Here’s what I do with my brisket trimmings. I usually grind it up into burgers and make some tallow, but I also throw it in beef stew and some homemade sausage.

First I separate the meat from fat.

For burgers I weigh the meat and then weigh out some fat for a 75/25 mix. I put all that in the freezer for an hour so it’s easier to grind. Then I grind with the coarse plate. And then run it through one more time with the fine plate. And then a little ice to get the last bits.

I form into rough balls and then in the fridge until I’m ready to cook it.

For tallow, I roughly chop the fat and render it down in a pan while I’m smoking the brisket. You can grind the fat before rendering it, or you can chop it up halfway through the cook to get more out of it. You don’t want to leave it on the smoker too long as it can get over smoked.

You can use that tallow as a general fat replacement and use it when you foil boat and wrap the briskets.

I like to strain the fat through a paper towel into a glass jar. I’ve recently started pouring it into ice cube trays so I can easily throw a cube into a vac seal bag when I’m portioning out brisket. I found this trick somewhere online, but can’t remember where so props to whomever did it first.

That’s just a couple of things you can do with the brisket trimmings - what about you? What do you like to do with your trimmings?


#brisket #bbq #smokedmeat #bbqtips #foodprep