Assistance required! Why are our briskets/ribs so small!?


 
D

DavidT.

TVWBB Member
Hi Folks,

I have a small favour to ask... as you may or may not know, barbecuing (in the low and slow sense) is almost completely unheard of here in OZ land (Australia). As such, many of the cuts you guys use either have completely different names or those cuts are used for other products (e.g. pet mince) or are simply not available as different parts of the cut are attached to other cuts (e.g. part of the brisket may be used in rib roasts, part may be used in flank steak etc), thus proving extremely difficult to find even after 3 years of searching.

I am most concerned with brisket and pork ribs.

Let me say firstly that I have found a source for full size briskets (15-20lb), BUT they are wholesale, export grade wagyu and cost US$20/kg = US$10 / lb, so a 20lb packer costs me USS200 !

The closest non-export non-wagyu I have found is a whole packer kosher brisket, but unfortunately these weigh about 3kg TOTAL (6lb) and is even more expensive - US$20/lb ! So for a measly 6lb, I am paying $120. OBviously I go with the wagyus when I simply have to have brisket as the kosher ones are too small and prohibitively expensive.

I have found packers elsewhere, but they are TINY, most around the 2kg (5lb) mark.

As for pork, our spare ribs are tiny (think of the imported danish ribs that give you guys nightmares) and we don't break them into the different types either (e.g. baby back and spare ribs) because they are so small - 450g (1lb) if we are LUCKY for a "large" rack.

So from what I can tell, we must be slaughtering our animals at a much younger age or not raising them to be as heavy or using different breeds.

So here is my small favour that I am asking... so that I Can work more closely with some butchers and have more information to give them, could I please ask the following?

The next time you are purchasing a big (15-20lb) whole packer brisket, please try and find out:
1.) The approximate size of the cows that the briskets come off - i.e. the steers weight
2.) The approximate age of the cows that the briskets come off

Also, the next time you are purchasing some pork ribs (be they baby backs or spare ribs), could you please ask:
1.) The approximate size of the pigs that the briskets come off - i.e. the steers weight
2.) The approximate age of the pigs that the briskets come off
3.) If they are male or female

If as many people could find out (so I can get a good average from different areas/suppliers), I would REALLY appreciate it.

Thanks!
 
you can google up some american meat cutting charts and take that to your friendly butcher and he might be able to go from there. cows and pigs are butchered differently across the world. even canada has different butchering techniques than across the border in america.

what they are prolly doing where you are is cuttign the brisket out of the primal and then slicing it into smaller cuts after trimming the fat.
 
in the us all the briskets we are buying are what is referred to Boxed Beef that means that the sub primal cuts are sent in cryovac from the processing plant in boxes to the supermarkets and from there to the meat case. So sadly it is difficult for the average butcher to know what the size of the cattle is??

There is a butcher that gets sides of cattle in my area and I'll try to quiz him and get back to you to see if i can find an answer to yur beef question. I also have a pork butcher that i get to only a couple fo times a year that may be able to answer your pork question but that may take a little longer to get a response....
 
G'day DavidT,

I'm from Sydney(don't hold that against me
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)and it's the same here trying to get much in the way of US style cuts.
I was talking to a local butcher the other day and he says that you've got to get as much meat of a single carcass as possible to make it pay and if they don't do the usual Australian standard cuts,especially for a few one-off orders, it stuffs up all the other cuts from the animal and it's the smaller & finer cuts that make the most money.
They also have to turn the meat over in sales very quickly otherwise they could find themselve having to dispose of a carcass very cheap and lose big dollars.

You'll find that the majority of the briskets you'll see here David are usually always corned and are set up for pot roasting rather than grill roasting.
I tried barbequing a corned brisket many years ago and had more smoke than an Injun's blanket fire but it still came out flavourless.I never bothered again.
I have read somewhere in this forum that for corned briskets, you can soak them in clear water and that'll help the salted curing come out from the meat but I can't say for sure on that technique.
Where you from David, we need more BBQers from the Sydney region.

Cheers

Davo
 
Hiya Davo (my nickname too lol),

I understand it not being _widely_ available, but my issue now is not so much getting hold of a brisket, but getting hold of one of the correct size.
Most places I have been have said that they are willing to get briskets in as I have asked for them (after showing them diagrams and photos of what it should look like and where on the beast it comes from), but whenever they do, they have been those tiny things I have spoken of from much smaller carcasses.

Actually I believe most of the corned meat here is topside/silverside. I haven't seen much corned brisket in Sydney. The flat portion is easy to get ahold of uncorned in supermarkets (in the Kosher meat section), but they are:
1.) Too heavily trimmed
2.) WAY TOO SMALL (1-1.5kg MAX)
3.) ONLY the flat, no point.

BTW I'm around Sydney CBD area :-)

Thanks for the reply!
 
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