How NOT to slice a brisket.

Black_Badger · June 2015

HAHA! Definitely piling on at this point, but yes; those are both remarkably bad videos. I have to imagine there was some reasoning behind these parallel travesties, but I have no earthly conception of what those may have been...

B_B

Philly35 · June 2015

Haha @cazzy In case you didn't notice, that pink area, is called the smoke ring. That's some good stuff right there.

clifkincaid · June 2015

I guess if I eat every piece of the Brisket I'm wrong after watching these horror flicks!

Biggreenpharmacist · June 2015

SGH said:

Biggreenpharmacist said:
Next time you and NOLA better be looking around and make sure nobodys filming you when yall start slicing at brisket camp.

Brother pharmacist, while my knife skills are certainly nowhere near what they use to be when I was in my prime, I feel I could have done a better job with a chainsaw than those fellows in the videos did. Just watching them was painful.

You could probably do better with a damn weedeater and a KFC spork.

StillSmoken · June 2015

Funny!! I went to a butcher a couple years ago and bought my first brisket. He told me to watch the "wholly smokes" video and that's all you need to know about carving brisket. No wonder my one and only brisket sucked. What an a$$ hole.

SGH · June 2015

Eggdicted_Dawgfan said:

@SGHCan you tell me exactly where/ what he did wrong? I am very new to briskets. Thank you sir.

I will gladly offer my thoughts on the matter now that time permits. Let me say first that in no way am I claiming to be a prep expert. But with that said, I have put in untold and countless hours breaking and reducing meat. Also I would like to point out that I'm not trying to put down or criticize anyone's methods, techniques nor their lack of blade and reduction skill. That is certainly not my intent. However there is a difference in doing something either right or wrong. And let me say from the on set that he got it wrong with one exception which we will discuss later. Now let's take a closer look. First he said to cut off the deckle. Now I know different regions uses different "slangs" to describe a object, in this case a piece of meat. But by no stretch of the imagination did he cut off or more appropriately cut out the deckle. Next he says let's remove this fat. Upon this cut what he removed was easily 75 percent quality meat. His next cut replicates the first cut, same mistake. Hence he proceeds to explain how to separate. Watch this cut carefully. For the last half of the knife stroke, he misses the mark by several inches, thus leaving a mass of flat attached. At this point he starts to hack away at the meat like a wild man. Every slice is at least a 1/2 inch thick. Some of them considerably thicker. Also something that I bet most missed was at the very beginning where he refers to only the flat as being the brisket. This is simply incorrect and wrong on his part. In his defense he did get one thing right when he said to slice against the grain. However that is honestly the only thing that he got right. As he hacked away slicing, he did not stay true and square. I know that this is minor, but if you are going to film it and put it out there for the whole world to see, then I would at least try to get it right. To sum it up, he wasted a ton of good meat and hacked up what he didn't throw away. If I missed any thing or if you still have questions, please ask. I will do my very best to offer what I can. Let me end with a note of clarification. By no means would I criticize someone who was inexperienced or just starting out at cutting meat. We all have to learn and start somewhere However this fellow created a how to video and missed the mark by miles in my opinion. What he actually created was a excellent How Not To video.

TexanOfTheNorth · June 2015

Not sure he understood what a "burnt end" is either @SGH

Popsicle · June 2015

This has to be some kind of a joke. The guy doing the slicing is Scott Roberts from The Salt Lick Bar-B-Que (Driftwood, TX). As much brisket as they sell, I don't think they waste that much.
Popsicle

jonnymack · June 2015

It would be far less offensive if he at least handed off the discarded pieces to me instead of throwing them away. What a great laugh, and I don't know squat about brisket.

Ladeback69 · June 2015

The first thing I do when I am trimming up a brisket to smoke I find the grain and cut a small piece off in the edge of the flat where it is against the grain so I know where to cut when it is done and you can't tell with the bark. Some people don't like the bark, but they can trim it off themselves IMO. What he calls the burnt end really makes me made and if this guy completes, how is he winning anything?

MelSharples · June 2015

SGH · June 2015

TexanOfTheNorth said:

Not sure he understood what a "burnt end" is either @SGH

You are certainly correct my friend.

Popsicle said:

This has to be some kind of a joke. The guy doing the slicing is Scott Roberts from The Salt Lick Bar-B-Que (Driftwood, TX). As much brisket as they sell, I don't think they waste that much.
Popsicle

When I first watched it my impression was that it was a gag or joke. But after farther review and study, I feel that it was real. He goes into to much depth and detail for it to be a joke. Also brother Cen Tex posted above that he knows many places that does this very thing. If it was a joke, I sure wish that they would have pointed it out. A lot of unknowing and inexperienced people will watch that and pick up some bad habits.

