Pastrami

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mriversinco

Fire Starter
Original poster
Oct 24, 2013
35
11
Michigan
So, I love pastrami but haven't ever made it so decided to take the plunge this weekend.  With time being limited I decided to buy a couple of corned beef briskets on sale and follow what others have done with them.  Here's what I've done so far.

Soaked them in water for about 12 hours.  Didn't have time to change the water very many times but did a few.



Let sit for about a day to get a pellicle and got my spice mixture around:


I used the following for each of the briskets:

coated with mustard

1TBS of Paprika

1TBS of ground black pepper

1TBS onion powder

1TBS ground mustard

1tps fine garlic

1tps whole coriander seed

The wrapped in plastic and let sit for about a day:


On sunday morning I put them into the smoker and didn't turn the heat on since I had a youth wrestling tourney to coach and wouldn't be able to check it:


I ended up cold smoking them for about 7 hours with Terry's pitmasters choice.  The tourney went way later than anticipated to didn't get to put heat on until 3pm.  Turned the smoker on to 225 and filled the amps again with pitmasters choice.

At midnight the pastrami was still only 147 degrees so I decided to pull it instead of getting up all night and checking.  Put it into ziplocs and they're now in the fridge.


Don't know if I'll put them back in the smoker to get to 160 before I steam them, or just steam them now.  If anybody has thoughts on that please let me know.

Thanks for looking...

Mike
 
Looks good I am still going to have to try one

gary
 
To take away the saltiness.  Thought they were too salty when I tried a sample fry at the beginning.
 
I've found that with the corned beef I buy here it's a little too salty if fried.  If boiled (which is how I usually cook it), it's fine.
 
So I've finished the pastrami.  I ended up putting them back in the smoker and got them to 150 degrees but it took forever once again, but got them on another 5 hours or so of smoke.

Decided to steam the rest of the way, but since my steamer only fit one then I did them one at a time.

Steaming:


Let them set in the fridge of a couple of days then stuck them in the freezer for an hour to slice.  My slicer isn't sharp yet (still waiting for that piece to be shipped) so I sliced by hand.  It's pretty darned good.  I'm not sure why it's not perfect, but definitely better than any store bought.  Not sure what I'll do differently but gonna change a few things.

Sliced:

 
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