Aldi has st. Louis cut ribs for $1.99/lb

Does Tom Thumb cut their own briskets. The stores just buy cases of them and put them out. Look at the packaging and see what company they come from.

Wish I could find brisket on sale around Waco/Temple I would stock up.

I'm cooking one on Saturday night for Sunday lunch.

Meat bends. Fat doesn't (well, it doesn't bend very well) IMO the bend test is just a way to figure out how much fat is on the brisket. You can do that with your eyeballs. If there is too much fat for your liking, trim some off. I save all my brisket fat trimmings in a vaccuum seal bag in the freezer. When I grind my deer meat, that is what I mix with it. Makes a phenomenal burger. I've never bent a brisket a day in my life. Oh, and by the way, I do leave quite a bit of fat on the brisket for the cook. Trim most of the fat off of the fat cap, and leave most of the fat on the flat. I do try to cut most of the deckle out. that is the best part for grinding.

Another thing to take note of. You'll hear a lot of BBQ guys will completely disagree with me on a lot of things. I don't use a thermometer, I don't use prime Brisket, I think just salt and Pepper is kinda bland ( I make my own very complex rub), and I wrap in foil. There is more than one right way to do Brisket. If you do something different than I do, It doesn't mean that your way is wrong.

Okay Skin, you inspired me to pull mine out of the freezer, might double down and pull a pork butt out also and smoke them together
Going to throw some Post Oak in the garage to keep out of the rain so they will be good to go.

That's what I'm talking about!

Okay the obvious question is, fat side up or down? No we are not talking about what goes on behind close doors .

I use to mix a bunch of stuff together, now just these 3 on brisket.

Hey Stub, did you get beef processed at Hartness or just buy cuts? I was wondering how good they were. The Meridian locker bunch are crooks.

OK, so if you cook fat side down, your way is wrong.

I always put fat side up ,Aaron Franklin says fat side up on a smoker, fat side down over direct heat.

Should do a poll on it.

My buddy did some research on it because he bought a set it and forget cooking apparatus. For that style of cooker it's fat side down and traditional offset fat side up. He sent me a lot of videos on it, I didn't watch any of them.

Dunno what to think of this. Prolly mislabeled first as choice then fixed?

Who is the brisket LEO?

Fat side up or down is depending on how you want your smoke ring to look. I like down...but I typically don't use any crutches (wraps) either.

Fat up on offset, fat down on pellet smoker. I trim up the fat much closer on a pellet smoker.

I with you Bubba. we do use a thermometer to verify. Have cooked for years now my son cooks in competitions and I assist when we have time. Think BBQ restaurants use prime briskets. They get their briskets in cases and cook what they get.

That narrative fits with exactly what I was saying about the lack of quality on Tom Thumb's meats relative to price. Some shops do have much higher end looking cuts than typical Tom Thumb's, but the price much higher than other stores (even higher than Central Market sometimes).

And ALWAYS fat side when smoking on offset heat for me.

I'll give credit to Brookshires, they take choice briskets and label them select.

Our Kroger's didn't have a single one earlier. Didn't bother asking as I've wasted my time with that before.

Any of you old timers will know that the quality of meat and briskets in particular has really gone down over the past 30 years. You can just look at a brisket and tell they are not the same. They used to semi trim every brisket; now you have to trim 3 or 4 pounds. They got smart. Just as bad are pigs and chickens. Have you seen the size of these? There’s no such a thing as a baby back rib, usually. What used to be a choice was actually a prime brisket now. And a Prime today is moving to a low grade of choice in the past. Look for the actual marbling in each brisket and pick that one. My rant.

I would counter that by saying certain stores like Costco, Whole Foods and Central Market (and some would say Sam's), actually have USDA Choice cuts that could actually be graded out as Prime. There are times at Costco where I've been blown away by the marbling in their Choice steaks. And to your point, I bought some $10/lb NY Strips at HEB Plano 2 weeks ago that were Prime. I dug through the meat case to find the best 4 packaged together, but I really don't think they had the marbling to be graded out at Prime. Great price at $10, but not Prime in my opinion.

I was able to get 2 average briskets at the Kroger near me. About 8 to choose from, so it wasn`t the best but I`m picky. I used to go through 1000+ briskets every holiday and pick the cream of the crop. Managing a meat market has a few perks and that`s one of the best. I don`t know if briskets are any different today than they were when I was in the business (75-2006). I can assure you that I saw plenty of $hitty choice briskets my whole career that covered 4 different decades. We never sold Prime. I went by the HEB in Granbury to get a TriTip that was on sale for 3 bucks off per lb. and they were out of them like always. They are terrible about no having sale items. Always have an excuse about they didn`t receive what they ordered. BS.

Rain or not, the brisket show must go on.