Dobie · June 2015

Simcan · June 2015

It has to be a joke.

onedbguru · June 2015

wouldn't mind having that knife - looks like he was slicing butter- even though most of it was sacrilege.

andres1987 · June 2015

onedbguru said:

wouldn't mind having that knife - looks like he was slicing butter- even though most of it was sacrilege.

i think it's this one. it's awesome, i have it myself. what he did to that brisket has no name.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001L68B08?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00

DoubleEgger · June 2015

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F54rqDh2mWA

onedbguru · June 2015

He may not be discarding the meat, but putting it into a bin under the table for later use - if this is indeed Scott from Salt Lick, their baked beans have chunks of brisket - some DANG good beans!!

jcaspary · June 2015

Beans may be good but that's a really big waste of some expensive beef just for some beans.

onedbguru · June 2015

or could be for their burnt ends... I don't believe there is enough evidence that he is actually "wasting" the product. I would not butcher it this way, but then I don't have all the facts to determine "wastefulness". Just sayin.

TexanOfTheNorth · June 2015

onedbguru said:

or could be for their burnt ends... I don't believe there is enough evidence that he is actually "wasting" the product. I would not butcher it this way, but then I don't have all the facts to determine "wastefulness". Just sayin.

Don't think so... he gave "the" burnt end away.

Miked125 · June 2015

I want to cry and have a beer!

Foghorn · June 2015

OK. Here is a legit question for the expert brisket slicers.

Is it acceptable to separate the flat muscle from the point muscle (WITHOUT THROWING STUFF AWAY) and then slice them separately so that you can have "lean" brisket and "moist" brisket? This way each muscle can be sliced perfectly across the grain - rather than the compromise one has to make when both muscles are sliced together such that they are each being sliced "relatively" across the grain.

TexanOfTheNorth · June 2015

Absolutely! You can also separate them and use the point (or deckle) for burnt ends (assuming you want more than the one burnt end he got off of his brisket)

Ladeback69 · June 2015

From my limited experience you want to slice the flat against the grain, but since the point has more fatty tissue in it, it can be sliced in about any direction. I may be wrong on this, but when I do burnt ends I separate the point from the flat and cut the flat against the grain and the point straight across in 1" slices then again into 1' cubes. The points grain is usually going in a different direction. I have just sliced the whole thing against the grain starting in the corner of the flat. This is just from my experience, @SGH what do you think. Also I keep all the bark, but try to trim off as much off the fat inside as I can and save those pieces for me. I don't mind the fatty pieces at all.

It sounds like a instruction video on how to cut a brisket need to be made by one of us or more.

I found this one on Youtube and he cuts off the fat cap first then continues to move it to always cut against the grain. This is better way and no waste.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXuUh2XFjVA

cazzy · June 2015

@Ladeback69 I always cut against the grain, point and flat. Not doing so makes for a stringy and less tender chew. That is of course for serving slices. Cubing up a point for burnt ends wouldn't matter.

lousubcap · June 2015

The Aaron Franklin video above and his "Brisket Payoff" you tube video make slicing the brisket (flat and point) easy to follow. Takes the mystique out of the process.

cazzy · June 2015

Ladeback69 said:

It sounds like a instruction video on how to cut a brisket need to be made by one of us or more.

I found this one on Youtube and he cuts off the fat cap first then continues to move it to always cut against the grain. This is better way and no waste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXuUh2XFjVA

Why reinvent the wheel when Aaron has a perfect one on YouTube. If you don't cut it whole like he does, just separate and go from there but it still is a perfect example.

That video is terrible. It is wasteful as he's wasting his bark because he doesn't trim it properly raw. The deckle should be removed during prep and the fat cap should be trimmed to 1/4 inch. This prevents the need to trim your fat cap down post cook and throw away bark you work your butt off for. He also doesn't know how to hold a knife...just saying.

Ladeback69 · June 2015

cazzy said:

Ladeback69 said:

It sounds like a instruction video on how to cut a brisket need to be made by one of us or more.

I found this one on Youtube and he cuts off the fat cap first then continues to move it to always cut against the grain. This is better way and no waste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXuUh2XFjVA

Why reinvent the wheel when Aaron has a perfect one on YouTube. If you don't cut it whole like he does, just separate and go from there but it still is a perfect example.

That video is terrible. It is wasteful as he's wasting his bark because he doesn't trim it properly raw. The deckle should be removed during prep and the fat cap should be trimmed to 1/4 inch. This prevents the need to trim your fat cap down post cook and throw away bark you work your butt off for. He also doesn't know how to hold a knife...just saying.

I see you points on wasting bark, but I thought he was cutting the fat cap off, which usually comes off when I bring it of the grill anyway. I take it the deckle is the hard fat next to the point and I always remove that. I didn't pay attention to how he was holding the knife tell you said something. I remember watching the Food Network and Ann Burrell say don't put your finger on top of the blade and I haven't since. That's a good way to get hurt.

HendersonTRKing · June 2015

The horror. The horror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DK0aaLNGak

How NOT to slice a brisket.

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