Hobbit briskets


 
J

Joe McManus

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I've seen posts here from time to time about small packer cuts. Most of the time the conclusion is they were really flats. Well I picked up two whole packers weighing 5.5 and 6.0 lbs today. They must have come from Hobbit cattle. The quality of the meat looks great, nice marbling, good fat cap. The flat section might be a little on the thin side. Biggest difference I see is in the point, really pretty small.

These guys are going out on the smoker tonight for dinner tomorrow. Guess I'm expecting a shorter cook, not because they weigh less, but mostly because they are a little thinner than usual.
 
I just got a side of beef and I asked for the first time for the brisket. I picked it up last saturday and I saw the brisket package. It was smaller than most flats I buy at sams. I don't know if the point is still on it. It was frozen when I picked it up and I haven't cooked it yet. I looked for another package thinking the bonehead might have cut it in half.

Maybe it varies by breed and how big they get. I think the steer was around 1000 pounds. There is probobly someone out there that would know a whole lot more about it than me.

The only thing I know about briskets is my local sams only carries flats. I talked to somone working in the meat department a couple of weeks ago. He said that they never order whole packers but sometimes the just get whole packers shipped to them. What I can't figure out is why when they just get them sent to them and they sell them why they don't keep a stock of them.

Yea they will order for me if I buy a case of 12. I don't really want to drop that much at a time if you know what I mean. Oh well I have seen whole packers twice this year. So they are getting them every so often. I also need to look around I have 2 more sams resonably close to me. Plus I have a butcher shop I can check.

Sorry about the rant.
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"Brisquito" -
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I like that.

A "small" packer around here is 10 or 11 pounds, and rarely do I do one under 13. The flats are even usually 8 - 9 lb. My favorite market for briskets, though, only carries choice CAB - not sure how the size is affected by the Angus breed, though.
 
Although Hobbits are small they have HUGE appetitites. I think Hobbit briskets are the same size as Human sized briskets
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Brian,

Got them at Westside market in Darien. Called 'em up today to see if they had any briskets. The meat dept. manager said he'd get me some bigger ones by 2:00, but i needed to get them picked up by 10:00a for work reasons. I took what they had.

they are small, but they really look nice. The marbling is really good, and after getting them out of cryovac, they are pretty decent thickness as well. Currently chugging away at about 240 dome temp. Marinated w/ Fab-b, basic brisket rub, only difference is one has msg the other doesn't. trying to bench mark things for competition cooks.
 
brief update - these 'briquitos' have been on now for 12+ hours and they are cooking up at about the same pace as 15lbers I've done. I'm a little surprised. Looking good and smelling good. more later
 
Pulled these at 14 hours. One was a good 185-188 throughout the other was more like 178-180. Needless to say, that one was tough, but the other was almost perfect. The tough one also dried out quite a bit even w/ the injection.

As for the msg comparison, the brisket w/ msg in the rub won the hands down. It might not quite be a fair comparison as the msg brisket was done to the correct temperature (it could have used just a little more time on the smoker too). Its tenderness was almost perfect, and tenderness and taste are inter-related.
 
Think the very first brisket I ever did was 9 lbs. It came out okay, although I was disappointed it didn't feed more people.
 
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