Please help with cooking technique on a "unique" brisket butcher (and not by me!)

[Troutman]

Exactly, thaw's what I do with thin brisket flats all the time...PASTRAMI

[Oak Smoke]

Way to go Ahumadora and fzxdoc! The grass roots of low and slow are based on lean, tough cuts of meat. It grew out of the need to turn a cheap cut of meat into something delicious. I remember what it was like raising children. Even with the wife and I working we had to live on a budget. Yes you can come here and learn how to smoke a prime brisket on a Cadillac smoker, but you can also learn how to smoke that $1.59 a lb choice brisket you caught on sale on your Weber kettle. The beef pictured at the start of this thread would challenge most people, but with the knowledge posted here it will turn out just fine.

[Huskee]

Yep. And .5" to .75" thick steaks, max.

[pkadare]

I have a really big one like that in my freezer. When it warms up a bit my plan for that is to make a duxelles, spread that on the brisket then roll up the brisket as if it were a giant beef porchetta and then smoke it low and slow. No idea how it will turn out but it will be fun to try for sure. :-)

[Polarbear777]

I’ve noticed the same problem with most purchases of sides or quarters of an animal. They cut everything into exasperatingly small pieces by default.

[Huskee]

Just yesterday I cooked a small brisket flat, butchered from a home-raised grass fed steer, similar to what you have here but evem less fat. I told my buddy I was worried it'd be quite dry and tough being grass fed and no fat cap. I dry brined it for about 20 hrs ahead of time, cooked it at 225 for about 8-9hrs until out of the stall (~170-180F) then wrapped in double layer of foil (crutch) to ~200, then faux cambro'd for another 1.5 hrs (~12 hrs total) and delivered it to him. He said it was incredible, could cut it with a fork. I didn't taste it to know, but he raved. So therefore my suggestion is leave as much fat on one side as you can, dry brine it, and cook it as if it were a bigger packer brisket and you'll quite likely be ok. Heat has to travel in to the center to cook it, so it matters less the LxW size of the chunks, but more the thickness and the time needed to soften it.

[fzxdoc]

A while back, I had a tough-looking 5 lb chunk of grass fed brisket, skinny, no marbling, from a friend who raises grass fed beef. With the help of the sous vide unit it turned out great. Tender and juicy.

First I injected with homemade beef broth+Butcher's BBQ phosphate then rubbed with Worchestershire+Black Ops SPOGOS and let it hang out in the fridge, covered, for 48 hours.

Then I followed Polarbear777 's excellent QVQ method, starting with Step 2:

1. Dry brine plus BBBR 24 hours ahead ( I’m lazy so I just throw the rub on on top of the salt layer. One step.) (you can put the rub (or extra) on after the SV, I haven’t noticed that this is necessary as it seems to stick well anyway)
2. Smoke at 225F until about 130F IT
3. Bag the meat, vacuum seal
4. Cook in sous vide at 135F for 72 hours
5. Ice bath and put in fridge.
6. A couple hours ahead of dinner, unbag and save all the purge
7. Smoke at 350F to avoid the stall until an IT of 135F ( 350 hardens/dries the bark and you don’t need a stall because the time in SV took care of the collagen breakdown)
8. (Optional) Heat previously trimmed and rendered brisket fat to 375-400F and pour over brisket (safely, outside) right before service.
9. Remove the meat. Heat the purge and pour over meat after slicing.

From that 5 lb brisket, I ended up with over 2 cups of purge in the SV bag. I heated it, filtered the clumps out, then sampled it to make sure it was not too salty. It tasted great, so I served it on the side.

As I said, the brisket was delicious. Very tender and juicy. It sliced beautifully.

Kathryn

[texastweeter]

I just turned $200 wort of brisket and beef ribs into $600 worth of product. Deliver tomorrow. It's amazing how you can turn what used to be crap cuts into something I can charge $20-$25 a lb for....

[Henrik]

+2

[Arizona Packer Backer]

Y'all are awesome, thanks for the tips! Yeah, I figured the grass fed is why there's almost no marbling. Fireman - yep, I've got a quality BBQ thermometer and meat probe, so good to go there.

Ahumadora, thanks so much for the outline of how to go about this! I'm going to do exactly that, and hope for the best. I'll let you guys know how it goes!

[tbob4]

Damn good advice!!! When I was young, my sister would bring me all sorts of cuts from friends’ FFA projects. Some were from dairy cattle, others from beef bidders who really only wanted to support the program but didn’t want the meat. I didn’t have thermometers then. Just a Weber BBQ with offset charcoal and wood, a tin pan with foil, garlic, butter and broth. Tortillas, onions, salsa, cilantro and lime were always on hand for serving.

[Steve R.]

+1 Ahumadora. The essence of bbq is doing more with less.

[Ahumadora]

They need to do BBQ competitions with these kinds of cuts instead of $800 SRF briskets. After all that is where BBQ originated.

[Ahumadora]

Ok relax, That looks typical of the briskets we get here in Argentina.

Skinny emaciated and lean they will burn up in a heartbeat if not careful.
Here's how I would do it.

1./ Forget about any preconcieved pics in your head of thick black like a meterorite briskets when you done. Ain't going to happen !!! Your in salvage mode right now.

2./ Leave what fat is on there and just clean up any funky bits then dry brine (easy on the rub there is not much meat there.) Then toss in the freezer til your ready.

3./ You can go straight from the freezer to the pit , it doesn't matter if it's frozen. What you want is the meat super cold so it gives it more time to build bark before wrapping. Cook at 225F until it has some color/bark (2 hours or so) or 160f max.

4./ Wrap in foil and add a little water or beef stock and cook at 250-325f until it hits 203F internal.

5./ It is not going to probe like butter as it's a ragged ass piece of meat, but 203 it's done then hold it for 2 hours or so in foill at 140F

6./ Ain't going to look pretty but should taste good but thats about all you can do with that.

[texastweeter]

Make pastrami, or grind for burgers. Grass-fed has very little marbeling to start with.