A few days ago I posted some pastrami questions here. One of them was why do some rub the pastrami then let it air dry in the fridge for from overnight to a couple of days. I received several responses telling me it would make the rub adhere to the meat much better. After I trimmed, desalinated, and applied the rub to the 6 corned beef points that I wanted to smoke I left them in the garage fridge for 24 hours. I have to say the results were even better than I had hoped for. The rub stayed on very well while smoking and while being sliced. That’s going to be a permanent part of my pastrami preparation from now on, it’s worth the wait. I’ll be trying this on the next brisket I smoke, SPG and a wait can’t hurt. Thanks to everyone who reached out to help.
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Pastrami for the best Rubins ever.
Good tip, thank you, -
Thanks for the confirmation. The two I did a few weeks ago I rushed a bit and only put the rub on about an hour ahead...................won't squeeze myself into that hole again.Comment
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Glad it turned out well. Notes taken.Comment
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Indeed, if you have the room, this works great for brisket and pastrami. Also helps with chikkin skin, too.Comment
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I'm guessing it's the coriander that needs that extra help, most, if not all of our coriander was extracted from the corainderthals many many years ago.
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Jerod Broussard That’s funny! Jerod thank you for the good advice. The big Oktoberfest was last night and the pastrami was by far the best I’ve ever made. Why they want pastrami at an Oktoberfest is beyond me but they do every year. This year I gave it my best shot. I used all point cuts, used all newly purchased ingredients in the rub, and used the 24 hour rest you recommended that worked so well. Since they were points I took your advice about not worrying about a SV finish.
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Why is this under sausages and hotdogs anyway… just realized that as I was digging down through the forums.. 🧐Comment
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Wait till you cure your own...Comment
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Curing your own is the deal . Game changerComment
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Oak Smoke I did pastrami with a cured bone in Boston butt, and it came out great. Different than beef for sure, but it was amazing sandwich meat. It took some time in a stainless pot in the garage fridge to cure an 8 pound Boston butt, due to the thickness. If you do it with chuck roast it's gonna be great. May be slight texture difference from brisket, but I doubt it will be far off in flavor.
I just dumped the curing liquid and rinsed a half flat and a point I've been curing for 8-9 days, and moved them to water to desalinate until this evening, mostly as I forgot I needed that fridge for turkey and thanksgiving sides! I did the math again on the cure calculator, and the 3" thick point will likely have a 1/2 inch uncured streak in the middle - the 2" thick flat will be just fine. Cure calculator gives 11 days for 3 inches, versus 8.x for 2.5 inches thick. I am sure it will still be good as pastrami. This will be my first go at curing it myself.
Gonna smoke it on the kamado in the morning, pulling at 170F, hopefully before the turkey goes on spatchcocked at 3pm. I'll finish the pastrami with a 4 hour SV bath at 195F, per the SVQ pastrami discussion that is stickied in this area of the forums.Comment
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Oak Smoke I'll let you know. All my prior pastrami was from store bought corned flats.
I did not use pickling spices. Just did salt and Prague powder #1. I did that when I cured a Boston butt too. I'm gonna coat it up very heavily in the pastrami rub and let it sit overnight. After it hits 170, I'll let it cool then vacuum seal for a future SV finish. I've been doing that and the vacuum bag helps keep the crust and spices on during the SV finishing step.
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