I had success taking a brisket to pastrami, but my friends ate it all in about 10 minutes. Riding on this success, I wanted to make it again, but for sandwich meat for myself. Finally, as your last piece of background, I recently wrote about making my own roast beef sandwich meat out of eye of round, so I figured as a change of pace I would try using that same cut to make pastrami.
Here is what I acquired from my butcher. Take note, this is nearly 5.5 pounds, and I have a question about this later. As a side note, I think I paid about $21 for this, so it is much more economic than brisket.
Fat cap on one side....
Big piece of silverskin on the other.
All trimmed up!
My spice shop sells a corned beef mix, and it is terrific.
I brought the brine to a boil for a few minutes to "wake up" the spices and dissolve the sugar and salt. Oh, I used Pop's Basic Brine for curing.
This was a bit thicker than a brisket, so I took the time to inject brine into the middle to help the curing process.
Ten days later, I did a fry test. The salt was fine, and the cure had gone all the way through.
The same spice shop also sells a pastrami rub.
Ready for some smoke!
All done...significant shrinkage going on. I double foil wrapped it and set it in the fridge for about 24 hours.
Sliced up!
This is a better picture to see the color.
Here are the details:
Smoker: MES40 with AMNPS
Wood: Pitmaster's Choice
Temperature: 225
Time: Almost 12 hours to get to 165, pulled at 165.
Question time: Is it normal to lose half of the initial weight? I started with 5.5 pounds, trimmed a little fat, but still only ended up with about 3 pounds of finished product. Very tasty finished product, but 2.5 pounds less than what I started with.
Here is what I acquired from my butcher. Take note, this is nearly 5.5 pounds, and I have a question about this later. As a side note, I think I paid about $21 for this, so it is much more economic than brisket.
Fat cap on one side....
Big piece of silverskin on the other.
All trimmed up!
My spice shop sells a corned beef mix, and it is terrific.
I brought the brine to a boil for a few minutes to "wake up" the spices and dissolve the sugar and salt. Oh, I used Pop's Basic Brine for curing.
This was a bit thicker than a brisket, so I took the time to inject brine into the middle to help the curing process.
Ten days later, I did a fry test. The salt was fine, and the cure had gone all the way through.
The same spice shop also sells a pastrami rub.
Ready for some smoke!
All done...significant shrinkage going on. I double foil wrapped it and set it in the fridge for about 24 hours.
Sliced up!
This is a better picture to see the color.
Here are the details:
Smoker: MES40 with AMNPS
Wood: Pitmaster's Choice
Temperature: 225
Time: Almost 12 hours to get to 165, pulled at 165.
Question time: Is it normal to lose half of the initial weight? I started with 5.5 pounds, trimmed a little fat, but still only ended up with about 3 pounds of finished product. Very tasty finished product, but 2.5 pounds less than what I started with.
