How To Grind a Brisket Into the Best Ground Beef for Burgers
Fresh-ground brisket delivers a rich, bold, beefy flavor that store-bought ground beef simply cannot touch. The best part — you can fill your entire freezer in just one to two hours.
Equipment
- 15 Freezer Bags
- 1 Sharpie Marker
- 1 Painters Tape for Labeling
- 1 Large Bowl
- 1 Chef Knife
- 1 Large Cutting Board
Ingredients
- 1 whole beef brisket
Instructions
Trimming and Prepping
- Trim the brisket minimally — just remove any hard or excess surface fat that won't grind well. You want to keep the majority of the fat intact for flavor and juiciness. Save excess fat for rendering into tallow or making brisket beans. (Both recipes are on this website.)
- Cut the entire brisket into 1–2 inch cubes, sizing them to fit the width of your grinder chute comfortably.
- Check your grinder's instruction manual and select the plate recommended for ground beef. 4.5mm-6mm is usually for ground beef for burgers8 mm is for coarse chili grind ground beef
- Place the cubed meat on a sheet pan and freeze for 30–45 minutes until firm but not frozen solid. Freeze your grinder parts while you are chilling the brisket, so both will be ice-cold for the project.
Grinding the Brisket
- Feed the ice cold meat through the grinder, alternating fattier pieces from the point with leaner pieces from the flat as you go. This gives you an even distribution of fat throughout the entire grind — no fatty clumps, no dry lean meat.
- One grind is all you need. A single pass produces a beautiful, loose grind with incredible mouthfeel that is perfect for burgers. You can grind a second time for finer blends if you prefer.
Labeling and Storage
- Portion the fresh-ground brisket into freezer bags, press flat, squeeze out the air, and label with the date (and weight if you prefer).
- Freeze until ready to use. Cook exactly as you would any ground beef — this is just a much better version of it.
Notes
The size of your brisket will determine how much ground beef you will have when the process is completed.
Only a small amount of the fat is discarded, so for a 16 pound brisket I almost had 16 pounds of ground beef. I cut off large deposits of fat and reserved it for making tallow.