Curing beef...

[Smokin Joe]

I see lots of posts on curing pork, ham, birds, and the like, but not much on beef, briskets, and the like...

Whats the deal?  Should/Can beef be brined, or should it only be dry cured?  If it can be brined, do the proportions of salt/sugar/etc. change?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Smokin' Joe Johnson
Caroline's Rub - Fine Spice Creations
//www.carolinesrub.com

[jaeger]

Smokin,
You can cure beef the same as pork. If you were going to cure a ham you would usually pump the ham and then put it in a liquid brine solution for the recommened time as required for the cure you would use. If you want to cure an ex: top round for dried beef, you could follow the same procedure or after pumping you could rub with cure and let it cure the same way. I would use the same amount of cure water ratio for beef as you would for pork. Some examples of injecting cure talk about arterial pumping, which I have never tried, the other method is to just follow a pattern as you inject so that you distribute the cure evenly thoughout the meat. Usually you will add 10 % to 15% of weight (brine) to the meat depending on how strong you make the brine. Follow the instructions for the cure you are working with. If you want to use the same brine for poultry, cut back on the amount as poultry tends to take on salt more than beef or pork. You don't need as long of a cure time for poultry either.
[:)][:D][:)]

[Bad Flynch]

If you like what we in the U.S. call "chipped beef," take some round and cure it lightly and smoke it. Then slice it thinly. It makes a famous covering for toast and is quite good when done well.

You can cure brisket or round and make "corned beef." I add, typically, an amount of pickling spice and some garlic powder before I seal it in a vacuum pouch. Let it cure in the refrigerator for a week to ten days. You can control the amount of fat by doing your own, too. After this is cooked, smoke it and eat it cold, too. It is incredible.

You can use brisket, cured and smoked with the right spices, to make pastrami. Pastrami is typically cook-smoked or a variation that includes cooking that preserves the crusty spice covering. Homemade pastrami is insanely good.

Beef is most often cured with brine and a brine made of Tender-Quick is quite adequate. I do use the dry powder in the vacuum packed corned beef. Morton Salt formerly printed a booklet about using their cures that included home butchering techniques, meat cut information, and quite a few recipes.

B.F.

[Chez Bubba]

I don't know how they made it, but a local small butcher store had beef bacon for sale & I tried some. Tasty-good![:p][:p]

http://www.chezbubba.com
Ya think next time I check into a hotel & they ask "Smoking or Non?" they would mind?

[Smokin Joe]

Thanks for the great input.  I am definitely going to give the chipped beef suggestion a try...makes me homesick for the s*** on a shingle my dad used to make when I was a kid!!

Smokin' Joe Johnson
Caroline's Rub - Fine Spice Creations
//www.carolinesrub.com