Sam’s Warehouse

[AlphaPapa]

I am looking at joining Sam’s because they are offering their membership for real cheap through the end of the month. I was noticing they offered a “trimmed” prime brisket for the same price as their regular (untrimmed?) brisket. Does anyone have any experience with this? Do you have to order it ahead of time? I guess the downside would be that you don’t get to pick the one you want. However, it would be nice to not have to pay for several pounds of fat.

 

[Greg Jones]

No experience with the Sam’s pre-trimmed brisket, but there are a lot of uses for the fat, especially if one grinds their own beef and pork. I make beef tallow, cut the fat into chunks and freeze for later incorporation into ground, lean, chuck to make great burgers, etc. it’s not often I throw away brisket trim. But then, I don’t smoke a lot of brisket, but if you do buying pre-trimmed could be a smart choice.

Either way, a membership in a wholesale club has its benefits. We used to be Sam’s Club members, but then switched to Costco when they opened closer to us. It’s just the wife and I now, so I rarely buy in the large, bulk sizes that make them so popular, but I do see enough other benefits that I believe the membership is worth it.

 

[FastEddie]

Off topic, but worthy.
A membership there may also save you some money on insurance also. Ask your agent.

 

[Mike]

I have access to Sams Club and have a Costco membership, but we rarely buy in bulk anymore and really the more I go to Costco the more they seem to really annoy me. Our renewal notice has been hanging on the fridge for the last few weeks and I'm still not sure I'll be renewing.

If you buy in bulk often, they certainly can be nice to have.

To your actual question about trimmed briskets. I would agree with all of @Greg Jones points and add that having an untrimmed would be my preference if using it for nothing else but to render into the brisket while smoking.

I've done many briskets from home-grown cows or purchased from Costco and have found I'm not having to shave tons of fat off, so I'm not sure paying the extra ($4.48 /lb) for a trimmed brisket is really saving you all that much compared to an untrimmed ($3.98 /lb) brisket.

 

[kstone113]

I don't have experience but I would give it a shot. The fat you cut off does have value if you want to make beef tallow. But I would just give one a shot and see how you like the way the trimmed the brisket. If you do, then you have an option to go buy one and put on the smoker quickly without all the prep.

I will say, if they charged more for trimmed, I won't....but same price, worth a shot.

 

[Ericbc7]

If we assume 20% fat by weight on a packer brisket at $3.98/lb and you don’t want the fat for other purposes that 15 lb packer costs $59.70.
A 15 lb packer will have about 3 lbs of fat (20%) if we usually trim about 15% or 2.25 lbs fat that makes our now 12.75 lb brisket $4.68/lb. So if they are charging $4.48/lb for pre-trimmed brisket - thats a good deal if they trim it like you would otherwise.

 

[Greg Jones]

I wouldn’t dispute the math nor would I fault someone wanting to skip the trimming step. But if you don’t have need for fat for other purposes (smoking your own tallow, add to chuck for grinding, etc., you are missing out on a ton of flavor useful in many ways. Speaking of the math, a 42 oz. tub of beef tallow from Chicago Packing is $30.00 on Amazon now.

 

[Ericbc7]

I wouldn’t dispute the math nor would I fault someone wanting to skip the trimming step. But if you don’t have need for fat for other purposes (smoking your own tallow, add to chuck for grinding, etc., you are missing out on a ton of flavor useful in many ways. Speaking of the math, a 42 oz. tub of beef tallow from Chicago Packing is $30.00 on Amazon now.

Agreed!