Pastrami

mjdeez · December 17, 2010, 09:35:31 PM

My first Pastrami attempt. I used two recipes. On 2x2.5lb pcs of beef brisket I used Hab's dry cure recipe, steamed. 2.5 lbs brisket + about 7 lbs venison (hind quarter) was brined using Ruhlman / Polcyn's recipe, also steamed.

Habs: http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?157-Beef-Pastrami
Habs/steamed: http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?575-Steaming-Pastrami
Ruhlman / Polcyn: Buy the book! But I found that the meat needed to be soaked for many hours after brining and prior to dry rub / smoking. So salty after the brine.

5lb beef brisket in dry cure, then soaking a few days later.

Meat in the steamer post-smoke. It's actually a very large electric roaster that doubles well as a steamer.

The second tier (bradley rack) has some small pcs of venison. The larger pcs of venison were still in the brine at this point.

The finished product. That's Hab's recipe that's in the foreground, cut. very tasty.

Portioned and ready for the freezer

All in all, this was pretty easy. I never dreamed of making my own pastrami, but it was fantastic. Ruhlman & Polcyn's was a little milder and Hab's was a little more full-flavored and spicy (mustard seed!) but both were great. I'm glad I made both, even it if it was a pain in the ass to have both of these going on at once. Thanks Habs for having these recipes up. For the record this is the simpler of the two, but dry cure just seems easier than brines any day.

As for the rest of the venison... I had left the largest of the venison in the brine longer because I figured it would take longer for the full muscle to be cured vs the brisket. So most of the hind quarter is now sitting overnight with dry rub. Ready for smoke and steam tomorrow.

Habanero Smoker · December 18, 2010, 02:08:59 AM

All your pastrami looks good. Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. I do like spicy pastrami.

Another difference you may have picked up between the two, is that the amount of cure Ruhlman & Polcyn uses will not give you the amount of cure flavor that my recipe has, but that is just a matter of taste. I know some of my friends prefer the wet brine version I make that is similar to Ruhlman & Polcyn.

mjdeez · December 18, 2010, 06:20:54 AM

I didn't pick up on it as cure flavor but now that you mention it, I can see what you mean. Although Ruhlman / Polcyn say to rinse the meat, I found that soaking was necessary. THis may be because I had mixed a very porous 2.3 lb brisket with two 3-lb whole muscle (top round, bottom round) of venison, along with much smaller pcs (cut up eye of round, sirloin tip), all in 1 large stockpot of brine.

Back to your recipe, the spices in the dry rub give it a good balance to the cure. It definitely wasn't too spicy (or even hot).

One thing I meant to mention as a lessons learned: I don't yet have a remote thermometer (my wife is buying me an ET-732) so I was periodically checking the temperature. In my steamer the meat got hot much faster than I would have expected or liked. It got to 180, and got there too fast, so it was not quite as tender as it could have been, but I think it was pretty tender given the conditions.

Habanero Smoker · December 18, 2010, 01:09:10 PM

The first time I steam pastrami the same thing happened. I got preoccupied and the meat went up to around 180°F much quicker then I had expected.

mjdeez · December 19, 2010, 10:27:56 AM

Here is the bulk of the venison, which I actually made for a friend but of course I needed to taste for quality assurance. I took it out at about 165F and it came out very tender.

In the picture is about 2lb 10oz of meat, plus there's another ~12oz from the previous batch. Before they went in the brine I measured it to be around 6-7lbs. Is it typical to lose that much weight in the brining / smoking / steaming process? I didn't weight the meat mid process so I'm not sure where all the weight was lost. But I imagine my buddy will be wondering where the rest of his venison went.

Everything went pretty smoothly, all in all. I had a bit of a problem when smoking this venison. The wood didn't advance for a full hour after about 2 hrs of smoke. But when i hit the "advance" button it started working ok again. Maybe i need to clean the micro switch.

Habanero Smoker · December 19, 2010, 01:05:53 PM

That is a lot of weight lost when making pastrami, around 50%. I'm not familiar with venison so I couldn't tell you if that is normal. Did you do any trimming or boning prior to wet curing that would account for some of the loss in weight.

mjdeez · December 19, 2010, 09:25:05 PM

No boning and very little trimming. My QA sample may have been a little large, but not 3 lbs! The beef seemed a little light as well but I didn't weigh that. I'm going to make another batch of beef in the next week or so, and i'll pay more attention to weights throughout the process.

mjdeez · December 23, 2010, 01:29:01 PM

I figured out where some of that meat went. When I went to dump the brine I found another pound of meat at the bottom of the brine. At this point it has been in the brine for about 12 days. Is it ok to still use this for pastrami or will it be over-cured? I plan to soak it for a few hours to get the salt out.

Habanero Smoker · December 24, 2010, 01:15:22 AM

Quote from: mjdeez on December 23, 2010, 01:29:01 PM
I figured out where some of that meat went. When I went to dump the brine I found another pound of meat at the bottom of the brine. At this point it has been in the brine for about 12 days. Is it ok to still use this for pastrami or will it be over-cured? I plan to soak it for a few hours to get the salt out.

Twelve days if fairly long, but as long as it has been refrigerated the full time it will be alright, if not I would discard it. With the wet cure recipe you used you don't have to worry about over curing. There may be some concern about it being a little salty. Cut a test piece off, pan fry and taste to see if it needs soaking.