4.5 pound beef navel ordered online. 2 weeks of patient work to generate pastrami.
Probably close to 1.75 pounds (I threw some away before I started to weigh it) of fat after cooking it. I didn’t weigh the meat before slicing but that’s probably close to 50% of the cooked weight.
Never again beef navel and never again certain online vendor.
Money can’t fix this because it was a meal for our new French exchange student.
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Last edited by STEbbq; September 2, 2023, 05:37 PM.
Is your disappointment that it had as much fat as it did? Or the flavor? Or...? Beef navel is basically the same as beef belly, yes? A lot of fat is kinda the default, like in pork belly. Sorry you were disappointed!
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Speaking from experience from my old job…. Beef navel is pretty much just like pork belly. The guys used to make beef bacon from it. It was good and guests bought it out in record time. But it was just like pork bacon. Fatty.
The upshot is that I have decided to order a Creekstone prime brisket to make a proper pastrami for our exchange student another time. Nothing like hyping her up on my pastrami skills to deliver ….that. Now I need those non-competitive cuts to come back into stock.
At least what we had was good…
Last edited by STEbbq; September 3, 2023, 07:36 AM.
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I wouldn't worry about the final yield in your beef navel pastrami cook, at least based on my experiences with making pastrami from corned beef flats or points. Losing half of the initial weight is pretty standard in my cooks of brisket-based pastrami.
For example, I just smoked 5 pastramis a few weeks back, all from storebought corned beef points. All of the pieces had an average loss in weight of around 60% or more. All turned out juicy (the point is such a forgiving cut) and so delicious. Started out with 19 lbs of trimmed meat and ended up with 7lbs of smoked pastrami. So I ended up with about 37% of what I started with. That's lower than my usual yield with flats or flats and points together, but I think points alone may render out more fat than flats.
By comparison, in another 7-piece cook of storebought corned beef-based pastrami, (mostly flats) I started with a total of 22 lbs of trimmed meat and ended up with 12 lbs of smoked pastrami, about 54% of what I started with.
I would much rather make pastrami from storebought corned beef, especially the point cut. The investment in time, fridge real estate, and (sometimes) $$ is not as great as starting with a brisket or beef belly that has to be cured, soaked, and smoked. I've done it both ways, and honestly, I can't tell much of a difference in the results. The texture is different, but the taste and tenderness is the same, pretty much.
Using a storebought cut of corned beef is pretty darned forgiving, be it flat or point, in the making of pastrami. Still, you're buying a pig in a poke, so to speak (mixed species there) because, due to typical corned beef packaging, you can't see how well marbled the cut you are purchasing really is until you slit open the package.
Kathryn
Last edited by fzxdoc; September 5, 2023, 06:59 AM.
Reason: autocorrect got me again
Those delis that use beef navel for pastrami can choose the cuts and get the pieces with a lower percentage of striated fat. Those slices you cooked didn't look anything like the beef navel piece shown in the link you provided. The piece in the link had more meat, less fat, whereas yours had more fat than meat.
Look upon this episode as a public service to the rest of us who might think about using beef navel for pastrami.
Agreed on your decision to use prime brisket from now on
Last edited by fzxdoc; September 5, 2023, 06:57 AM.
Love it on the public service. I have been talking about the cook here for a while so yeah, I am probably the first (and now last) to do beef navel as pastrami as I am sure someone would have said something beforehand.
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