SRF Meat Counter at Austin Costco

The Cen-Tex Smoker

They had briskets, Sirloin, Ribeye Cap (that looked insane), and NY Strips. It was all in its own case at the front of the meat section along with some Flintstones sized prime tomahawk ribeyes. Guy said SRF will be there through the 4th unless they sell out first. He’s not sure if they are bringing it back in after that. 



Also- buddy of mine sent this pic from Ft. Worth Costco a couple of hours ago.  looks like N. TX has $4.99 SRF Briskets for the holiday. 

SGH

That’s frikking awesome!

mlc2013

Ive been dying to try SRF but not a fan of frozen meat so didnt want to taint my experience with my pre conceived notion that it won't be as good cause its frozen. Now I have to see if this is in every costco or just tx

The Cen-Tex Smoker

mlc2013 said:

Ive been dying to try SRF but not a fan of frozen meat so didnt want to taint my experience with my pre conceived notion that it won't be as good cause its frozen. Now I have to see if this is in every costco or just tx

definitely not all Costco warehouses will have this. They buy food locally so each Costco's food assortment is as fresh and locally influenced as possible. Not even all the TX stores have the meat counter. N Tex has the big brisket case like we had last week. Maybe they will get the steaks next week. who knows? 

FWIW- the best brisket and steak I have ever had in my life were both frozen SRF. When things are blast frozen in commercial units, it does not have the same effects on the meat as throwing it in your home freezer. don't sell yourself short. Frozen or not, their stuff is amazing. 

TEXASBGE2018

Yes most of the N. Texas Costco's have the Briskets already. The Meat Department Rep told me the one out here in Rockwall will be getting the steaks sometime later in the summer. They were currently "testing the waters for Wagyu" as he put it. Said it may end up only being a regular thing in the more affluent areas.

steel_egg

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

mlc2013 said:

Ive been dying to try SRF but not a fan of frozen meat so didnt want to taint my experience with my pre conceived notion that it won't be as good cause its frozen. Now I have to see if this is in every costco or just tx

definitely not all Costco warehouses will have this. They buy food locally so each Costco's food assortment is as fresh and locally influenced as possible. Not even all the TX stores have the meat counter. N Tex has the big brisket case like we had last week. Maybe they will get the steaks next week. who knows? 

FWIW- the best brisket and steak I have ever had in my life were both frozen SRF. When things are blast frozen in commercial units, it does not have the same effects on the meat as throwing it in your home freezer. don't sell yourself short. Frozen or not, their stuff is amazing. 

Everything I’ve had from SRF has been amazing (and frozen). No worries ever buying from them. Shows up solid as a rock. 

mlc2013

The Cen-Tex Smoker is it just because its wagu or is SRF the only way to go? I ask because I can get Wagu from my local butcher if I order it ahead of time. I was going to create a post asking if all wagu is created equally, as I have never tried anything wagu, I didnt want to make a huge investment and not really get the best. Im interested mainly in rib eye and fillet mignon

Eggpharmer

Damnit, I was just there yesterday...guess I'll be heading back today

The Cen-Tex Smoker

mlc2013 said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker is it just because its wagu or is SRF the only way to go? I ask because I can get Wagu from my local butcher if I order it ahead of time. I was going to create a post asking if all wagu is created equally, as I have never tried anything wagu, I didnt want to make a huge investment and not really get the best. Im interested mainly in rib eye and fillet mignon

I buy a lot of 100% Wagyu locally but it can be insanely expensive if you want the glory cuts (Ribeyes Strips, Briskets) and can also be hit and miss. I've never gotten a good 100% wagyu brisket. They have all been so full of fat that you could never get them to render. 100% wagyu cattle are also HUGE so the briskets are like 30lbs. SRF is a cross of Black Angus and Wagyu. They have the whole process dialed in perfectly so the consistency is excellent. They also do an excellent job butchering which can be hit and miss with my local guys. I still buy more local stuff but SRF is the best commercial producer I have ever used. By a mile. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Eggpharmer said:

Damnit, I was just there yesterday...guess I'll be heading back today

I was up north on 183 today. haven't been south or Cedar park yet. You can call your club and they will tell you if they have it

SGH

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:
SRF is the best commercial producer I have ever used. By a mile. 

