Cuts · Brazilian butchery

Picanha

Also: Picanha

The cut most often asked about across butchery systems. BBQHQ once recorded it as having no British equivalent; the British cutting specification turned out to use the word.

Known as

The same muscle carries different names in different butchery systems, and some of those names mean different cuts elsewhere. Where a name is ambiguous, BBQHQ says so rather than picking one.

Brazil: Picanha
Internationally: Picanha

Where it comes from on the animal

Biceps femoris cap and fat layer
Hindquarter, rump · moderate use · connective tissue: moderate
The cap muscle over the rump with its fat layer. AHDB's specification separates it along the natural seam between it and the main rump muscle — so the separation is standard British practice, and what differs between systems is how much fat is left on it.
Muscles: Biceps femoris (cap)

Asking a butcher for it

Named the way brazilian butchery names it. If the counter does not recognise the name, the anatomy is the fallback: ask for the cut by where it comes from.

What to say: Picanha, or Picanha (international) depending where you are.
If that draws a blank: Ask for hindquarter, rump — the muscle is Biceps femoris (cap).
What to specify: Typical weight is 1.0–1.5 kg.

What it is suited to

Derived from how hard the muscle works and how much connective tissue it carries, which is the pairing that decides whether a cut wants a fire under it or beside it. BBQHQ does not rank cuts and does not name a best one.

Moderate connective tissue: it will take either approach, and the two give genuinely different results rather than one being a compromise.

BBQHQ holds cooking evidence for this cut as picanha, whole.

What to use instead

A substitute is not the same as an equivalent. These are graded, because “yes, use that instead” is the answer that ruins dinners: most real substitutions work only once something about the cook changes.

Rump cap
Workable, once you change the cook
The British trade term is rump cap, and AHDB's own specification also calls it picanha, so the word is understood. The difference is the fat cap: British specifications trim it to a maximum of 15 mm and a picanha wants it thicker. Ask for the cap off the top of the rump with the fat left on and untrimmed.
- AHDB's rump cap specification allows a maximum of 15 mm of fat; the fat cap is what a picanha is cooked by.
- It may need cutting to order — the cap is often sold on as part of a whole rump.
- BBQHQ holds no Brazilian source describing how picanha is specified in Brazil, so this mapping is anchored on the British side only.

Asking for it in another country

UK butchery: Overlapping cut
Rump cap
The British trade term is rump cap, and AHDB's own specification also calls it picanha, so the word is understood. The difference is the fat cap: British specifications trim it to a maximum of 15 mm and a picanha wants it thicker. Ask for the cap off the top of the rump with the fat left on and untrimmed.
What differs
- AHDB's rump cap specification allows a maximum of 15 mm of fat; the fat cap is what a picanha is cooked by.
- It may need cutting to order — the cap is often sold on as part of a whole rump.
- BBQHQ holds no Brazilian source describing how picanha is specified in Brazil, so this mapping is anchored on the British side only.

The UK side of these mappings rests on AHDB’s published cutting specifications, which BBQHQ has read. The US side does not: USDA’s Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications and the Beef Checkoff cut pages both refuse automated access, so no mapping here reaches “same cut” across two butchery systems. See the open question.

Typical size

1.0–1.5 kg