Question for anyone who has ordered a Franklin Brisket on Goldbelly.com

kurtsara said:

So you don't think he is making profit off the original $170.00 you paid? I'm guessing he paid anywhere from $4-$10 a pound for the raw brisket.

Click to expand...

Of course he is, but I think your missing the point. He can sell every brisket he cooks right out of his restaurant, he doesn't need Gold Belly for that. There needs to be an incentive for him to go in to this venture with them. That incentive is additional profit, over and above what he can make selling a brisket from the restaurant.

He is certainly putting in addition work and incurring additional costs to do this, not mention the added risk from shipping cooked food across country. What if the cold packs didn't do their job and someone ended up getting sick and sued them? Do you honestly expect him to let Goldbelly take all the additional profit from this? That would make no sense whatsoever from a business stand point. It's risk vs. rewards, or risks vs. mitigating factors.

I had the Franklin Brisket, Sausage, and his sauce today, so thought I would do a short writeup while it's fresh in my mind.

I went with the Sous Vide reheat method for the brisket, and I followed his instructions exactly... no deviation whatsoever. I say that because he says to heat the sous vide bath to 185 degrees, put the sealed brisket in the bath, then immediately lower the bath to 165 degrees and leave it for 75 minutes. Personally I think that is a little too hot, but I didn't want to deviate.

The sausage, I did deviate though, because his recommendation is to heat it in a skillet on the stovetop and I just didn't want to do that. I opted instead to reheat the sausage the same way I reheat my own smoked sausage... in the oven at 300 degrees for 22 minutes on a cooling rack sitting on a baking sheet. They generally come out perfect that way.

So here are my thoughts on all three items.

The Sauce:
Honestly the sauce was ok, but it didn't blow my mind. Tasting it I could tell the primary three ingredients were Ketchup, Apple Cider Vinegar, and Sugar. There was also a good hint of molasses, but I couldn't really taste much of any spices in it. Looking at the ingredient list confirmed that was in fact the exact order of main ingredients. Again it was good, just pretty plain. I've definitely tasted other craft made sauces I thought were better. But, the real point of this whole thing was to see how my recipes stack up, and honestly, I like my own sauce better.

The Sausage:
Ok, all "weiner" jokes aside... the first thing that I noticed about the sausage, right when I opened the box the other day was that, man, the sausages are a lot smaller than I would have guessed. Length wise they were ok, but they were a lot skinnier than I expected. Weighing them out they were all less than 4 oz, ranging from 3.5 - 3.8 oz. When I make my sausage they generally average about 6 oz so these were small by comparison. After heating them it was time for the taste test. They did have a very nice snap, and the texture was excellent. The texture of the casing was something I was specifically curious about, because I wanted to see if mine were overly tough, or not. And...nope.... Franklin's casings had the exact same texture as mine so I guess I'm good there. They were definitely nice and juicy as well. The overall flavor profile was ok, but again, nothing really to write home about. Now, to be honest, I've seen several people on Youtube say the sausage was ok, but definitely was not their favorite thing at Franklin's. Now I know why. It was a good sausage, but not a GREAT sausage. Again, I honestly like mine better.


And now the star of the show...

The Brisket:
Again, like the sausage, this thing was small. it weighed in at 4.9 lbs, but to be fair I already expected that as it says right on the site they average around 5 lb's. It was definitely a good brisket over all. It was moist in both the flat and the point, the fat was perfectly rendered, it had a good flavor, and it was very tender. But... it was definitely a little over cooked as it shredded a little on the board, and failed the bend test as the slices broke in half. For my taste it was also over salted. Not by a lot, but enough to be noticeable by both me and my girlfriend. And I'm not generally sensitive to salt.

But to be honest I admit I am nit picking. I would love to try Franklin's brisket in his restaurant to see if it is any different. But the reason I wanted to reheat to his EXACT instructions is to remove any possibility of blaming the reheat if it was less than spectacular. If I were ever to order one again (I won't be, this was intended from the get go as a one time thing) I would still do the sous vide reheat, but I would set to 165 and then lower to 141 instead of starting out at 185 per his instructions.

