Nebraska Star Beef Angus Brisket Whole, 8 Pound

Full Disclosure: This is the first USDA Prime Aged beef brisket I have bought and my first product review. Being an amateur backyard smoker I decided I wanted to take on an USDA Prime 35 day wet aged Angus beef brisket so I found Nebraska Star on Amazon. I have done local grocery store briskets before but this would be my first "competition" brisket. I was nervous to spend that kind of money on meat over the internet but my worries were for nothing, this brisket was awesome! It was shipped through my Prime account and arrived perfectly sealed and frozen. The instructions said to refrigerator thaw 24hrs prior but I found it took almost 48hrs in my fridge. When I opened the cryovaced package the aroma that came out was the purest, most powerful beef smell I have ever experienced. The meat itself was so tender I thought I was going to be able to pull it apart with my hands simply by moving it around. I seasoned it simply with coarse sea salt and coarse ground peppercorns and then let it sit in my fridge wrapped for another 24hrs. After smoking it for 14hrs it came out divine. The flavors were so deep and rich that my family couldn't believe that it wasn't marinaded or seasoned it with a rub to achieve those flavors and tenderness. That brisket was that good with just salt 'n pepper.

I've been smoking brisket for well over 25 years and know a thing or two about smoking brisket as a backyard cook. I've been looking for a more competitive price as top quality brisket is very pricey especially when trimming one you may lose 5 to 7 lbs in the trim up. I have for years bought brisket from Snake River Farms and without a doubt the go to choice for the Pitmasters. While reading the reviews on Nebraska Star brisket I was impressed with the fact they do a fair job getting rid of the hard ugly fat which means less work for you. I decided to give Nebraska Star a try and I'll say I was more than happy with my first one. It arrived in a thick styrofoam sealed container. Still very frozen which is important to me because I may not want to cook it right away. I've had some briskets partially thawed from SRF's and caused me some grief. Well after the thaw in the fridge I opened the CryoVac seal and noticed very little liquid in the package as compared to other suppliers. I weighed it before I opened it and it weighed in at 12.6 lbs and I trimmed off no more than 2.5 lbs which made easy work. The point was a bit small but the flat was a nice size and thicker than most weighing the same. My visual observation of it revealed a higher content of marbling of fat that you usually see in only the Waygu grades of meat. The fat cap had a large gouge in the center but I filled it with some trimmings. Not a big problem! I used the same method to cook it as I've used with a Waygu gold brisket from Snake River Farms and was pleasantly surprised to see it finished cooking in less time than traditional high quality briskets. That is usually because of the high quality of fat marbling in the muscle. This was a very good high quality cut of brisket and it showed after the cook. This was not my very best brisket I've ever cooked but it's up there with some of the best. For the price, it's the best quality I have ever bought! I will be a regular purchaser of Nebraska Star briskets and if I were to compete I believe it would take in a few blue ribbons. The main thing is I'll save some money compared to the more pricey top quality briskets that you have to do a lot of prep trimming for a cook. Glad to have tried Nebraska Star... I've just ordered 3 more briskets! I'm hoping for consistency... that will be in my next review.

After cutting about 6lbs away, I'd say we got a very honest 10lbs , yes, 16lbs on the scale. Cut away all the hard plastic like fat, cut in half, make each half as uniform as possible, I wrapped them in 18" wide heavy duty tin foil, 255○ in the oven, 4 hours worked pretty well getting to 203° internal. Vacuum sealed a lot with Tallow for the week, what was left over was great! Thawed exactly 4 days in the fridge. Happy with mine, hope that helps... adding a thin layer of tallow in the foil (ontop) is a nice touch

I bought this brisket to serve at Thanksgiving so I didn't thaw to examine a totally frozen brisket upon receipt. I simply placed it in the freezer intending to use later. When I thawed it out I was appalled when I first handled the brisket because not being my first ever brisket it did not pass the bend test you normally use to initially select your purchase. It hand virtually no pliability at all after thawed. This brisket was advertised as championship ready quality but had i picked this brisket out of a store freezer,this is certainly would not be one that I would select. But because I put trust that someone who would advertise that their products to be of championship quality would fill an order with such a disgustingly low grade and poorly represented selection,I feel like a victim of bait and switch. Because of the close proximity to Thanksgiving I decided to make the best of it and prepared the brisket and as I feared it disappointed and I will never patronize this company again and I strongly caution anyone who is considering a purchase from Nebraska by mail against it.

I compete in two or three KCBS BBQ competition's a year, and use prime briskets from the local warehouse club. A lot of the teams use Wagyu brisket. I have a tough time spending $225.00 on a brisket. I ordered one of the Nebraska Star briskets instead. Ordered on a Tuesday, it arrived on Wednesday, in its own Styrofoam cooler packed in dry ice, When I opened the cooler the brisket was frozen solid and there was dry ice still in the cooler. After thawing , I noticed the brisket was trimmed nicely, I did not weight it but I think it was closer to 12 pounds than 8. The marbling was quite nice and a bright white, telling me this was a young and healthy beef. We prepped and seasoned the brisket, smoked it for 8 hours to an internal temp of 190. Let it rest for two hours. We sliced into the brisket and extremely pleased with the results. One of the best tasting brisket we have made. very moist and tender. We will be using Nebraska Star briskets from now on.

First, this was no 8 pound brisket, 10-12 pounds was more like it. It was too large to fit in my smoker so I broke it into flat and point and made burnt ends out of the point section, That turned out to be a major success as the burnt ends were the hit of the cook out. The brisket started cooking quickly and hit 165 degrees at which time it stalled and I wrapped it in butcher paper. It stayed stalled for quite a while before it started climbing in temperature again. I smoked it for 12 hours and in my smoker it could have used another hour, but that is my smoker, yours may vary. All in all everyone was very complimentary and the meal was a great success. Next time I will take what I have learned and improve it. I definitely will purchase this product again for the cookout as it was great.

A little pricey for the end result. The wife can make the cheapest meats flavorful and full of county smoked goodness. The product was rich and dense in meat muscle. The end result was a brisket that needed more moisture. Anyway, back to pork butts and Costco beef brisket. Remember, you can't take county out of the wife, but thank God, because she can smoke a good butt.

I was on the fence, did I really want to spend this much on a brisket. I do a lot of smoking, if it can be smoked I will try it. I just completed building a wine barrel smoker and after a couple of test runs I wanted to test something bigger. I prepped the brisket with a fresh paprika rub, broth injection and a brisket mop. The smoke was 8 hours at about 250, wrapped for the last 2.5 hours. The taste was the best we have ever tasted. My wife said it all, "Wow what did you do different?"