Brisket is a tough cut that usually needs to be cooked low and slow but today, I’m going to cut this EXPENSIVE Wagyu Beef Brisket into steaks and grill them hot and fast! Did I RUIN the amazing Wagyu beef brisket or….is it a great tasting steak?
An Expensive Experiment
This brisket comes to us from our friends at Wiens Wagyu. I was recently speaking with the owner Brayden, who had a crazy idea.
“Hey Joey, what if I sent you an entire brisket and you try to break it down into steaks and throw it on the grill?”
That question made me really nervous. Do you know how expensive a full-blood Wagyu brisket is?! And how envious most barbecuers and grillers would be to have this in their smoker! Hence- why I’m a little nervous about breaking this down into steaks. Am I going to ruin a couple hundred dollars cut of beef? I guess we will find out!
If you want to order some full-blood Wagyu directly from Wiens Wagyu, head over to their website and use code “RML” for a 10% discount on your first order!
How to Prep the Brisket
This is some of the best beef available anywhere in the world and I am the luckiest guy in the world to
get the opportunity to experiment and try new things with this incredible cut of beef.
Once I carefully cut the brisket out of the packaging, the next thing I want to do is dry it off with some paper towels. This will make this big hunk of meat easier to handle. I learned a great tip from Chef Rob at Q39 – he shared that it easier to work with a cold brisket. So, once it is completely thawed, throw it in the freezer for 30 to 45 minutes so the fat will be easier to trim.
Now it’s time to start trimming the fat, starting with the fat cap. But don’t throw it away! This stuff is liquid gold. In another post, we show you how to turn wagyu beef fat into tallow. Make sure that you trim the fat evenly and you don’t cut into the meat.
Once the fat is adequately trimmed, we are going to separate the point from the flat. We ended up with some long, flat brisket steaks. You can really tell the difference in the marbling between the steaks cut from the flat and point. The point has a lot more intramuscular fat than the flat, so we are going to see which brisket steak tastes better. As we know, the fat is where it’s at, so it will be interesting to taste the results!
Time to throw these wagyu brisket steaks on the grill! I cooked them to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit (medium). I cooked these a little longer than a typical steak to allow that fat to render down more.
Wagyu Beef Brisket Steak – Yum or Yuck?
Well, I can definitely tell this is Wagyu beef. I’m immediately hit with those rich umami flavors that we would expect from this full-blood Wagyu. Although Wagyu beef is delicious, these brisket steaks cut from the point are…different. They almost taste like a really flavorful top round. They don’t have that good, soft mouthfeel that we’re looking for with Wagyu meat. The flat steaks have a better bite. They have more of a sirloin type of texture. You are getting some fattier pieces in there that are a little harder to chew, but overall it’s a lot easier to chew on than the point. The flat is definitely much more edible than the point.
When is comes down to it – is the squeeze worth the juice? I think you’d be better off just buying pre-cut Wagyu steak. I was rooting for this experiment to work, but I think the fat in the brisket is just too tough to handle being cooked like a steak. There is a reason briskets are cooked low and slow.
Although the flat steaks are edible, the point steaks are not. And that just doesn’t seem worth all of the work you put in to eventually end up with inedible wagyu brisket steaks. Although the fat is where it’s at…inedible fat is no bueno!
That being said, the Wagyu beef brisket experiments are not done! We have a couple more to come, so stay tuned! Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel to catch all of our experiments and cooking videos so you can learn to turn up the tasty right along with us!
