Snake River Farms Kobe Brisket funky smell

[Hambrosia]

Picked up a snake river farms kobe brisket from my butcher yesterday. When I opened it up from cryo there was a distinct funky smell like a smelly cheese. I've had briskets stink pretty bad coming out of cryo and this didn't smell rotten or spoiled so I went ahead and trimmed it up and put it on the smoker. 6 hours later, I went out to wrap it and I still notice that distinct aroma that smells a bit like an aged cheese like parmesan.

Now if this was an aged piece of meat I wouldn't think twice of it and would expect some funk. However, it wasn't sold as an aged piece of meat, so I am not sure how controlled the conditions are that they are kept in. I've never bought a snake river farms product from this butcher so I am not sure if this is abnormal or not.

My butcher is not open today, and since I started at 5 AM this morning there's no way to go back and get another brisket or really smoke anything else this afternoon.

I'll let it finish cooking and see what it smells like, but if there is still a strange smell should I not eat it and just take it back to my butcher? It would put a damper on the party tonight for sure but I also don't want to serve spoiled meat.

 

[toys4dlr]

SFR will put about 28 wet age days on the briskets that are ordered directly from the website. I understand if they order them commercially, like from a food distributor that there is no extra wet age. So, sometime my SFR brisket will have a little funk, like you describe but will kinda go away after opening.

The unknown answer on this, is how did the butcher order it and how long the butcher had it in their walk in??

Hope it turns out well. They are tasty brisket

 

[Hambrosia]

This makes me a feel a bit better if they wet age them in house, even if they don't usually when they ship it out to distributors. I just pulled it off the smoker to let it rest and there is still a bit of a funk there but much less than there was earlier. It definitely doesn't smell like rot or spoil, but an extra beefy almost barnyard type smell.

 

[mytmouz]

If you can smell ithe funk after cooking...

 

[IamMadMan]

Aging in the cryo is wet aging. During wet aging, the plastic doesn't allow the meat to breathe, so it ages in contact with its own blood, which lends it "a more intense sour note and a more blood/serum flavor," according to the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota. This sounds a bit negative when you're talking about the flavor of a steak, but the fact that upwards of 90 percent of the beef taken home by American grocery store shoppers in plastic-wrapped foam trays is somewhat already wet-aged, seems to suggest that it can't be all bad.

 

[frankenfab]

I buy the reduced steaks and let them sit 4 more days in the coldest part of the fridge.