5-2-1 Pastrami
I had been wildly anticipating the arrival of the St.Patty's Day Corned beef sales waiting to try the making of my first pastrami following what I thought were some rather simple instructions found here on the site. After reading several recipes, I thought all I had to do was get a corned beef and chuck it into the smoker with a slather of mustard and a dredging in course ground black pepper.
Well, after going deep on corned beef after it hit $1.59 a pound at the Safeway, I did just that with three of them, smoking them slowly for a bout 10 hours in pecan at +- 240 degrees in my veritcal water smoker until my IT hit 195... it looked right, smelled right but wasn't right. At all! it was 9 kinds of tough, and so salty, that even myself, self proclaimed Sodium King of Central Arizona was put off.
My guests made the appropriate noises of appreciation for the effort that was made, but I was frankly embarrassed. Should have done a test run before hand before poisoning my party guests, but since the majority of them were family, my guilt quickly dissipated as my general attitude toward family is, they get what they get, and they'll like it!
I salvaged the initial batch by putting the smoked meat in a dutch oven and covering it with the usual suspects: potatoes, carrots, and lots of cabbage. an inch of water did the trick, and after an hour of simmer, we had smoked corned beef and cabbage that tasted quite a bit like Pastrami! it was quite delicious and required not one bit of extra seasoning in the pot.
This was not the grail I sought, however, and the knowledge to find it was within these webpages.
I took my next(and last three) briskets out of their wrappers, rinsed them and plunked them into a cold water bath for 1 hour, changing the water 4 times to desalinate them. after a final rinse and pat dry, I gave them a schmear of yellow mustard, sprinkled the spice packets that were included with the meat over the mustard, then covered them completely in course ground black pepper.
210 degrees for 5 hours, heavy mesquite smoke.
Heres where I made my left turn.
Last week, I made 2-2-1 baby backs and was impressed with the way they turned out after the mini campfire braise they get from the foil wrapping, so I thought, "well what can that possibly hurt?"
I double wrapped 'em in foil. added a light sprinkling of water of the briskets, wrapped 'em tight, and back in to the smoker the go at 230 degrees for 2 hours.
At the end of the 2 hours, I unfolded them, reserved the liquid, and popped them back on their racks and finally checked their IT...194! wrapping them greatly increased the interior temp, and sped up the process, no question.
I fed the smoker more mesquite chunks to tighten everything up, but lowered my ambient temp to 185 to allow cooler smoke to hit the meat but hopefully not dry it out., and let it idle for a little over an hour.
Fortunately the relatives all had to leave by the time I was able to do this smoke, so we didn't have to share much!
Moist, butter soft pastrami. Easy to slice, flavorful but not remotely too saline.
Desalination was the key, along with the foil braise. It turned an OK piece of meat into a real head turner, in 2 hours less time.
Gotta get a slicer next, then I'll be little king of everything!
-Smokey Dokey.
I had been wildly anticipating the arrival of the St.Patty's Day Corned beef sales waiting to try the making of my first pastrami following what I thought were some rather simple instructions found here on the site. After reading several recipes, I thought all I had to do was get a corned beef and chuck it into the smoker with a slather of mustard and a dredging in course ground black pepper.
Well, after going deep on corned beef after it hit $1.59 a pound at the Safeway, I did just that with three of them, smoking them slowly for a bout 10 hours in pecan at +- 240 degrees in my veritcal water smoker until my IT hit 195... it looked right, smelled right but wasn't right. At all! it was 9 kinds of tough, and so salty, that even myself, self proclaimed Sodium King of Central Arizona was put off.
My guests made the appropriate noises of appreciation for the effort that was made, but I was frankly embarrassed. Should have done a test run before hand before poisoning my party guests, but since the majority of them were family, my guilt quickly dissipated as my general attitude toward family is, they get what they get, and they'll like it!
I salvaged the initial batch by putting the smoked meat in a dutch oven and covering it with the usual suspects: potatoes, carrots, and lots of cabbage. an inch of water did the trick, and after an hour of simmer, we had smoked corned beef and cabbage that tasted quite a bit like Pastrami! it was quite delicious and required not one bit of extra seasoning in the pot.
This was not the grail I sought, however, and the knowledge to find it was within these webpages.
I took my next(and last three) briskets out of their wrappers, rinsed them and plunked them into a cold water bath for 1 hour, changing the water 4 times to desalinate them. after a final rinse and pat dry, I gave them a schmear of yellow mustard, sprinkled the spice packets that were included with the meat over the mustard, then covered them completely in course ground black pepper.
210 degrees for 5 hours, heavy mesquite smoke.
Heres where I made my left turn.
Last week, I made 2-2-1 baby backs and was impressed with the way they turned out after the mini campfire braise they get from the foil wrapping, so I thought, "well what can that possibly hurt?"
I double wrapped 'em in foil. added a light sprinkling of water of the briskets, wrapped 'em tight, and back in to the smoker the go at 230 degrees for 2 hours.
At the end of the 2 hours, I unfolded them, reserved the liquid, and popped them back on their racks and finally checked their IT...194! wrapping them greatly increased the interior temp, and sped up the process, no question.
I fed the smoker more mesquite chunks to tighten everything up, but lowered my ambient temp to 185 to allow cooler smoke to hit the meat but hopefully not dry it out., and let it idle for a little over an hour.
Fortunately the relatives all had to leave by the time I was able to do this smoke, so we didn't have to share much!
Moist, butter soft pastrami. Easy to slice, flavorful but not remotely too saline.
Desalination was the key, along with the foil braise. It turned an OK piece of meat into a real head turner, in 2 hours less time.
Gotta get a slicer next, then I'll be little king of everything!
-Smokey Dokey.
