Beef Pastrami

[Habanero Smoker]

There is no definitive recipe for pastrami. As a matter of fact it does not have to be beef. You can use any type of meat, poultry or even salmon. Pastrami is just highly seasoned meat, though my personal preference is beef; brisket cut. The following is a conglomeration of several recipes I had found on the web, but I mainly relied on the cooking technique outlined at this site http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/pastrami.html . This came out great. I would recommend making pastrami, and feel free to experiment with the ingredients in the dry rub. I also did turkey pastrami, which I will post the recipe latter.

Beef Pastrami

Pastrami Dry Cure  
1/4 cup Morton Tender Quick
1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons granulated garlic powder
2 tablespoons ground coriander
Enough for 5 – 8 pounds of brisket.

Trim surface fat of an untrimmed brisket flat to 1/8", this is important so that the cure fully penetrates the meat; yet it leaves enough fat to keep the meat moist. If you do a whole brisket or thicker cut of meat, you will need to prepare a wet cure and injct the meat.

In a small bowl, mix Morton Tender Quick, sugar and remaining ingredients. Mix all ingredients well, making sure to break up any lumps of sugar, no matter how small. I found that the bare hands work best.  Rub mixture into all sides of brisket, and work it in well (do not shake off any excess that is on the meat). I prepared a 5 ½ pound half flat (point end), used about ¾ of the mix, and the meat was fully cured.

Next place brisket into a two gallon Ziploc bag; expel as much air as possible, and make sure the seal is secure. Refrigerate and allow to cure 4 days, turning the brisket over every 12 hours. After 4 days of curing, remove the brisket from the bag, and thoroughly rinse under cold running water. After rinsing, place the meat in a container and cover with cold water. Let the meat soak for 30 minutes, change the water, and let soak for another 30 minutes. This helps reduce the saltiness from the meat. Air dry in the refrigerator for 4 to 8 hours before applying the dry rub.

Dry Rub
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons black peppercorns
2 tablespoons yellow mustard seeds
1 tablespoon white peppercorns
2 tablespoons of granulated garlic
Makes enough cure for one brisket flat.

Combine the first four ingredients, and coarsely grind in a spice grinder or coffee grinder. Pour ground mixture into a bowl, add the granulated garlic and remix. Apply the dry rub to the brisket generously, working the rub into the meat by pressing it in with the palms of your hands. Place brisket on a tray, fat side down, and place in a pre-heated Bradley Smoker, at 220 degrees F. Apply 3 hours of smoke. I used 2 hours of pecan, and finished with 1 hour of apple. Cook until the internal temperature reaches 160 – 165 degrees F. (Next time I will use a smoking temperature of 250 degrees F.)

When the brisket reaches an internal temperature of 160 – 165 degrees F, take it out of the smoker. Wrap the brisket in one layer of plastic, and one layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Wrap it in a towel, and place it fat-side up in a cooler for two hours. Remove brisket from the cooler and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 day, two is better. When ready to eat thin slice the pastrami across the grain for a tenderer slice. You can either eat it cold or warm it up.

[Habanero Smoker]

This weekend I attended a festival, and met up with some friends that I haven't seen since last year. During this time we like to share different types of food, either homemade or bought. Now this group has no problems providing constructive criticism, and at times it feels like destructive criticism. When I first started to I shared the pastrami with everyone I did not tell them it was homemade. Only after they started to ask me where they could purchase this pastrami, did I reveal that I made it. Of course they did not believe me.

So it look like I will be making another batch this Fall, and even more for next year's festival.

[JJC]

What a great feeling, huh, Hab? [8D]

John
Newton MA

[Oldman]

Good for you! That's got to be a great feeling of sucess![^]

Olds

[MallardWacker]

Hab, that is just to simple.  I like a recipe that you don't have to jump through hoops for.  Tell me, does the meat look cured/cook all the way through? Or does it look like med. rare?


SmokeOn,

mski
Perryville, Arkansas
Wooo-Pig-Soooie

If a man says he knows anything at all, he knows nothing what he aught to know.  But...

[Habanero Smoker]

I don't have much refrigerator space, so dry curing is better for me. At first I did have some concerns on dry curing - whether it would cure all the way through. At an internal temperature of 165 degree F, the meat was well done. The meat was cured all the way through, and look exactly like the pastrami you purchase in the store.

[Habanero Smoker]

I was curing both a fresh ham and pastrami. While I had the juniper berries out, I decided to add that to the dry cure for the pastrami. It gave it a different taste, one that I think I prefer over the original recipe, though it has a very slight astringent after taste. Please refer to the recipe site for the full instructions, they are slightly different than the recipe posted in this thread

http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?t=157

To do this you will need a coffee grinder or mini chopper that has a blade. I have a Cuisinar Mini-Mate Plus, which you can use either side of the blade (sharp or dull) for grinding/chopping. Using the sharp side of the blade, coarsely chop 2 teaspoons of juniper berries. Instead of freshly ground pepper, add the 1/4 cup plus one tablespoon of peppercorns, and using the dull side (if you can't reverse blades the sharp side will do alright), continue to grind until both the peppercorns and juniper berries are finely chopped. Then proceed mixing the cure as directed in the original recipe (I feel that dry curing makes the best pastrami.)

