Corn beef brisket gone wrong.

[icerat4]

Well guy i messed up a 3.5 pound brisket this past weekend .After much sucsess with all the other stuff id cooked.I figured i would try this.And here is what i did .Dont laugh to hard .It was a 3.5 flat piece of corn beef i just put it in the smoker with a temp gauge in and smoked it for 4-5 hours the temps at after that point was 150 so i figured if i ftc it the temps would jump up to the 160 i heard it should be.Well that didnt work at all it was real tuff i threw it out and cried[xx(]Can some one here give me a play by play on the same size brisket and shed some light on this failure of mine.Some ya win some ya lose this one was a tuff loss.[:(]

[irish_smoker]

I am also intrigued by the corned beef.  I am planning to sit at home tomorrow and watch basketball all day and load up the smoker with a butt, summer sausage, and meatballs.  I had thought about also doing a corned beef brisket, but i wanted to see what the best recipe/method was out there.  Any advice?

[iceman]

Seems to me ice that it might have something to do with the fact that it is a cured meat product. Maybe it gets tough in the brine when it's cured. (Just guessing). I know when you crock pot one of those puppies it can take over 8 hours until it gets tender. I think it kind of re hydrates in the liquid while it cooks. I personally like to cook it in the crock pot all day then take it out and smear a brown sugar/mustard glaze over it and bake it for a half hour. In the meantime I toss the cabbage in with the potatoes that were in the crock pot and let it cook while the corned beef bakes. I don't know but maybe if you cook it in liquid first then finish it off in the smoker over a high heat smoke it might turn out. It's a crap shoot at best but might work. Let me know if you come up with anything. Adios

[gary_CO]

Isn't corned beef just pastrami that was steamed instead of smoked? Check out the Pastrami recipes on Olds site. They use a "dry cure" as opposed to being injected liked you'd get w/ corned beef. But I would think the principles are the same.

Icerat, did you use any kind of rub?

I would attribute the toughness to your temperature. 150 is just too low. Going up from there takes awhile away cause the temp stalls for awhile after you start going past 150. Thats when all the tough connective tissue (collagen) breaks down. On the next one, I wouldn't pull it brom the BS until it hits at least 160. I let mine go higher, although sometimes I get nervous and will baste/mop it once or twice once it gets to 160.

Also, the store-bought corned beef I've seen has very little external fat left on it. Hard to keep brisket from drying out w/o a fat layer to self-baste it.

And when you sliced it, did you cut across the grain? Makes a difference.

[bubbagump]

I plan on doing a corn beef brisket this week as well but I am going to cook it like a normal brisket and pull it at 185 - 190. My limited experience with briskets (6 so far but not corn beef) is to plan on at least 2 hours a pound at 205 an take to 185 - 190 and then FTC.

If you cook them too fast they will be dry and tough. That's what happened to the first one I cooked and was really disappointed. As Gary mentioned the temp will stall in the 150's for what seems like an eternity. I've learned now that low and slow will pay big divdends with cut of meat....it can't be rushed.

I believe Owstrich or Arcs had a thread here about corned beef. I going to do a search here for it before I do mine though just to sure.


Hang in there rat, they'll get better. [:)]

Bubbagump

[Habanero Smoker]

I agree with Bubba; if your corn beef was a brisket cut you need to treat it as brisket; cooking it low and slow beyond doneness. This generally requires to bring the internal temperature to about 185 degrees. But on the other hand when I make pastrami from a brisket (I will not use corned beef for this), I only take it to 165 degree, but you need to cut it very thin across the grain, to make it tender.

I done a few pastrami briskets, and I don't believe that curing them makes then a tougher cut, at least nothing that I could notice.

[icerat4]

Yea i tend to agree with the temp deal and the time.I just pulled it to quick out of the smoker thats my take on it.I will try it again after i do the meatloaf deal.LET me know how things turn out on your corn beef bubba thanks.

[ChefBill]

I cook corned beef in a Reynolds Browing bag <i>OR</i> Oven bag, rather than boil it.
It takes a 5# corned beef 3 to 3-1/2 hours at 325º to be fork tender. I've never put the remote thermometer in it while it's cooking <i>(need to do that with the next one I cook)</i> but it takes about 45 min per lb @ 325º. That would translate to a <u><b>long</b></u> time in a Smoker.[:0]

ChefBill
If you can eat it, you can smoke it.

[jaeger]

icerat4,
To bad about the bad corn beef karma. Maybe next time. Here is a link in case you are interested. http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/CornedBeef.htm

By the way, like gary_co and others commented about, corned beef is not really intended to be smoked. I have purchased and sliced a lot of different brands of fully cooked corn beef at the retail level and not a one were smoked.
If I were to <u>smoke</u> a corned beef, I would handle it like I would dried beef, that is to cool completely and slice thin, thinner. I have never heard of anyone making dried beef and digging in as soon as it was out of the smoker. If you decided to smoke some, I would use as you would your favorite dried beef recipe.







<font size="2"><b>Doug</b></font id="size2">

[GrillinFool]

I had great success with a corned beef. I bought one about 4 pounds and I soaked it for an hour and half, running fresh water in a large bowl to get the salt level down. I read somewhere that warm water would disolve the salt better but I didnt do that. I rubbed it good with the corriander seeds that come in the packet and I bought some dried ground corriander and put that on as well with black pepper. I smoked it for 3 hours and let it cook to 180-185 internal.

What I learned was that soaking helps alot but should be longer, maybe 2-3 hours with lots of fresh water changing. I also will never do this with a fatty piece. The final product had so much fat that I could only eat about half.

I had some freinds over to make sandwiches with this new pastrami but we ate it right off the cutting board. I will definately do this one again if I can find a very lean cut somewhere.

The Grillin Fool

[Arcs_n_Sparks]

1. A corned beef is a cured brisket.
2. Pastrami is a smoked corned beef.

This is why pastrami is usually sliced thin across the grain.

The thread mentioned is here: http://www.bradleysmoker.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2960&SearchTerms=pastrami

[bubbagump]

Thanks Arcs, that's the thread I was refering to.

Bubbagump

[Habanero Smoker]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by arcs_n_sparks</i>
<br />1. A corned beef is a cured brisket.
2. Pastrami is a smoked corned beef.

This is why pastrami is usually sliced thin across the grain.

The thread mentioned is here: http://www.bradleysmoker.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2960&SearchTerms=pastrami
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
You can make pastrami out of corned beef, but not all beef pastrami is made from corned beef. Or it just may be semantics, about curing methods. Also I've seen corned beef made from London broil.  http://www.bradleysmoker.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1754

[icerat4]

WoW thanks guys i will give this another try.I am sure with all this info its going to be a lot less of a an ordeal.But next is the meatloaf then back to the corn beef drawing board.Thanks alot guys as always for your help to this rookie rat.[:D]