I concur wholeheartedly brother Tex. 

SSQUAL612

Wish I had transplanted already...$4.99 a lb for SRF Brisket...I'd pick of 4 or 5 for the freezer.   I have a 15lb Black Grade I'm cooking on the 4th and a 17lb Gold Grade that will be my farewell cook before I become a TEXAN.  

Eggpharmer

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Eggpharmer said:

Damnit, I was just there yesterday...guess I'll be heading back today

I was up north on 183 today. haven't been south or Cedar park yet. You can call your club and they will tell you if they have it

yea, that's the one I was at

lousubcap

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:
 SRF is the best commercial producer I have ever used. By a mile. 

I will echo that endorsement and wish that all those of you who have the opportunity jump at the chance.  You will be greatly rewarded.   Even I can appreciate the difference.
For the discriminator I find their briskets to be much better than anything else I can find, at least an order of magnitude better.  I have given their steak offerings several cooks and find the difference (if any) to not be worth the price difference, given what I can locally source.
That said, buy til it hurts, buy a Costco deep-freeze as well and enjoy the finer things in life.  
No affiliation here.  FWIW-
Better to be lucky than good any day!

Cornholio

Photo Egg

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

Hook_emHornsfan_74

Hmm. Contemplating going to austin his weekend anyway. This might push me over the edge.  Herniated disk or not. 

HeavyG

lousubcap said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:
 SRF is the best commercial producer I have ever used. By a mile. 

I will echo that endorsement and wish that all those of you who have the opportunity jump at the chance.  You will be greatly rewarded.   Even I can appreciate the difference.
For the discriminator I find their briskets to be much better than anything else I can find, at least an order of magnitude better.  I have given their steak offerings several cooks and find the difference (if any) to not be worth the price difference, given what I can locally source.
That said, buy til it hurts, buy a Costco deep-freeze as well and enjoy the finer things in life.  
No affiliation here.  FWIW-
Better to be lucky than good any day!

The briskets I've had from SRF were great. The few steaks I've bought - meh.

Bought one of their whole boneless ham things - it was very very good. Bought a couple of their boneless half ham things when they were on sale a few months ago - terrible. Tasted like and felt like a sponge and just slicing them squeezed out a gallon of liquid.

The Wagyu hot dogs are also pretty good but I think my future orders will likely just be the occasional Wagyu brisket.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

HeavyG said:

lousubcap said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:
 SRF is the best commercial producer I have ever used. By a mile. 

I will echo that endorsement and wish that all those of you who have the opportunity jump at the chance.  You will be greatly rewarded.   Even I can appreciate the difference.
For the discriminator I find their briskets to be much better than anything else I can find, at least an order of magnitude better.  I have given their steak offerings several cooks and find the difference (if any) to not be worth the price difference, given what I can locally source.
That said, buy til it hurts, buy a Costco deep-freeze as well and enjoy the finer things in life.  
No affiliation here.  FWIW-
Better to be lucky than good any day!

The briskets I've had from SRF were great. The few steaks I've bought - meh.

Bought one of their whole boneless ham things - it was very very good. Bought a couple of their boneless half ham things when they were on sale a few months ago - terrible. Tasted like and felt like a sponge and just slicing them squeezed out a gallon of liquid.

The Wagyu hot dogs are also pretty good but I think my future orders will likely just be the occasional Wagyu brisket.

dude! I had the same issue with the SRF mini ham. They sent it to me for free to be a test pilot...it was horrible. There was a big hype thread going around on here about how good they were (they sent several freebies out to guys to get the hype train rolling). I just laid out and didn't comment. I talked to srf shane (RIP- not dead, just left SRF) and he offered to send a new one but I didn't want to take another knowing I didn't like the first one. I ran some through my slicer and water just gushed out everywhere. I'll find the pics now that it's not the topic of the day. Spongy, flavorless water bomb. 