I now only make pastrami out of the flat. After FTC'ing I let the meat cool down in the refrigerator. Then I tightly wrap it in plastic wrap, cover with foil, and let it rest for 2-3 days. I feel this greatly improves the flavor. This time I applied 2 hours 20 minutes of apple to smoke. I may be using this flavor to smoke my pastrami for now on. When soaking you should use at least 1 quart of water per pound of meat, but I rarely use less then 3 gallons.

I made a major error in this post. The original post stated to add the juniper berries to the rub, I meant to state add it to the cure. I need to hire someone to proof read my posts. LS thanks for pointing out that error. Sorry for any inconvenience it caused.

[LilSmoker]

Hi Habs, the last time i did pastrami i was thinking of adding some juniper berries, but i wasn't sure of the quantity?, and as i love your recipe so much i didn't want to spoil it. Anyway i'm hoping to do a good batch of pastrami this week, so i think i'll give the juniper berries a go now i know the quantity ;)

Thanks Habs............LilSmoker

[whitetailfan]

I'm really glad this thread got bumped again (from 2005)
I really want to try this project.  I'm tired of varied results and taste from the supermarket.

[Habanero Smoker]

LS;
I was thinking of adding 1 tablespoon, but two teaspoons came out alright. I still may up the juniper berries to 1 tablespoon next time to see if that amount provides additional flavor.

[Consiglieri]

This project looks good.  Have you made any modifications to the turkey pastrami recipe?  I'd like to try both and do a taste test (so that I can justify getting away from the "health" version).

Thanks for bringing this idea back to mind.

[LilSmoker]

LS;
I was thinking of adding 1 tablespoon, but two teaspoons came out alright. I still may up the juniper berries to 1 tablespoon next time to see if that amount provides additional flavor.

Thanks Habs, i'm gonna be doing 2 pastramis, so i'll do 1 with junipers, and 1 without, so i'll really be looking forward to the testing!

I'll let you know how it goes ;)

Thanks.......LilSmoker

Btw Consiglieri, you really should try Habs beef version, over here i have friends and family constantly asking me when the next pastrami will be ready?, and some of them had never eaten pastrami before!  :o ;D
It's great really, i'm getting hungry just thinking about it!  ;D..........

[Habanero Smoker]

LS;
Let me know how the one tablespoon of juniper berries works out. The berries have a strong flavor, so I hope my idea doesn't ruin your pastrami. I forgot to mention that the juniper berries didn't chop or grind well all by themselves. So after I got them coarsely chopped, that is why I then added the peppercorns to help break the berries into a fine powder.

Consiglieri;
I haven't tried making the turkey pastrami again. I may try it again towards the end of April. This time I will not cure with salt, and will go with Morton's Tender quick and cut down on the curing time. I feel that curing the turkey with just plain salt contributed it to becoming tough and dry.

[Consiglieri]

Believe me, if I have my way, I'm going in for the beef, but would like to know I can do a low fat version too.  LS, I saw the pictures you posted (on this site even) and that got me putting this project way up the line.  And started looking for a good turkey pastrami recipe.  Then I saw Habs posts about turkey pastrami toughness and I smoked a a turkey breast that could have been much better.  If I can find a weekend at home, the beef pastrami will find its way into the box, probably with a few other selections too. 

My first bradley turkey breast experience left something to be desired.  I was all fired up after seeing some great pictures of golden brown birds and was thinking about turkey sandwiches. 

[modified the last sentence after a re-read after considering the pic that follows.  Apparently the brain was on "off" and missed the message that might be conveyed.  Although my sense of humor is warped enough to make me laugh pretty hard once I caught the faux pas, don't call the SPCA or my mom]



That wasn't the pic, but couldn't resist.  Well, fell victim to impatience (helluva smoker I am).  Couldn't find a fresh one, so bought a frozen one.  Thawed it in the sink, in its packaging over quite a few hours.  I applied a simple rub omitting salt (bird frozen in "solution" so didn't want to overdue it), but the bird came out tasting like I had rubbed in three pounds of seasoning, mostly salt. 

On reflection, I think the frozen bird could have turned out okay if I had thawed/soaked the bird out of the wrapping to dry to pull out some of the solution.  However, I'll be finding a fresh bird before I try any further turkey experiments (unless I can find one that hasn't been juiced)

[LilSmoker]

Haha! my kind of chicken Consiglieri  ;D, a little while back West Coast Kansan did a chicken that looked like a gunfighter!  ;D ;)

Habs: i've just started curing the briskets, so will be smoking pastrami by the weekend, i'll report back about the juniper berries.

LilSmoker