What the heck was this butcher thinking about???

Recently cooked this National Beef USDA Select 12lb brisket purchased from Smart & Final. It was nicely flexible and had a beautiful form with a fairly even toe. Not much marbling but I expect that from Select grade. Put it in the freezer a couple months ago until recently when I wanted to do a test brisket cook so pulled it and defrosted. When I got it out of the cryo this massive gash appears! Could not see it through the cryo. The exterior meat looks gray because it got exposed to oxygen during the 4 day defrost period because of a hole in the cryo (sustained during the freeze period).
I've only cooked about 30 briskets and have seen some shoddy knife work, as all of you have I'm sure, but this grand canyon of a gash leaves me wondering what the heck was this butcher thinking about because his mind was quite obviously not on his knife work!! Also wonder if he lost his thumb in the process.....
I probably could have pinned it on somehow but was so disgusted I just cut "mini me" off the brisky. I didn't weigh it but figure it weighed about 2 lbs easy. It's by far the worst knife work I've seen from a butcher on any cut of meat!

What's your worst butcher story??

Ouch! That looks terrible.

The one that always seems to stick me is tri tip. You pay a little extra and buy trimmed, open it up and low and behold there is a nice fat cap conveniently out of sight. I have had a few with a pound of fat or more after trimming the trimmed!

Have had a few racks of St. Louis spares that were absolutely mangled with the bandsaw on the backside.

Yeah, ribs are another issue with me where the butcher puts several cuts through the membrane ensuring it won't come off in one piece!!

We've had many briskets that have cuts in the middle of the flat. Not so good for comp slices.

scooter said:

What's your worst butcher story??

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Don't know if its my worst butcher story, but how about a butcher who doesn't know diddly squat about brisket? I mean, after all it is a butcher's business to understand the primal cuts, right?

I was looking for a whole packer brisket and this butcher pulls out a small 3 1/2 lb Brisket Flat with all traces of fat trimmed off - and priced at $4.99/lb no less. When I asked if he had any whole packer briskets, he looked at me like I was stupid and replied...

...

....wait for it...

......


"This IS a whole brisket."




Needless to say I left knowing not to go there for my meat needs.

Similar story here Tent. They charge more for those trimmed flats cause they had to process them so they charge you to clean all that darn fat off! The butcher at my Raleys was answering a question I posed to him why their briskets had no points on them. He said they remove them because nobody wants them because.........................................they have too much fat in them!
That's CA for ya! Pull off the tastiest part of the brisket and remove all the exterior fat then charge me an addiontal fee for ruining the brisket for me!

Don't know about where ya'll are, but here in Ohio you can buy untrimmed packer briskets at Wal-mart. Not my favorite place to get meat, but if its a whole cut in cryovac they can't hurt it.

chas, the brisket in the pics above was put in the cryo like that at the packing plant (National Beef). When I was referring to the butcher, I meant the one at the packing plant.

chas. said:

Don't know about where ya'll are, but here in Ohio you can buy untrimmed packer briskets at Wal-mart. Not my favorite place to get meat, but if its a whole cut in cryovac they can't hurt it.

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What part of Ohio? I'm near Akron. Briskets aren't a big seller around here. Wal-mart is usually where I end up finding them too... erm, rather my wife, who's a Co-Manager for Wal-mart, does.

TentHunter said:

What part of Ohio? I'm near Akron. Briskets aren't a big seller around here. Wal-mart is usually where I end up finding them too... erm, rather my wife, who's a Co-Manager for Wal-mart, does.

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Tent ,I'm 1/2 hour north of Dayton. The briskets sold at our local meat mkt (I used to own it ) are cut from swinging beef and weigh 5-6 #. Nice size for a roast (and great rolled and tied with onions and garlic inside) but the packer cut is what is called for to smoke a long time. They're gonna be 2 or 3 times as heavy. If there is a local meat mkt around you or a custom slaughter house it would be good to get to know them and develop a relationship. You'll get better fresher stuff and will be able to deal directly with the guy doing the work. I didn't quite have a full appreciation of this before because I was in the business myself. Now in particular when I'm on the Gulf coast in the winter and find myself shopping in supermarkets I realize what it's like for most people.