I can say that the normal SRF steaks I have had are not anything special. Would never pay the $50-$75lb they get for them on line. They are probably worth the $25-$30lb at Costco. I will say that the Gold NY Strip Loin I bought was the best steak I have ever had anywhere. Still have not tried their gold brisket. I don't even want to know if it's better than the black. I'm not paying that for brisket. Ignorance is bliss in this case. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

HeavyG said:

lousubcap said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:
 SRF is the best commercial producer I have ever used. By a mile. 

I will echo that endorsement and wish that all those of you who have the opportunity jump at the chance.  You will be greatly rewarded.   Even I can appreciate the difference.
For the discriminator I find their briskets to be much better than anything else I can find, at least an order of magnitude better.  I have given their steak offerings several cooks and find the difference (if any) to not be worth the price difference, given what I can locally source.
That said, buy til it hurts, buy a Costco deep-freeze as well and enjoy the finer things in life.  
No affiliation here.  FWIW-
Better to be lucky than good any day!

The briskets I've had from SRF were great. The few steaks I've bought - meh.

Bought one of their whole boneless ham things - it was very very good. Bought a couple of their boneless half ham things when they were on sale a few months ago - terrible. Tasted like and felt like a sponge and just slicing them squeezed out a gallon of liquid.

The Wagyu hot dogs are also pretty good but I think my future orders will likely just be the occasional Wagyu brisket.

My entire slicer tray had filled up and it ran off onto the counter and onto the floor. This was about 1lb of ham. 

This is what I sent him when asking about it:

hey shane- hope all is well. I was doing my cooks on the ham today but I wanted to touch base with you first. I was going to do 4 different presentations so I cut it in half to glaze one and do other stuff with the other half. The first thing I noticed was how much water was running out of it. I tasted it and it was like super salty water. I gave my wife a bite (didn't say anything, just handed it to her). She said wow, it's super watery. Keep in mind, this is from the middle, not moisture left over from the bag. I ran some through the slicer and water poured out off my slicer and all over my countertop. Some even ran off on to the floor. I've never seen anything like it. Is this normal? It seemed like it was pumped full of brine and not properly dried out or something. It watered down the flavor of the ham and just tasted salty and watery. I don't want to post anything like that but I did want you to be aware of my experience with it. Let me know what you think. 

HeavyG

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

HeavyG said:

lousubcap said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:
 SRF is the best commercial producer I have ever used. By a mile. 

I will echo that endorsement and wish that all those of you who have the opportunity jump at the chance.  You will be greatly rewarded.   Even I can appreciate the difference.
For the discriminator I find their briskets to be much better than anything else I can find, at least an order of magnitude better.  I have given their steak offerings several cooks and find the difference (if any) to not be worth the price difference, given what I can locally source.
That said, buy til it hurts, buy a Costco deep-freeze as well and enjoy the finer things in life.  
No affiliation here.  FWIW-
Better to be lucky than good any day!

The briskets I've had from SRF were great. The few steaks I've bought - meh.

Bought one of their whole boneless ham things - it was very very good. Bought a couple of their boneless half ham things when they were on sale a few months ago - terrible. Tasted like and felt like a sponge and just slicing them squeezed out a gallon of liquid.

The Wagyu hot dogs are also pretty good but I think my future orders will likely just be the occasional Wagyu brisket.

My entire slicer tray had filled up and it ran off onto the counter and onto the floor. This was about 1lb of ham. 

