Where's the Beef? or Who's Eating all the Corned Beef?

Are you kidding me?

I went in search of Brisket this week, with some mixed results.

1. BJ's - did not have
2. Sam's Club - does not carry
3. Shoprite - did not have
4. Acme - 2-3 lbs. "half briskets" at $4.99/lb.
5. Local Butcher - available, Nose on $3.88/lb., Nose off $4.88/lb.
6. Super Wal-Mart - carries packer cuts at $1.88/lb., but had none at the moment.

The real quick in a$$ is that all of the above had plenty of prepackaged, prespiced corned beef!

where i live if you dont hit the walmart meat counter thursday you probably are not getting a brisket for the weekend. plenty of that nasty corned beef however. also lots of those packs of ribs with the foul injection mess.

I had the same problem two weeks ago. Nobody had any at a price that was conducive to smoking. Finally bought one last week at Smart and Final for $1.89 lb, not too bad considering two weeks ago the range was anywhere from $2.27 lb to $3.27 lb.

I think that it's more of a seasonal thing.

Around St. Pat's - you'll find brisket up to yer eyeballs at all sorts of places.

This time of year, the "average schmoe" is thinking burgers, steaks, chicken. Plus, many smaller operations need to buy a case of anything from their wholesalers, and getting stuck with a case of briskets may be a bit too "risky" for them at this time of the year.

Best bet - get friendly with a local butcher who knows his stuff. Then, special order stuff early enough (ask beforehand about how long it takes for him/her to get _____).

Another option, get together a few buds in your area and split-up a case. If a grocer / butcher knows that it will be gone - his risk will be next to zilch.

good hunting

It could be more of a regional thing, as my local market usually has choice packers from $1.89 to $2.29 per lb.
Tim

Our local Super Walmart was out of packers for about 2 weeks a month ago but have been in stock since. I can always get a packer from Fareway or Hyvee for $.20-$.30/lb more but still better than the packaged corned beef briskets.

One nice thing around here (having several Tyson packing plants around, including in town) is that I can get pretty good spare ribs for under $2/lb all the time. Plenty of turkey too. Beef is much slimmer for choices and variety.