As far as final verdict, I really enjoyed it. But I think the hype is a little overstated. I'm not going to be bold enough to say my brisket is better than Franklin's, cuz I'm just not going to go there, and I haven't had his brisket in his restaurant. But I will say that THIS PARTICULAR Franklin brisket, cooked by his team, shipped to my house, and reheated per his exact instructions, was also not better than my brisket, which I have worked very hard on over the last year and some change. To be fair though, I do think that part of it is that Franklin has so much hype built up that it creates an expectation that just may not be realistic. It was a good brisket, but it wasn't life changing or some magical thing that nobody else could achieve.

So, overall, this little experiment told me what I really wanted to know... how my own brisket, sausage, and sauce stack up against the real deal from a Texas Monthly Top 50 joint. Obviously opinions are like a**holes, everyone's got one, but in my personal opinion, based on the results of this experiment, I feel like my own are solidly in the ball park. My girlfriend who is brutally honest said the same, she said she actually prefers mine, but I think that was mainly to do with too much salt and I'm not going to read anything else in to that.

So in the end, I'm happy I conducted this experiment, and to ME, it was worth the money because it gave me the info I needed.

A small update and a couple other thoughts...

Just woke up and the girlfriend tells me... "Final verdict, I didn't really enjoy the Franklin brisket at all. It was way too salty and I felt like I needed to drink a gallon of water. And it gave me heartburn and sort of upset my stomach a little so I didn't really sleep well. Yours doesn't do any of that. I like yours a lot more. It's seasoned just right, it's tender, and just as juicy. Yours is just better".

Personally, I think she's being overly harsh on the Franklin, but as I said previously, she's brutally honest. I still maintain I really enjoyed the Franklin brisket, I just wish it was a little less salty. Thinking it through though, I feel like the over salted nature of this particular brisket was not a fluke, because in every video I have ever seen from him he states his rub is 50/50 Salt/Pepper, now that 50% may or may not include Lawry's, who knows, but either way 50/50 is just too much IMO.

I also watched a video review from L&L Ranch BBQ, and one of the things he mentioned was that the Franklin brisket had a much richer smoke flavor than his own briskets cooked on his offset (a Lone Star Grills, 24x42 I think). I did not find that. I found no real difference in smoke flavor from the Franklin brisket to mine cooked on my current offset (reverse flow KAT 24x48 ).

SirPorkaLot said:

50/50 by volume (which a lot of folks believe is the Franklin way) is too much.

50/50 by weight is perfect (IMHO). (This is the rough ratio that Q-Salt is made at)

A cup (volume) of medium grain salt weighs ~10oz
A cup of 16 mesh pepper weighs ~5.5oz, almost half the weight of salt.

So if you go by volume, the rubs has almost twice the amount of salt as pepper.

However, if you go 50/50 by weight.. you end up with twice the amount of pepper with the same amount of salt.

Perfection.

Click to expand...

Agreed. He's mixed up some rub in a few video's, both in his Master Class, and his old PBS series, BBQ with Franklin. In both he eyeballed it and it was very clearly by volume, not weight.

I actually prefer a 3/1 ratio of course black pepper to kosher salt, but I use Morton's which I've been told is denser and more salty than Diamond Crystal, and I also dust with my own beef rub that has some Lawry's and other things in it.

Bob C Cue said:

I still say that anyone who lines up at Franklin's at 5:30 am, spends 6 hours or more to get into the place while drinking beer, meeting interesting people from all over the world, and making memories they won't soon forget are just out of their minds. </rant>

My time is much too valuable!

Click to expand...

Based on this experience, I would not wait in that line. But, I would still like to try it strait from the restaurant, so I would do a pre-order which is to go. My understanding is there isn't really much of a wait for that, you just aren't allowed to eat it on site, which I would be fine with.