I grind it fairly course. Some people add sage but I don't. All ingredients varied to taste of course.
I have a smoker. Usually do trout or whitefish. Gonna have to give this pastrami a try. bkmk.
Posted on 04/16/2016 12:17:24 PM PDT by Mariner
Too dry? Texture, tenderness, salt or toughness?
Long and slow. very slow.
Oh man! I haven’t eaten there in decades!
Yum.
I went about 5 or 6 hours total on the smoker. It's a wet smoker (pan of water between the heat and the food) which helps to maintain the heat at a solid temperature, but adds moisture to the air that wouldn't be there in an oven.
Smoked it at 225 degrees to an internal temperature of about 195 degrees.
The texture just wasn't what I was expecting from pastrami, probably the moisture.
Add an hour and stop at 203 to 205.
Eat hot or chill overnight in the fridge for sandwiches.
I would need to take out a loan to afford the brisket.
B4L8r
Sounds fabulous. DO you really have to start with a corned beef? Can you start with just plain old brisket?
Thanks for the recipe. It is nice to have something to read that boils me....
I grind it fairly course. Some people add sage but I don't. All ingredients varied to taste of course.
I have a smoker. Usually do trout or whitefish. Gonna have to give this pastrami a try. bkmk.
Here is the recipe I use.
http://grilling24x7.com/homemade-pastrami-recipe/
I like other meats smoked, but smoked beef is not my favorite. I will take a brisket and brine it and make corned beef though. 1 1/2 cups kosher salt, 1 gallon of water, 1 bulb of fresh garlic with cloves separated and smashed, couple tablespoons each peppercorns, mustard seed, coriander seed, all spice seed, 1 stick cinnamon snapped in half. Put it all in a big pot, make sure the salt is dissolved, weigh the brisket down so it is fully submerged, cover the pot and let it sit in the fridge for a week. You may need to double (or more) the recipe if you’re doing larger pieces of meat. 1 gallon will cover about 4 -5 lbs of brisket. You can roast it in the oven at 225* or boil it in half brine water half regular water. Or smoke it and make pastrami. I also cook the meat to a high temp, around 195 - 200. Sticking a knife in should feel like a knife going through room temp butter.
I’ve been doing a lot of cured and smoked meats, sausages, etc lately. Pastrami is amazing. The only difference I see in what I have done...
The oven portion, I put the smoked pastrami on a rack in a roasting pan. Water in the bottom not touching the meat.
I introduced my kids to reuben sandwiches with that.
But you’re going to slice it 1/8 inch thin, for killer sandwiches. Mariner has performed a true public service here. I love tongue sandwiches, liver and onions, pastrami and spaghetti Caruso with chicken livers. Long past time these were ‘rediscovered’.
Kudos, Mariner.
I brine mine first to get the red color and use juniper berry instead of mustard seed.
You want heavy smoke then I put water in the pan and tightly wrap so it steams in the oven.
Do you use pink salt?
I don’t use pink salt for the brine, but I do use it for normal food prep. You use less salt for the brine when you use a fine ground salt, but I don’t recall what the correction is.
I also don’t use the nitrates that are in store-bought pickling spice, so my corned beef isn’t pink like when you buy it. The nitrates seem to give me headaches so I stay away from it.
That makes no sense. It still is a very expensive cut of meat no matter how thin it is sliced.
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