Seeing all the Pastrami being made over the St. Patricks Day drove me to make a few myself. Reading all the threads on how to make pastrami it became apparent that the only large debate i came across was to soak or not soak your store bought corned beef. This led me to buy two and try one each way. Wally world was running a sale for 2.29 a lb. last weekend so i picked up 4. For this smoke the smaller corned beef was only rinsed off and seasoned...the larger was soaked for eight hours with the water being replaced every two hours then seasoned.
Here they are seasoned...the smaller 3.1 lb only rinsed. The larger 4.3 lb soaked. They were both seasoned with the spice package enclosed with the beef, garlic powder, a light sprinkling of old bay, then coated with a liberal amount of hand ground black pepper. I covered these and left them rest in the refrigerator over night.
The next morning i went out and started the Smoker to preheat. I was welcomed to -5 degrees but the sun was coming up and the promise of 30 made the chill bite less. After preheating and getting my water pan filled with boiling water i set my MES to 230 and started the smoke using apple and cherry chips.
Here are pictures of the pastrami at the 4 hour mark getting probed...IT 148 {top}
Then at the 8 hour mark a IT of 167 ready for foiling. {bottom} Nasty stall at 156 on both pastrami's. They sat there for quite some time before making a steady climb from there.
Here they are going into a foil pan... getting a splash of beer before getting foiled and probed then returned to the smoker. They were kept there until i got a IT of 197... pulled the pan and let them rest for a hour before slicing.
Let the slicing begin...ya baby its pastrami time.
The small non soaked pastrami.
The larger pastrami that i soaked for 8 hours
My cat Fester keeping a eye on the progress...
AHHH the money shot..my first sammy...I'll be seeing many more of these the next few days.
Now to the difference between the two pastrami's...this is just my personal opinion here so take it for what it is worth. The soaked one had a better smoke and pepper flavor with less of a corned taste to it. I think it had a better pastrami taste to it. The non soaked one had a bit of a overpowering corned taste to it yet and it kind of canceled the smoked and pepper taste i was going for with this pastrami. It was still very good but the soaked one had a better balance of flavors. Hope you enjoyed the q-view...there will be many more coming...Len
Here they are seasoned...the smaller 3.1 lb only rinsed. The larger 4.3 lb soaked. They were both seasoned with the spice package enclosed with the beef, garlic powder, a light sprinkling of old bay, then coated with a liberal amount of hand ground black pepper. I covered these and left them rest in the refrigerator over night.
The next morning i went out and started the Smoker to preheat. I was welcomed to -5 degrees but the sun was coming up and the promise of 30 made the chill bite less. After preheating and getting my water pan filled with boiling water i set my MES to 230 and started the smoke using apple and cherry chips.
Then at the 8 hour mark a IT of 167 ready for foiling. {bottom} Nasty stall at 156 on both pastrami's. They sat there for quite some time before making a steady climb from there.
Now to the difference between the two pastrami's...this is just my personal opinion here so take it for what it is worth. The soaked one had a better smoke and pepper flavor with less of a corned taste to it. I think it had a better pastrami taste to it. The non soaked one had a bit of a overpowering corned taste to it yet and it kind of canceled the smoked and pepper taste i was going for with this pastrami. It was still very good but the soaked one had a better balance of flavors. Hope you enjoyed the q-view...there will be many more coming...Len
