THE rise of the low and slow barbecue movement has led Australian researchers to the United States of America with the aim of establishing an Meat Standards Australia (MSA) model for brisket and rib cuts that could increase carcase values.
Hoping to emulate the institutional cooking of the secondary cuts in the US, a Meat and Livestock Australia project is working with the University of New England (UNE) and Texas Tech University trialling a range of improved cooking methods on their local consumers to improve eating quality outcomes.
About 12 months ago product was collected from a NSW abattoir and carcases from the US Meat Animal Research Center, with the samples divided between the two universities.
Both institutes have since been planning and trialling cooking techniques and alternative serving options ahead of a final report due at the end of the financial year.
UNE postdoctoral research fellow Dr Jarrod Lees was recently joined by Rod Polkinghorne OAM for a week-long Texas visit learning their cooking protocols.
While brisket and ribs are enjoyed by Australian consumers as a cheap barbecue option, Dr Lees said there was opportunity for restaurants to utilise the MSA method in the food service industry.
“We could have the ability to provide a product based on an eating quality, which would then have a price point attached to it,” he said.
“If you are a high end restaurant of some description and want to provide your consumers with the best of the best, well you are going to buy those briskets that you are going to know are going to be the highest quality.
“Where a general food service brand might be serving people at a lunch time service through a small restaurant and maybe they don’t want that high end stuff but they could do with a lower quality still something cooked well. That’s where the MSA side of thing comes in.”
According to MLA export figures for 2017, much of Australia’s brisket was exported. Japan secured 43,301 tonnes in shipment weight, 24,248 tonnes went to China and 17,496 tonnes to Korea.
Dr Lees said the growth of barbecue competitions and consumer interest in alternative cuts had caused reason for MSA to broaden its influence.
“With that whole barbecue low and slow movement starting here, the competition barbecue space, there is a lot of people getting their head around the idea that maybe this is something we could do,” he said.
“The whole ideal was to try and increase carcase utilisation and the value of a carcase by finding alternative methods of cooking.”
But Dr Lees said commercialisation of the product would be the toughest challenge.
“We can sit around all day and wait for briskets to cook but if you want to get this in a food service type restaurant it’s got to be achievable,” he said.
“Some take five hours to cook and some take 10 hours to cook.
“There is no rhyme or reason for it, it’s really odd.”
UNE will not only cook their brisket and rib cuts for the project, they’ll serve them to consumers to gather crucial eating quality responses.
Dr Lees said they also needed to take into consideration how it would be served, with the brisket offerings to be sliced, pulled and chopped.
“We are not going to serve them a whole rib, we are going to serve them part of and we don’t technically want them to know it’s rib meat,” he said.
“We just want them to know they are eating a sample of barbecue meat and to tell us how good they think it is.”
Lucy Kinbacher
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
