Prime vs Choice brisket

Czarbecue

Czarbecue

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Going to put this out there first... I am not talking about what Franklin Barbecue uses. He has access to some magical animal that we peasants do not have access to (and I am not paying $120 for a Creekstone brisket).

Yesterday I did my third cook with a prime brisket. I have done my briskets the same for the past year... so it has been about 3 primes and 4 choice. I notice marginal... MARGINAL differences in the end result. I opted to lose 4 pounds of brisket to get the prime cut and I am just not seeing any difference when I am paying 56% more from Choice to Prime. Maybe my palate is not refined enough.

What has been your experience?
 
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I did a choice packer on Memorial Day, and I did a prime for the 4th. Same temps but the choice took much longer. The prime had nice marbling throughout the point and it rendered nicely. It melted in your mouth. The choice was much more tighter and that made me a believer in Prime. The prime flat was more dense and came out better than the choice. Cook time was almost 2 hours shorter
 
I would not pay for prime if I had to pay 50%+ more to do it. Here, thanks to Costco and Sam's, it's within 50 cents or so of choice, and until recently cost $3/lb. At $3.xx/lb I will buy prime because it's still cheap. I know there are some parts of the country where it's not possible to get any brisket at all for that price.

The briskets I did for the 4th were Angus choice from Sam's and they were fantastic. Couldn't really imagine them being any better.
 
To me, choice to select is a big drop-off. My experience with prime is that they are somewhat juicier but they cook significantly quicker. My first one was not so juicy because I woke up anticipating it to be in the stall and it was quite past done
 
The thing to remember with brisket is that the carcass is graded based on a sample taken from the ribeye area (among other criteria), and mat not reflects the quality of the brisket. I look for a thick flat, large point and the best marbling. Those are more important to me than the quality grade.
 
What's stamped on the side of the meat doesn't always correlate to the meat inside. I've seen Choice briskets marbled like Prime and Prime briskets that looked worse than Choice. When they assign a grade to a beef carcass, they only see where they cut the beef carcass in half, between the 12th and 13th rib. Even the USDA will admit the marbling will change from the rib eye they look at for grading and the rest of the carcass.

That being said, the best thing you can do is inspect your brisket CAREFULLY. Spend some time to check your meat. See if you can bend the brisket in half (it matters). I will pull out every brisket at Restaurant Depot and separate them into 2 piles - good and bad. Then I reinspect the good pile and separate them into a good and bad pile. From that good pile, I'll pick the ones I will buy. Is it worth all that time and effort - YES. I cooked a Choice brisket last week that was closer to Prime than Choice. Starting off with a better piece of meat in the beginning with give you better odds of producing a better brisket in the end. Since I started doing this, I have been satisfied with most of my briskets (I screwed up some) and pleasantly surprised by a lot of them. So what if the people in Restaurant Depot think I'm crazy?:crazy: Brisket is 4 dollars a pound here :mad2:
 
USDA rating is ONLY based on marbling sample and ignores any other measures of quality. A higher fat but low flavor Holstein dairy cow may rank Prime but will offer a far inferior flavor to a 95%+ angus that rates Choice.

Prime at a big box store my be surplus dairy cow. Angus at these outlets may be less than 50% Angus. For quality meat you need to rely on third party certification or known ranches like CAB or the farmer down the road.
 
Ron_L said:
The thing to remember with brisket is that the carcass is graded based on a sample taken from the ribeye area (among other criteria), and mat not reflects the quality of the brisket. I look for a thick flat, large point and the best marbling. Those are more important to me than the quality grade.
Click to expand...

The man speaks the truth. Also I could be wrong but from what I understand there is choice choice angus and prime. And choice angus would be dang near compared to prime where as just choice would be on the lower end of the spectrum near select.
 
ClintHTX said:
The man speaks the truth. Also I could be wrong but from what I understand there is choice choice angus and prime. And choice angus would be dang near compared to prime where as just choice would be on the lower end of the spectrum near select.
Click to expand...

There are sub grades of choice and Prime. CAB beef is high purity angus breed that rates in the higher end of Choice or Prime, plus passes other standards. A CAB brisket is very likely to be better than a low end Prime, but most meat labeled angus is not CAB.
 
Ron_L said:
The thing to remember with brisket is that the carcass is graded based on a sample taken from the ribeye area (among other criteria), and mat not reflects the quality of the brisket. I look for a thick flat, large point and the best marbling. Those are more important to me than the quality grade.
Click to expand...



Yeah, my prime brisket was the last one at Costco and I panicked and took it. Looking back, the flat was a lot thinner than my normal choice cut I get from Walmart or Tom Thumb/Albertson's. The fat was more evenly distributed throughout the meat but it wasn't 56% "better" than what I would have gotten at Walmart.

