Mid-Cure of Brisket for Pastrami, Need advice

[john brennan]

So I'm in the middle of curing a brisket for pastrami. I used 1 gal. of water, boiled 1/2 gal with a cup of sea salt in it, added a white onion, garlic, and insta cur no 1. Brisket 13.5lbs, used 3 tsp of insta cure. Read it was 1 tsp for 5lbs before.

I opened the brisket today, and granted with my allergies I don't have the best "smeller" in the world, but it smelled off....like rotten eggs. Read online that it could be from the packaging which isn't uncommon. Its been 4 days and this is what it looks like. Should it look gray? The brine doesn't smell very salty, like the ocean as they say... to me at least.

Any help advice would be appreciated, and I know the rule. When in doubt.....

 

[john brennan]

Update: After a few minutes of the bucket left open to "air it out" the stinky-ness has diminished but not dissipated. Still curious about the color.... When I try to dig into it a tad, it looks pink in the middle.

 

[bregent]

That's not an uncommon color - sometimes they are grey on the outside. The 1tsp/5 lbs is for mixing with ground meat or rubbed on dry. For a brine, you need to consider the mass of water as well as meat, because not all of the cure will end up being absorbed. I'm no expert with wet brine, but I think you're a bit light on cure.

 

[zippy12]

had mine in brine for 8 days .... there are pics of it after I rinsed it...
No off smells from mine

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/first-corned-beef-wet-brine-question.273728/

Is your meat staying submerged?

 

[SmokinAl]

For 1 gallon of water you should have about 1 heaping tablespoon of cure#1.
I think the problem may be that if you put the cure in boiling water, it ruined it.
When heated the cure won't work.
Hopefully daveomak , or chef jimmyj , will comment further on this.
I'll PM both of them & they can give you an accurate answer.
Al

 

[daveomak]

John, morning.... You are absolutely correct... When you read 1 tsp. per 5#'s, you've got a good memory...
Now, that's 1 tsp. per 5#'s of stuff.... 13.5# brisket plus approx. 10#'s water and salt and what ever else you put in it.... now you've got 23.5#'s of stuff... 5 tsp. of cure#1 would have been good...
4 days..... What is the temperature of your refrigerated compartment ??... Should be between 34 and 38 deg. F....
The color development "sometimes" doesn't happen until heat is applied to the meat and gets around 130 or so....
If you are going to do anything to the brisket, make up a new brine/curing solution... don't heat up the cure#1 ... add it after you've dissolved everything else.. and the brine is below 100F or so.... then cool the brine to refer temps and add the meat..
Other than, If the fridge is warm, you have no problems...

 

[john brennan]

Thanks everyone for the responses!! To clarify, I added the cure #1 last, after the water was at room temp and not warm. Only the sea salt went into the boiling water. I figured the cure #1 wouldn't work if it went in to boiling water.
Fridge temp is set to "coldest", which is where we always leave it.... keeps the beer cold too!

After 4.5 days is okay to just add more salt and cure #1 to the current brine since I originally just added c#1 to room temp/cool water?

 

[SmokinAl]

Yes I think you can safely add a couple of teaspoons of cure #1 to the brine, but I would also add some sugar or splenda to balance the brine. Here is the brine most of us use.
https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/pops6927s-wet-curing-brine.110799/
Al

 

[chopsaw]

Put a therm in your fridge to make sure what the temp is .
Could also be to cold . Remember 34 to 38

 

[daveomak]

CHECK THE REFER TEMPERATURE !!! Chopsaw is spot on.... the meat won't cure below 34 deg. F...... "COLDEST" is not a temperature.....

 

[john brennan]

.....and the fridge was a balmy 25 degrees lol. Getting it adjusted now. Thanks again everyone!!

 

[daveomak]

34-38 F.... target.... 36 F..... set the thermometer in a glass of water, so opening and closing of the door won't screw up the REAL temperature....

 

[chef jimmyj]

If it was my brisket, I would was and soak the meat in cold water, an hour or so then place it in a fresh Brine per Dave's calculation. Brine is cheap and any issues or off flavors will be tossed with the old brine,..JJ

 

[Bearcarver]

.....and the fridge was a balmy 25 degrees lol. Getting it adjusted now. Thanks again everyone!!

Hi John,
Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, below is how I keep my curing fridge at the right temperature. (with pictures)
I track the air, and also by keeping a meat probe in a bottle of water, I get the exact Temp that the inside of any meat in the fridge would be.

Check This Out:
Curing Fridge Set-up (Bear's Method)

Bear

 

[daveomak]

Therm in water is the BEST way to monitor your fridge temp... GREAT idea Bear.....