Brisket prices smoke Texas pitmasters

It’s still dark out when pitmaster Rusty Rohan lays his briskets on the smoker at Charlie Ro’s BBQ at 5:40 in the morning. The briskets will cook there for 12 hours, as heat from the post oak wood fire slowly breaks down and softens the notoriously tough cut of meat.

It’s a time and labor intensive process, so Rohan has to plan carefully. It’s a guessing game how much brisket to smoke for the next day at his small set up in Taylor, Texas — a town with a population of 18,000.

“I can't just throw another one on like [you] throw another hamburger on the grill,” he said.

The low-slung, grey, takeout place with picnic tables out front is about 40 miles northeast of Austin. Rohan got into the barbecue business in 2021 after leaving his job as a high school football coach. Since then, he said smoking brisket has gotten a lot pricier.

“When I decided to get out of coaching and get in this, you could buy a 15 pound brisket for $30 and I'm paying $110, $115, a brisket now. It's gone up quite a bit just over the few years,” he said.

If he errs on the cautious side, and makes too little brisket, it can cost him customers.

“I'll have people walk in if I'm sold out of brisket, they just walk right back out,” he said.

But brisket prices being what they are, whether he makes money off the brisket hinges on how much he’s able to get out the door.

“Just all depends on if I get rid of the brisket. I sell it all, yes, I don't… no,” he said.

Texas A&M University economist David Anderson said brisket prices have become a particular sticking point for pitmasters as the number of briskets in the market is capped by herd size.

“We have the smallest beef cow herd in the U.S. since 1961 so we're producing fewer animals and so that means we have fewer briskets,” he said. “Every animal has two — a left side and a right side. And so as cattle numbers go down, we're producing fewer briskets.”

The price pinch has also hit Randy Harley, a repeat customer at Charlie Ro’s BBQ and brisket aficionado.

“Brisket, back in the day, was a scrap cutter meat — nobody wanted it. Nowadays it's a commodity that it's way overrated and overpriced because it's still the same cut of meat,” Harley said.

He attributes the spike in prices to the successful marketing and mastery of smoking brisket.

“I remember, you used to go get a chopped beef sandwich for $4.95 and a bag of chips and a coke, and you were good to go. Now you’re looking at the better part of 20 bucks. And the pay scale has not went up high enough to match to the mark up of brisket,” he said. “That's the part I don't like.”

Brisket started off as a way of feeding a large number of people without taking up too many square inches on the grill, said third-generation pitmaster Wayne Mueller, of Louie Mueller Barbecue, an institution when it comes to Texas barbecue.

“We're peasant food suddenly thrust into this stratosphere of pricing,” Mueller said. “It wreaks havoc because people are like, ‘I don't want to buy the whole place. I just want a sandwich.’”

Louie Mueller Barbecue opened in Taylor, Texas, in 1949, when brisket was the less desirable, more economical part of the cow. But Texas barbecue, especially brisket, has blown up over the last 15 years.

Wayne Mueller spends around $15,000 a month on brisket — roughly half of his food costs. Any hike in prices adds up quickly.

“In one month, we saw brisket jump up 75 cents a pound,” he said. “If you're doing 1,500 pounds of brisket, you're at $1,200 a week. So, you're almost $5,000 a month, $60,000 a year, just from 75 cents a pound.”

He’s seen a reduction in foot traffic at the restaurant. And he gets it — as brisket becomes bougier, rural areas feel the squeeze.

“Taylor's a poor town,” he said. “People from here are price inelastic.”

When people walk in with a fixed budget, he tries to get his customers excited about cheaper options, like chicken.

“I'd be perfectly happy selling a little bit more white meat,” he said. “The margins are actually there.”

But, it’s a hard sell.

“Because if you're coming to Texas and you're going to have barbecue, brisket is an absolute must,” he said.