Corned a brisket, making "pastrami"...in progress

[sudsandswine]

I've been playing around home-corning different things lately...corned a Boston butt, and some beef ribs. I've made pastrami in the past but with store-bought corned beef, but I had yet to try corning a brisket at home and then using it for pastrami....until now.

I found a nice looking choice angus brisket at Sam's Club a couple weeks back, I trimmed off some of the flat to grind for burgers and then got rid of some of the fat that would surely be inedible, but I left a lot more untrimmed than I'd normally do when cooking a brisket "regular style".

I use a brine mixture loosely based off the one on amazingribs.com. I injected the brisket with some of the brine and then put it in the bath for about a week. Mixed up a pastrami inspired pepper based rub and onto the Mak 2* until it's done. I'd say it's probably about 10lbs, I'm pretty excited because pastrami is one of my favorites and home corning various cuts has had delicious results.

I found some really fragrant pickling spices on Amazon and boiled up my brine to cool overnight



Nice marbling in the flat



The flat after trimming a pound or two off the thin edge



Out of the brine, ready for a rub down





All seasoned up



A previous corning pastrami experiment:

 

[NickTheGreat]

Love it! I've been doing this for years. I still like the store corned beefs, but this way is so much better.

We could eat the whole thing as corned beef hash.

 

[Smoking Piney]

I'm lazy and go with store bought corned briskets.

I'm definitely following this thread.

May the smoke be with you! :-D

 

[ShadowDriver]

Love it, suds!

Those are some mean pastrami'd shorties!

 

[sudsandswine]

Coming along, 8 hours in now. I’ll probably foil pan it on a wire rack and cover with foil in a bit til she’s done.

 

[sudsandswine]

It was at ~170* when I panned it, so I figure there will still be enough juices released to initiate some steam action without having to use water.

 

[sudsandswine]

It was on the Mak for 10 hours (2 on smoke 8 @ 245*) and rested in the covered pan inside the oven for a little over 3 hours. Very tender and juicy, sliced up nice, passed the pull test, etc. The exterior seasoning tasted a little sweeter than last time, which I attribute to [poorly] eyeballing the brown sugar in the rub. I think it’ll be fine though, especially once some yellow mustard is in the mix.

 

[Huh? What?]

Looks great! I do my own corned beef and pastrami, but I dry cure.

 

[sudsandswine]

I have to admit I don’t really enjoy wet brining nearly as much as dry brining, care to share your dry brining process?

 

[Huh? What?]

Dry-cured Pastrami

All percentages are a percentage of the weight of the meat being cured.

Ingredients
3% Kosher salt
1% Turbinado sugar
0.5% of each of the following:
Granulated onion
Granulated garlic
Mustard powder
Paprika
Coriander powder
Black pepper
0.25% Cure #1

Mix spices, rub on meat being cured. Place meat and all spice mix into vacuum bag. Try to evenly distribute the spice mix before vacuum packing the meat.

Let cure for 10-14 days, flipping bags over every day.

Remove meat from bag. Rinse off, pat dry, rub with cracked pepper and cracked coriander. Place on rack in refrigerator overnight.

Smoke with Oak or Maple wood at 225 degrees until it hits stall. Tightly wrap in two layers of foil and continue to cook until tender, perhaps 200-205 degrees. Let cool completely before slicing.

 

[Huh? What?]

That turns out this...

 

[SmokinAussie]

Really nice work Suds! Lovely!

 

[Smoking Piney]

Looks great, Suds! :thumb:

 

[LordRiffenstein]

Awesome!!

 

[scp]

Suds...looks nice and fatty!

H W thanks for the recipe...gonna pull a hunk of brisky out of the fridge and give this a go.