HomeMade Pastrami (plus some Corned Beef for later)

[Kevin A]

With St. Paddy's day quickly approaching, it's time in our house to start thinking about the meal: corned beef & cabbage. This years, I decided I'd make our own corned beef and, as an additional treat, make a good bit of pastrami as well.

I picked up 20 pounds of good quality beef brisket— a 14lb monster & two 3-pound flats. After trimming the hard and exterior fat (down to 1/4") from the big brisket (nearly 4 pounds), I prepped them for the brine.

Brine(for 20lbs)

1 gallon water
7.5 TBL (136g) Cure#1
1 LB (453g) kosher salt
3 TBL Coriander Seeds
3 TBL Black Peppercorns
2 TBL Yellow Mustard Seed
3 TBL Brown Sugar
3 TBL Paprika
8 cloves Garlic; minced

I injected the brine into the briskets (10% of total weight). All briskets then were placed into a lug, weighted down (submerged) and place in the refrigerator. There they'll stay for 5 days. I'll move them around around a bit over the course of the next few days to ensure good cure coverage.

My temp in this second fridge started a bit low (32°!), so I've cranked it way back (up?) so it'll get to the desired temp for the cure to work effectively ("The curing temperature should be between 36-40° F which falls within the range of a common refrigerator. Lower than 36° F temperature may slow down the curing process or even halt it."—S.Mariansky).

Unfortunately it took about a day & a half to climb to 37-38° so I may extend the brine time an extra day or so to ensure good cure treatment.

Took a peek at the briskets last night—and gave them a good rotation so cure is evenly distributed. I'll do this every other day.

Here's a shot of the beef about 3 days into the soak...The load is weighted down with a 10-pound plate on the lid so they are entirely submerged in the brine. They 'bob' to the surface (in these shots) when the weight is removed.
Shown here are the 3 smaller briskets. They'll be flipped and go on the bottom next as I rotate the pieces in the brine.


The two larger briskets now on top. Since I took these shots, I've continued to move them about to ensure good brine saturation.


At the end of the six day brining period, I pulled the briskets and rinsed them well.
The 3 smaller 'corned' briskets I 'food-savered' for next month's St. Paddy's Day festivities....


The remaining two biggies I gave a generous rub-down of coarsely cracked black pepper, coriander seed & mustard seed. Also mixed in a bit of turbinado sugar to the rub.
I let these dry for a bit before placing them into a pre-heated smoker:


At 140° I began giving the pastramis a good dose of hickory smoke. This continued for the next 90 minutes at 140.°
Following the smoke, I raised the temp to 200° & kept the meat cooking until the IT of 165° was reached. I then chilled the two in the refrigerator.

Smoke beginning to roll...


Next day, I broke out the slicer and took the well-chilled pastramis out to begin the 'pre-packaging' process...

Good uniform color in the meat; a bit on the salty side, but after steaming some & applying mustard & kraut on a sandwich, the pastrami is quite good!


Ready to eat or be packaged up for later...


Now in only a few weeks, I'll get a chance to break out the corned beef & get it cookin' with some cabbage, carrots, spices & potatoes, plus pour a bit o' guinness!

Thanks for lookin!

-Kevin

[Sam3]

WOW!!  That looks excellent Kevin!!

[Smoke some]

Looks good...nice color also

[SouthernSmoked]

WOW!!! Very nice Kevin!

Can't wait til we see the corned beef.

[watchdog56]

very nice.

[Keymaster]

Absolutely Perfect!!!

[mikecorn.1]

That pastrami is perfect. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[squirtthecat]

TILT!

[ACW3]

I'm curious as to why you pulled at 165 and started the cooling down process.  That is about the IT I pull the pastrami off the grill and put it into my steamer to take the IT to 195-200.  Then I wrap and let cool in the fridge overnight.  Steaming it to the higher temperature ensures a nice tender piece of pastrami.  In my experience, the 165 IT leaves the pastrami a bit on the tough, chewy side.  Steaming the pastrami makes it more "deli-like" when it gets sliced.

Art

[Georgia Chad]

Very Nicely Done!!

You are definitely inspiring me to take a crack at some corned beef and Pastrami!

What size do you brisket do you usually look for when making a Pastrami like those?

[3rensho]

Now that is what I call beautiful.  Perfect!!!

[ghost9mm]

All looks really good Kevin, it don't get much better then corn beef and cabbage... :D

[Kevin A]

I'm curious as to why you pulled at 165 and started the cooling down process.  That is about the IT I pull the pastrami off the grill and put it into my steamer to take the IT to 195-200.  Then I wrap and let cool in the fridge overnight.  Steaming it to the higher temperature ensures a nice tender piece of pastrami.  In my experience, the 165 IT leaves the pastrami a bit on the tough, chewy side.  Steaming the pastrami makes it more "deli-like" when it gets sliced.

Art

Hi Art
When prepping to use the pastrami for sandwiches, it'll get steamed @200°+ for a good 4-5 minutes. Plenty tender at that point.
When we use to slice hundreds of pounds of pastrami years ago at the original Togos, the key was to take the cooked pastrami briskets (165°) and slice them very thin. If the pastrami was taken to 190° or above before being sliced, it tended to fall apart or crumble. Very tender at that point, but it was near impossible to cut into thin, consistent slices. The steamed pastrami slices were then used to make sandwiches.

Kevin

[ACW3]

Kevin,

Gotcha!  Thanks for the explanation.  I may try your approach the next time I make some pastrami, or just plain old corned beef.

Art

[manxman]

Nice pics, great recipe. :)

I have got some pastrami in the BS at the moment, Habs recipe from the recipe site. If it turns out as good as this looks I will be very happy!  8)