First attempt to buy Brisket in France. What exactly have I bought?

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corrieb74

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Original poster
Jun 28, 2022
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1
New member here. We recently moved to France from the US and I plan to celebrate the arrival of our Green Egg with a smoked brisket. These have to be special ordered from the butcher as Brisket isn't cut / packaged and sold here like in the US. I got my 16lb "brisket" today and from what I can tell they've given me ribs attached to the fat cap. See pictures.

I'd love to have some advice here on both identifying what exactly I've bought, but more importantly, whether it would be a good idea to separate the ribs from the brisket. I would guess the advantage of separating the two would be more predictable cook time and more surface area of crust. Possible advantage of not separating would be keeping in all the moisture from that fat cap?

Thanks in advance for any input. Regardless, it looks like lovely meat.

Ben
 

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I'm curious too. Heck are you sure it's beef? I'd fear it might be tough.
I'd like to hear from the experts how they suggest it be prepared and cooked and to what internal temp.
 
Oh it's beef without question and what's under the ribs looks like brisket to me. That is what I requested. That said, I'm certainly no expert :)
 
Looks like it is brisket with the bones still there, instead of removing the brisket from the bones they band sawed and might be a real treat, keep us updated
 
Looks like you have a piece of the flat....1/2 of the flat cut longways along with the ribs, and maybe 1/4-1/3 of the point. I agree with Mike; I'd leave it on the bones.
 
I have never seen one with the ribs in it.

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Looks like you have a piece of the flat....1/2 of the flat cut longways along with the ribs, and maybe 1/4-1/3 of the point. I agree with Mike; I'd leave it on the bones.
IDK I am absolutely not an expert on cuts of meat but, looking at the pic of the cow, do the ribs run that far forward to get to the brisket?

Could that be a chuck short rib section? I am sure tx smoker tx smoker will chime in.
 
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Hardly would call this as a brisket but then again no telling what the french butcher was thinking when he was processing. I would smoke it like Dino Bones. Looks like there's a bit of silver skin on top that I'd want to remove. I'm in for the smoke. Let us know how it went.
 
> no telling what the french butcher was thinking when he was processing

They were really guessing to some extent based on my limited explanation of what I wanted. I asked for a "poitrine complete", which is the best translation I could find on Google. They also told me that cuts vary even within European countries, so there may be no one word to describe what an American would recognize as a brisket. They also said that this would typically be cut up for stew.
 
indaswamp indaswamp That video was so informative, thank you. When he makes that first cut through the fat to separate the brisket from the "feather bones", that's the cut that wasn't made in mine and those are the bones that are still there. It's interesting that having removed that piece with the feather bones, it just went straight in the bin. I think if I were to make a similar cut and remove those bones, I would end up with a regular brisket. That said, I can't help agreeing that bone-in might be the way to go here as it will lock in that fat layer nicely.
 
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Could that be a chuck short rib section?
That's what I was thinking . Bottom of the chuck section . Breast plate or brisket flap .

Like what you trim off whole pork spares to make them St. Louis cut .
 
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