Pastrami advice?

[donanthony100]

I have searched this topic previously just looking for some additional advice. Have tried my hand at various pastramis. Beef, deer, goose. I do make alot of bacon cold smoked in the winter using a dry EQ method but have tried my hand at venison pastrami before and it has been too salty using recipes online. My question is what is the best way to go about it. Does wet curing really allow the flavor of the seasonings aside from the cure to penetrate better into the center of the meat?
How much dry spice should I add per pound of meat like garlic onion etc? Is there any benefit to using Morton’s quick cure over doing a wet EQ brine? I have about let’s say 8 pounds of venison roast so I’m assuming a gallon of water should be okay so I need to factor in 8.34 pounds for that. Can you cook venison to 200 degrees like beef or is it better to pull at 155?

 

[Abigail4476]

D donanthony100 , I'm bumping this post and moving your thread to the beef section.

You might check out these two threads to see if you can find some helpful info:

Corned beef into pastrami

I have used store bought CB, water soaked to desalt for pastrami and it was good. I want to try making the CB from scratch, I also like easy. Jeff’s CB recipe looks right up my ally. Anyone have experience with using his method? Many thanks! PS: obviously this is a much later idea……

www.smokingmeatforums.com

Why is my pastrami not getting good cure penetration??

First one I did was beat red all the way through. The last 6 of so don’t get full pen and this one was way off. Was some over big briskets. 22.5 and 25 pounders. Came out great but want the look of all red. Doing touch over 1 gram per pound of meat and brined 14 days on this one then a full day...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[thirdeye]

Welcome aboard, you will likely get plenty of advice based on the scope of your questions.

There is a lot to unpack in your post, and I'll crack the nut by giving you my pastrami "philosophy".... which is something to chew on.

When I pastrami beef, pork, or wild game, I prefer to start with a "corning" brine verses dry curing or wet curing the meats. My corning brine is very aromatic containing beer, pickling spice, mustard and coriander seeds, ginger, garlic, Old Bay and cloves. For the base... I use a SMF favorite brine called "Pop's Brine" which calls for 1-heaping tablespoon of Cure #1 for 1-gallon of water. Then other ingredients are added. It smells amazing when toasting some of the ingredients, then simmering the brine. Coming out of the bag after a couple of weeks, the meat smells like a commercially corned meat.

Here is one of several posts I have made, this one features a beef tri-tip which was corned and then pastramied. The recipe is in thread #9.

Tri-Tip Pastrami Using Pop's Brine

For my most recent pastrami, I used a 1-gallon corning brine based on Pop's Brine, but added a bunch of corning aromatics and substituted 16 ounces of beer. I did inject 10% of the meat weight. The beef corned for 12 or 14 days, seasoned, rested 24 hours, then smoked followed by a pressure...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[zwiller]

Welcome. FYI stick to using the curing methods posted here. The various methods have been time tested and peer reviewed. There is a LOT of bad curing info out there on the web.

I have made pastrami a few ways (wet/dry) and honestly did not see much difference in the outcome. Ran out of cure last year and forced myself to use TQ and have really took a liking to it. 1T per lbs meat. Dead simple. For corned beef I use same rate of pickling spice. For pastrami, 1tsp each mustard/coriander/BP/garlic per pound. Once rubbed, I cover with cling wrap then vac seal for a month. Sure, cured in half that time but I think there is some magic with the add'l time. Spices marry/salt equalizes/etc. If speed is a must use what Wayne posted thirdeye . I was a big fan of wet a long time but found it kinda wasteful. It works great tho.

 

[Chasdev]

I got my recipe from Guy Fieri's show featuring the best pastrami, which oddly enough was done in a food trailer.
The recipe is searchable on his diners, drive-ins and dives show list.
It really is outstanding, pretty close to what you can buy from Carnegie deli.