This is what I sent him when asking about it:

hey shane- hope all is well. I was doing my cooks on the ham today but I wanted to touch base with you first. I was going to do 4 different presentations so I cut it in half to glaze one and do other stuff with the other half. The first thing I noticed was how much water was running out of it. I tasted it and it was like super salty water. I gave my wife a bite (didn't say anything, just handed it to her). She said wow, it's super watery. Keep in mind, this is from the middle, not moisture left over from the bag. I ran some through the slicer and water poured out off my slicer and all over my countertop. Some even ran off on to the floor. I've never seen anything like it. Is this normal? It seemed like it was pumped full of brine and not properly dried out or something. It watered down the flavor of the ham and just tasted salty and watery. I don't want to post anything like that but I did want you to be aware of my experience with it. Let me know what you think. 

Yep!

When I had their whole boneless ham it went thru my meat slicer into very nice dry slices. Was really, really good.

But that half ham thing I could literally squeeze juice out of it like a sponge. Thought it might have just been that the first one was "off" but the second one was the same way - manually slicing it for a sandwich left the slices floating in juice on the cutting board. And... it didn't even taste very good. Was very surprised since I enjoyed the whole boneless so much.

ElkhornHusker

I had SRF ribeyes before -- not impressed waste of money, imo.  But to each their own

caliking

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

I know where I'll be at 10:01 am tomorrow... 

DMW

caliking said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

I know where I'll be at 10:01 am tomorrow... 

You know, I always thought they opened at 10:00 am. But every time I've showed up at 10:00 am, there's a bunch of other shoppers in there. I think they open earlier.

Photo Egg

caliking said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

I know where I'll be at 10:01 am tomorrow... 

Let me know what you find please.

caliking

DMW said:

caliking said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

I know where I'll be at 10:01 am tomorrow... 

You know, I always though they opened at 10:00 am. But every time I've showed up at 10:00 am, there's a bunch of other shoppers in there. I think they open earlier.

Those are the folks who got there at 9:59

I think some Costco's have earlier hrs for business memberships. Or something like that.

DMW

caliking said:

DMW said:

caliking said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

I know where I'll be at 10:01 am tomorrow... 

You know, I always though they opened at 10:00 am. But every time I've showed up at 10:00 am, there's a bunch of other shoppers in there. I think they open earlier.

Those are the folks who got there at 9:59

I think some Costco's have earlier hrs for business memberships. Or something like that.

Overachievers...

caliking

Photo Egg said:

caliking said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

I know where I'll be at 10:01 am tomorrow... 

Let me know what you find please.

Will do.

The Pearland one is right by me. But I have a feeling I'll strike out. Its the ugly stepchild of the ones around here.

Did you know about the Costco slated to open in Friendswood later this year? That would be a fair deal closer to you. 

Photo Egg

caliking said:

Photo Egg said:

caliking said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

I know where I'll be at 10:01 am tomorrow... 

Let me know what you find please.

Will do.

The Pearland one is right by me. But I have a feeling I'll strike out. Its the ugly stepchild of the ones around here.

Did you know about the Costco slated to open in Friendswood later this year? That would be a fair deal closer to you. 

Yes, eagerly waiting for new store. I dont currently have a membership as there is not a  store I can easily shop.
I pass 3 Sam's Club stores on my way home from work.lol

HeavyG

Photo Egg said:

caliking said:

Photo Egg said:

caliking said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Photo Egg said:

That's worth a 4 hour road trip each way...

You guys probably have them in Houston. I would call 

I know where I'll be at 10:01 am tomorrow... 

Let me know what you find please.

Will do.

The Pearland one is right by me. But I have a feeling I'll strike out. Its the ugly stepchild of the ones around here.

Did you know about the Costco slated to open in Friendswood later this year? That would be a fair deal closer to you. 

Yes, eagerly waiting for new store. I dont currently have a membership as there is not a  store I can easily shop.
I pass 3 Sam's Club stores on my way home from work.lol

The stuff @Focker was getting from his Sam's Club with their newly redone meat counter was looking pretty impressive. You might want to see if they have done that to your area yet. If my Sam's were to do that meat counter remodel I might have to reconsider my anti-Walmart bias and rejoin.