensive, but 70% higher that the normal price of prime at $3.49/lb. This particular brisket was sourced through Mishima Reserve, a company out of Seattle that regularly sells American Wagyu. According to their website, their briskets sell for about $9.99/lb so not sure why this was marked down, unless it had to do with quality or some sort of volume purchase.
I stuck in in my meat refrigerator to wet cure for a few weeks until I could get it into my rotation. Upon initial examination it appeared to be about the same as a prime brisket. The thing that set it apart was the rich, dark almost mahogany color of the meat itself. Here it is after I gave it a good trim and applied my salt brine ....
...and just before the cook after 36 hours of curing. Again notice the rich, red color. As far as appearance, once again, it looked about the same as a prime packer only richer in color. So visually, on an A1-5 grading system for wagyu, I'd have to give it an A1 or just slightly above prime.....
THE COOKER
Although I own some high volume cookers, I don't have any charcoal models larger than a 22" kettle or WSM. You can cook a lot of food on either, but for larger volumes of food or large cuts of meat I simply wanted something larger. I've contemplated buying a cabinet smoker but the expenses aren't meeting the needs right now. That led me to just pulling the trigger on a Weber 26" kettle, the 6th Weber product that I own.
Most of you are familiar with the kettle so no need to go through a lot of detail. Price was $320 on Amazon, had it delivered to the house. Of course I had to go whole hog and bought the large SNS and stainless spin grate to have immediate low and slow capabilities....
...and of course I had to pimp my ride by add a fan port for my Pit Viper fan (for full automation) and a probe bladder to feed all my Fireboard probes into the belly of the beast....
So what better way to inaugurate this puppy then to cook an American Wagyu full packer!! So that brings us to ......
THE COOK
I normally run about 275* for larger hunks of meat like briskets and pork butts. So I hooked up my Fireboard/Pit Viper setup, a full load of charcoal (with about a dozen lit in a chimney to start things off) along with 4-5 hunks of pecan and cherry. Now I realize there may be some raised eyebrows as to the use of fruit wood, but it wasn't by design, I was simply out of oak and mesquite so what the heck?
Of course the kettle came to life and responded beautifully. Did take about 30 minutes to ramp up from 100* to 275* but that was to be expected. Once at 275* it stayed there rock solid for 3 hours, no issues whatsoever. What was unusual is the speed in which the brisket got up to temp. Within an hour it was at 85*, hour 2 it shot up to 135* and by hour 3 was pushing 175*. There was really no sign of a stall. I only lifted the lid twice to spritz with some beef stock but other than that it was getting close to being done in record time, at least for me anyway. I've noticed this with other cuts of wagyu, it has to be the heavy marbling and fat content that renders and allows for faster internal cooking.
So at hour 3 I temp'd it with my Thermapen and I had readings of 165* on up to 200* and probe tender in about 50% of the packer. Decided it was time to wrap in pink paper. Did so and placed it back on the kettle and raised my Fireboard temp to 300* and let her roll. Within 1 1/2 hours my two meat probes said 198* and 203* respectively so off she came. It felt probe tender everywhere I probed and was a big, massive piece of jello. Left the whole thing wrapped in paper on a sheet tray, covered in two layers of foil and popped it into a 170* oven for the next 3 hours (mainly because no one was home to eat yet).
Here's the meteorite fresh out of the oven and onto the chopping board.....
Here is the initial cut from the very end of the flat. It was very tender and juicy. In fact this may be the best flat, in terms of texture, tenderness and juiciness, that I have cooked to date. These end cuts are generally on the dry side but not these, they were more like center cut. Also began upping my use of celery seed to promote a better smoke ring. Although smoke rings don't really matter to the flavor, it does make for a nicer presentation, was happy with that result...
So what is the verdict and takeaway from this cook? My initial assessment was a grade A1 American Wagyu brisket visually. After the cook I think I might up that a bit and maybe go A2 quality. It was defiantly better than prime in terms of cook time, taste and tenderness. Here's a quick shot of the wrap test. What you don't see is I jiggled it for about 2 seconds and it split in two from my finger, so if anything I may have slightly overcooked it. It was almost at the pot roast stage but remained beefy and smokey as you would want in brisket.
The negatives? Probably the cost. The reason I've never tried American Wagyu brisket is because I doubted the bang for the buck was there. At least this gave me a chance to try it at a reasonable price. But was it 70% better than a good Costco or HEB prime cut? I don't think so. That being said I'd buy another just to have it for special occasions.
Although, as I've said, it had tremendous finish in the flat, when I got to the point it was a different story. Was so busy eating by this time that I didn't take pictures, but the other negative was the abundant fattiness of this part. It was almost too much. Fat was laced throughout and you had to carve a lot away to get to the meat itself. That's one of the things that's sort of off putting to me with A5 true Japanese Wagyu, is too much fat. This was sort of that way.
All in all it was a good cook. Got to break in a new cooker and cook something new to break it in with. Hope you enjoyed the journey, here are a few parting shots of this really good American Wagyu brisket cook....Trout is out !!
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