Corned Beef Brine - How Long is Too Long?

[efincoop]

Hi Everyone,

I'm making corned beef and started my brine 10 days ago. If I want to serve this on Thursday for St. Patrick's day, can I keep it in the brine until Wednesday (15 days total) before a 24 hour soak to desalinate or should I pull it now, desalinate and freeze it until Wednesday?

[rickgregory]

Assuming it's refrigerated, it should be fine. You could, of course, pull then vacseal now but... eh. Why are you desalinating? Or are you not doing the traditional boil?

[efincoop]

Thanks Rick. I figured I would desalinate for 24 hours so I didn't have to change the water mid-cook (step #5) per the recipe on the free site.

[rickgregory]

Makes sense. If you use a much larger volume of water you could skip that, but most of us don't have a huge pot.

[Starsky]

Hi Everyone,

I'm making corned beef and started my brine 10 days ago. If I want to serve this on Thursday for St. Patrick's day, can I keep it in the brine until Wednesday (15 days total) before a 24 hour soak to desalinate or should I pull it now, desalinate and freeze it until Wednesday?

I don't know if you're using pink curing salt but I think prague #1 is good for around 10 days, and prague #2 for longer periods. Don't know if that is a hard rule or not though

[texastweeter]

Sorry, I dry cure my corned beef and pastrami

[Jerod Broussard]

efincoop Have you consulted the calculator??

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes-salting-brining-curing-and-injecting-curing-meats-safely/

[efincoop]

Thank you Jerod. I have in the past but never picked up on the line about 25% longer.

[Troutman]

Yea Jerod's right, consult the calculator. I believe the rule of thumb is 25% longer than the cure time the calculator comes up with. My brisket flats calculate just about 5 days but I leave them for 6-7 since I go week end to week end. How large is that piece of meat?

[efincoop]

About 5 pounds. I'm pulling it today to desalinate. I never caught the line about 25% long. Thank you for pointing that out!