Price point for reference is $2.56 vs 3.99 per pound.
 
There have been times where I couldn't find a prime in the case that I liked. If it's marked prime I expect it to be MARBLED. I also make the good and bad piles. :heh: first I look for marbling, then a thick flat, then floppyness. They are all floppy when you cut out that hard piece of fat and I can trim off the skinny end of the flat. If it's floppy you are not paying extra for something you are going to cut off anyway. I feel that if you cook enough briskets you can make any grade come out tender and juicy. I guess it's easier with a better cut though. I don't know if I can taste the difference anymore.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
 
Not all choice grade is the same and neither is prime. How's that for making it more difficult. The Prime restaurants get is superior to what us peasants can get. CAB choice is better and more expensive than other choice purchased at your super market. That's why you are seeing a lot of difference between the grades and not much at all other times
For me CAB choice is the go to brisket for family and friends
 
At least I'm not the only guy at Costco that separates beef into piles, then subdivides into other piles, and if I'm not satisfied knocks on the window and asks if they have any more cryovac's in the back...
 
Yeah. I separate decent to sucky. Everyone looks at me like wow you must be cooking a lot. I tell them no I’m just trying to find the perfect one. Haha. It’s amazing how people just walk up there and grab on and on they go....
 
Ron_L said:
The thing to remember with brisket is that the carcass is graded based on a sample taken from the ribeye area (among other criteria), and mat not reflects the quality of the brisket. I look for a thick flat, large point and the best marbling. Those are more important to me than the quality grade.
Click to expand...

Exactly this. And I also agree with ncmoose that I do see a drop off from choice to select. Prime to choice there may not be a huge difference. The 6 choices I cooked yesterday I'd put up against many primes I've cooked.

But the Prime I cooked last week on my drums was well marbled and I'd of put it up in a competition against wagyu.

All things being equal of course I'd rather have Prime most of the time if the price is the same.
 
Ron_L said:
The thing to remember with brisket is that the carcass is graded based on a sample taken from the ribeye area (among other criteria), and mat not reflects the quality of the brisket. I look for a thick flat, large point and the best marbling. Those are more important to me than the quality grade.
Click to expand...

Ditto
 
I find prime to be consistently better choice as choice is consistently better than select. This may not always be the case but is true enough most of the time. As mentioned brisket can have several factors at play besides grade that affect potential. Id also agree that the difference from select to choice tends ti be greater than choice to prime.

The flat for primes i like better but sometimes the point is really fatty and needs more time than the flat to render.
 
toymaster said:
What's stamped on the side of the meat doesn't always correlate to the meat inside. I've seen Choice briskets marbled like Prime and Prime briskets that looked worse than Choice. When they assign a grade to a beef carcass, they only see where they cut the beef carcass in half, between the 12th and 13th rib. Even the USDA will admit the marbling will change from the rib eye they look at for grading and the rest of the carcass.

That being said, the best thing you can do is inspect your brisket CAREFULLY. Spend some time to check your meat. See if you can bend the brisket in half (it matters). I will pull out every brisket at Restaurant Depot and separate them into 2 piles - good and bad. Then I reinspect the good pile and separate them into a good and bad pile. From that good pile, I'll pick the ones I will buy. Is it worth all that time and effort - YES. I cooked a Choice brisket last week that was closer to Prime than Choice. Starting off with a better piece of meat in the beginning with give you better odds of producing a better brisket in the end. Since I started doing this, I have been satisfied with most of my briskets (I screwed up some) and pleasantly surprised by a lot of them. So what if the people in Restaurant Depot think I'm crazy?:crazy: Brisket is 4 dollars a pound here :mad2:
Click to expand...

Ron_L said:
The thing to remember with brisket is that the carcass is graded based on a sample taken from the ribeye area (among other criteria), and mat not reflects the quality of the brisket. I look for a thick flat, large point and the best marbling. Those are more important to me than the quality grade.
Click to expand...

pjtexas1 said:
There have been times where I couldn't find a prime in the case that I liked. If it's marked prime I expect it to be MARBLED. I also make the good and bad piles. :heh: first I look for marbling, then a thick flat, then floppyness. They are all floppy when you cut out that hard piece of fat and I can trim off the skinny end of the flat. If it's floppy you are not paying extra for something you are going to cut off anyway. I feel that if you cook enough briskets you can make any grade come out tender and juicy. I guess it's easier with a better cut though. I don't know if I can taste the difference anymore.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


What these guys said. I've had primes that were average but I've changed the way I shop for briskets and all the above guys have very valid points. I almost always get and cook a good brisket now regardless of the grade.

Now, the absolute best briskets I've ever had have been the SRF Gold Label Wagyu's hands down. Expensive yes but nothing comes close to it. Huuuge difference.

Floppy has always been a sure bet like Paul said.

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