Part of both chuck roast and brisket’s appeal is that they are relatively affordable cuts of beef, although brisket has been rising in price recently and isn’t quite the steal it used to be. The increasing enthusiasm for barbecue brisket, both in restaurants and for home cooks, has driven up demand for the once-shunned section of beef and pushed prices higher. Brisket is also harder to scale up to meet demand, as a single cow will only produce two usable cuts, while the chuck is big enough to produce 12 or more roasts per cow. This has led to brisket becoming more expensive than chuck roast, usually being around $8 per pound to chuck roast’s $6, on average. Brisket is still cheap compared to a lot of cuts like ribeye and strip steak that are frequently over $10 a pound, but it has moved up to a mid-tier price point with options like flank steak and sirloin, making it less of a budget buy.
Chuck also has the advantage of being easier to find. Because chuck roasts are smaller, and have such a wide range of uses, including in ground beef, it is very common in most standard grocery stores. The size of brisket, with even the smaller cuts being eight pounds or more, and the lack of supply, means likely you’ll have to go to a butcher or specialty grocer to find one, especially if you live somewhere where it’s less of a staple.
