Got some nice looking beef navel from Agridime (RIP) late last year, cut one piece to try beef bacon, and 2 others to try pastrami.
Here's what one of the pieces looked like raw:
Equilibrium dry cured with 1.6% salt and 0.2% cure#2 for 2 weeks. Rubbed with my pastrami cure, but left the piece for bacon without any rub.
Dried and smoked with hickory, 4 hours at 150º then 2 hours about 175º and 2 more hours 200º. IT was 165º.
Bacon piece smoked:
One pastrami piece smoked:
All then refrigerated for several days (varied as all were finished on different days)
Bacon cut and fried as I usually do with pork belly bacon:
First piece pastrami steamed to 210º IT and carved:
This was a bit too fatty for my liking and I note that Katz boils their pastrami for quite some time to render some of the fat. I didn't want to boil mine, so I finished the last piece following David Parrish SV finishing method here:
This was better in terms of fat rendering, but difficult to slice:
Wrap-Up:
The bacon was good, had a different flavor and texture, but I'll probably stick with pork belly bacon.
Similarly, the pastrami, if cooked at high temperature for a long period was good, but the boneless chuck ribs I usually use is better (and easier to get).
Here's what one of the pieces looked like raw:
Equilibrium dry cured with 1.6% salt and 0.2% cure#2 for 2 weeks. Rubbed with my pastrami cure, but left the piece for bacon without any rub.
Dried and smoked with hickory, 4 hours at 150º then 2 hours about 175º and 2 more hours 200º. IT was 165º.
Bacon piece smoked:
One pastrami piece smoked:
All then refrigerated for several days (varied as all were finished on different days)
Bacon cut and fried as I usually do with pork belly bacon:
First piece pastrami steamed to 210º IT and carved:
This was a bit too fatty for my liking and I note that Katz boils their pastrami for quite some time to render some of the fat. I didn't want to boil mine, so I finished the last piece following David Parrish SV finishing method here:
This was better in terms of fat rendering, but difficult to slice:
Wrap-Up:
The bacon was good, had a different flavor and texture, but I'll probably stick with pork belly bacon.
Similarly, the pastrami, if cooked at high temperature for a long period was good, but the boneless chuck ribs I usually use is better (and easier to get).
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