Ray's Butcher Shoppe Expects to Sell 1,500 Pounds of Corned Beef

If you want to get your hands on some corned beef in time for St. Patrick’s Day on Sunday, you’d better act fast.

Ray’s Butcher Shoppe typically sells out of the holiday special, and we’re not just talking a couple hundred pounds of meat.

“Between the briskets and round, we usually sell between 1,500 and 1,600 pounds,” butcher Scott Podd said Wednesday.

Customers can get corned beef from Ray’s in two different styles. There’s the flat piece of brisket that’s good for sandwiches and a top round roast. Both are $5.99 a pound.

“We sell more of the brisket,” Podd said. “It’s more of the traditional corned beef. A lot of people like the round though. It’s a little bit leaner for people who watch what they eat.”

Podd said Ray’s started selling brisket about a week and a half ago, but the preparation work started nearly a month before that. The rounds and brisket are trimmed out and then soaked in a solution and cured for 3-4 weeks.

Podd said one local bar just purchased 120 pounds of the March special and he expects sales to peak Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

And once you have the tasty meat in your hands, what do you do next? Podd suggests putting a liquid in a pan, adding the meat and including potatoes, cabbage and carrots. Cover it, and depending on the size of the piece, let it cook at 350 degrees for at least two hours.

“The longer you cook it, the brisket will just fall apart,” Podd said. “You could put it in a (crock pot) and let it go all day.”