So tried my first pastrami yesterday. Didn't plan ahead, so bought a pre-corned beef from the local supermarket:
Gave it an hour soak in cold water to pull some of the salt out:
Gave it a good heavy rub, based on this Pastrami recipe:
Smoked the Pastrami over a mix of Oak and Apple pellets (roughly 50/50 mix):
With a rack of pork spare ribs for dinner, yum!
The final product, after a rest in foil:
A quick taste before refrigerating the Pastrami for the night:
What a great late night snack!!
After a night in the fridge, sliced it paper thin on the meat slicer:
A mess of paper thin pastrami:
And made a great sandwich for lunch:
All in all, I learned a few items with this smoke:
~Robert
Gave it an hour soak in cold water to pull some of the salt out:
Gave it a good heavy rub, based on this Pastrami recipe:
Smoked the Pastrami over a mix of Oak and Apple pellets (roughly 50/50 mix):
With a rack of pork spare ribs for dinner, yum!
The final product, after a rest in foil:
A quick taste before refrigerating the Pastrami for the night:
What a great late night snack!!
After a night in the fridge, sliced it paper thin on the meat slicer:
A mess of paper thin pastrami:
And made a great sandwich for lunch:
All in all, I learned a few items with this smoke:
- Should have soaked the corned beef for longer than an hour to remove more of the salt.
- Applewood pellets smoke A LOT and burn at a lower temp than the oak! Think I'll mix 2/3 Oak to 1/3 Fruit wood next time.
- You can never tell how long something is going to take to reach temperature (got a really long plateau at 152 degrees).
- Home-made Pastrami is damned good, and you'll never want to eat store bought pastrami again!
~Robert