What to Do With Brisket Trimmings (This Will Really Suprise You!)

Are you smoking a brisket? You’re bound to have some trimmings!

And while it can be tempting to throw away — if you’re still new on the BBQ scene — you should never ever throw the extra fat out.

In this article, we’ll be going through the many different uses of brisket trimmings.

You might actually be surprised because there are quite a few non-edible ways you can repurpose it too!

Keep on reading on to find out more.

To Trim or Not to Trim

Brisket usually comes with a layer of fat and a fat cap.

While fat certainly adds flavor to the meat, it’s important to make sure that your whole beef brisket doesn’t have too much fat on its surface.

Plus its allows you to tenderize the brisket better.

Too much fat content on the exterior of the piece of meat will actually slow the overall cooking time. 

If you’re unsure of how much fat you should actually trim off, we have a helpful tip for you.

Just keep in mind that the brisket’s fat cap should be cut down so that there’s only about an inch of fat covering the meat.

You never want to cut too much fat off because then your brisket wouldn’t have enough fat to keep it moist throughout the entire smoking session.

What Can You Do With the Trimmings?

So, now that you’ve cut the fat off nicely, what should you do with the extra fat or beef tallow?

So, here are some simple and useful ideas for using the fat in other recipes or repurposing it entirely.

What If You OverTrim Your Brisket?

Worried you have over trimmed your brisket? Don’t worry I have a method to cook it so that it comes out moist and juicy still!

Edible Recipes

As we mentioned before, fat equals flavor. Therefore, saving the extra brisket fat will allow you to have a natural flavoring agent.

Place it in the fridge and you can use it at a later date. One of our favorite things to add it to is our brisket pie, it gives the gravy just that little more depth of flavor

Forget The Butter And Oil

Why use store-bought butter or oil to fry up your meals, when you could just melt down some leftover beef fat in a pan? 
    
The brisket drippings add a scrumptious flavor to any food you cook up. We honestly never reach for the butter or any other cooking oils if we have some extra beef fat sitting in the fridge.

It’s especially great if you’re trying to make homemade hash browns or fries. In fact, if you look up any recipes for French fries, you will see that it calls for beef tallow fat.

This especially applies to those recipes that aim to taste similar to the Mcdonald’s fries.

Yorkshire Pudding

Yorkshire pudding is a baked savory pastry that actually requires beef fat in its original recipe. It’s made out of kosher salt, baking flour, eggs, milk and water.

For this recipe, you’ll want to heat up the fats first, and pour that into a baking pan before you pour in the mixed-up batter.

After that, just stick it in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes until the exterior becomes a nice shade of golden brown.

Use It to Make Yummy Gravy

And of course, what is Yorkshire pudding without some delicious gravy on the side?

Making gravy is super simple, all you need is:

• some form of beef fat — in this case, your leftover trimmings
• corn starch or all-purpose flour
• beef or chicken stock — a soup base would work too
• milk or cream
• water

Just combine all of the ingredients in a pot on the stove. Then let it simmer for around 20 minutes and you’ve got some delicious gravy for everyone to enjoy!

Home Made Hamburgers

Making homemade hamburgers or ground chuck is super simple.

And now that you’ve got one of the recipe’s core ingredients (the animal fat), there’s no reason not to make it!
    
You don’t even need a meat grinder to pulverize the meat. As long as you’ve got a food processor on hand, you should be good to go.
    
You’ll want to combine the ground meat with the beef tallow. And you’ll need to ensure that the ratio of fat to lean meat is around 1:4.
    
Once everything is combined, all that remains is to ensure that the meat mixture is properly seasoned. After that, you can place your meat patties on the hot grill to finish cooking.

You Don’t Have to Only Eat It

It’s true! Fat isn’t just great for upping your food game. You can also use it for a whole bunch of other DIY recipes that aren’t meant for eating.

Here are two of our favorite ideas that we’ve tried for ourselves.

Use It to Make Candles

Let’s say that you don’t have beeswax. After all, they’re not exactly cheap. And you’ll usually have to go to specialized stores to get your hand on some. 
    
Compared to that, beef trimmings are ways easier to obtain. Plus, it’s basically a free by-product from your brisket.
    
So, now that you have your beeswax substitute on hand, simply melt it and set it aside to cool in a heat-resistant glass jar. If you don’t have one of those, an old candle tin container will work just fine.
    
Then just mix in a couple of drops of your favorite essential oils while it’s still in its liquid state.

And place in the candle wick before the fat begins to harden. And that’s it! 
    
You’ve now made your own candle with leftover beef trimmings! How cool is that?

Turn It Into Soap

This may sound gross, but beef fat is actually one of the most prominent ingredients for homemade soaps.

So, it’s very likely that those DIY soaps you’ve bought at flea markets or small businesses all contained beef tallow.

The fats are what ensure that the bar stays hard when dry.

And those fats begin to break down when you wet the bar. It also helps create that nice soapy lather.

So next time you buy a brisket and find yourself with too much trimmings, just save it in the fridge or freezer.

The fat will keep well in the freezer for up to a year, but we’re sure that you’ll find a use for it before it goes bad!

We hope you found our tips useful in getting some ideas for how to best repurpose any leftover brisket fat.

Smoke On!

Charlie

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