Relative efficiency of braising cuts

[Fat Guy]

I'm surely not the first person to notice that, when you buy X pounds of meat for braising, you wind up with a lot less than X pounds of edible finished produce. But the extent of the inefficiency varies widely by cut.

For example, with beef short ribs (or, I suppose, the short ribs of any animal), you need to buy about a million pounds of short ribs per person. Not only do they shrink a lot, but also there's a lot of inedible tissue as well as all those bones. Whereas, with something like beef brisket, you also lose a lot of weight but not nearly as much.

I have never attempted to quantify any of this. Has anybody else? I'd love to see a chart. Or, barring that, what are your rough guidelines of per-person raw amounts for short ribs, shanks, brisket, chuck, etc., and why?

[weinoo]

I'm surely not the first person to notice that, when you buy X pounds of meat for braising, you wind up with a lot less than X pounds of edible finished produce. But the extent of the inefficiency varies widely by cut.

For example, with beef short ribs (or, I suppose, the short ribs of any animal), you need to buy about a million pounds of short ribs per person. Not only do they shrink a lot, but also there's a lot of inedible tissue as well as all those bones. Whereas, with something like beef brisket, you also lose a lot of weight but not nearly as much.

I have never attempted to quantify any of this. Has anybody else? I'd love to see a chart. Or, barring that, what are your rough guidelines of per-person raw amounts for short ribs, shanks, brisket, chuck, etc., and why?

As far as quantifying - no. No chart, either. But I generally follow the turkey guidelines - 1 pound per person (after trimming) should give leftovers.

OF course, for things like shanks and ribs, you gotta up the totals. 1 shank per person (if it's lamb), 1 good cut of osso buco per person (if it's veal).

[David A. Goldfarb]

With a brisket I'm usually not thinking about how much to make per person, but that it's not worth making a brisket (braised, "first cut" aka "flat end") less than 4 lbs, and more than 5 lbs is ideal, since it's no more work to make a larger one, and it gets better as it's reheated. I think I get a little more than two servings per pound usually.

The top round seems to shrink less than brisket when braised, but I haven't done the top round enough to be sure how significant the difference is.

[Chris Amirault]

I'm very interested in this topic. I broke down 10# of chuck this weekend and would estimate that I had 30% loss in the two dishes (chili and a braised Chinese dish). Next time I'll measure.

The per person question is moot for me since I usually am cooking batch and not worried about product cost per diner. I wonder what the CIA textbooks have to say on this matter....

[Raw/Cooked]

I was tasked with determining the yield of brisket and whole pork shoulders when I worked at a BBQ place several years ago. I weighed individual briskets and shoulders (about 25 of each)before and after cooking. I no longer have the exact figures, but the average loss in weight for these cuts was 40-50%. Granted there are many variables at play here, but this is what I found given the meat we were buying and the cooking method. I should note that these numbers represent untrimmed cuts. Once prepped for service (i.e. removing the skin and large chunks of fat from the pork shoulder), the yield was reduced further.

[snowangel]

I'm sort of wondering, whether one braises or smokes these cuts of meat, how much loss is attributable to the "little bits that happen to fall off into the cook's or smoker's mouth?"

[mattsea]

I've definitely found a significant loss in pork shoulder, I'd estimate in the 40% range (as per the post above).

Other cuts like oxtail and lamb shank seem to lose less.

[project]

Sure. Whenever I have a recipe developed well enough to consider it done, one of the standard last things I do is calculate yield.

E.g., back in August, 2006, I did a fake Memphis BBQ starting with a 10.18 pound picnic pork shoulder. After cooking for 16 hours in a 220 F oven and separating, I got right at 5 pounds of edible meat.

Have done the same for roasting eye of round for roast beef sandwiches.

Intend to do the same when return again to poached scallops.

[Fat Guy]

I wonder what the variance is between smoking (dry heat) and braising (wet heat).

[weinoo]

A picnic pork shoulder has a pretty huge bone, no? A Boston butt, not so big.

If you took two "identical" briskets (I know that's impossible, but let's say two briskets that were pretty close to each other), braised one and cooked the other with dry heat, my guess would be a higher yield on the braised product. Additionally, if the braised brisket is allowed to rest overnight in the liquid, does it reabsorb some of that liquid?

[Fat Guy]

My guess is that, with brisket, the most reabsorption is going to occur if you slice it after refrigeration and reheat the slices in liquid. The next time I cook a brisket I have to remember to record weights at the various stages in the process.

[snowangel]

A picnic pork shoulder has a pretty huge bone, no? A Boston butt, not so big.

If you took two "identical" briskets (I know that's impossible, but let's say two briskets that were pretty close to each other), braised one and cooked the other with dry heat, my guess would be a higher yield on the braised product. Additionally, if the braised brisket is allowed to rest overnight in the liquid, does it reabsorb some of that liquid?

Yep, Mitch, I'd think the weight of the bone would be a big factor.

But, to the brisket. When I braise meat and rest it overnight in the 'fridge, I follow Wolfert's guidelines -- remove meat from liquid and store the meat very tightly wrapped with the liquid stored separately.

Further to the whole thing about smoked vs. braised meat (since they are often the same cuts), rarely do I serve the smoked meat the day I smoke it (it's a timing thing; you never know how long the darned thing will take to get past the stall). I wonder if we remove more fat once we've braised than after we've smoked the meat? I smoked a brisket recently (whole, with a nice fat cap) and the big part (deckle?) had a nice layer of fat in the middle. I didn't remove it. Would I have removed it had I braised it whole? Would it have just "bled out?"