My Latest Pastrami Adventure

[Draznnl]

We started with a Prime brisket from Costco.

I took this 22.43 lb. behemoth out of the freezer on Halloween. When it finally thawed, 5 days later, I trimmed almost 9.5 pounds of fat off of it and was left with a piece almost exactly 6 pounds and a piece almost exactly 7 lb. I put those up to cure for 6 days according to Meathead’s calculator. After a 24 hour soak in fresh water,



they were ready for seasoning
.


On Thursday, Nov. 14, I placed them on the smoker and discovered my brand new Fireboard wireless Pulse probes weren’t communicating with the unit on my Yoder yet.
Fortunately, we still had the wired probes handy.





After a three hour rest in the oven, wrapped in foil, the pastramis went into the fridge to cool overnight. Which turned into a couple of days. And then they met up with the meat slicer.



Final output was 8.75 lb. of sliced pastrami and about 1 lb of pastrami end chunks. Just a little bit of shrinkage from where we started.

[Spinaker]

How was it? This is my favorite thing to make. I try to really cake the rub on there and let it sit over night and set up before smoking.

[Draznnl]

It's delicious. I prepped a triple batch of the Close to Katz's rub. I didn't have any left over. This meat wasn't very thick, but it was long and wide. No complaints from the neighbors on either side who each got a pound.

[realdocBBQ]

Oh man, what a cook! Awesome! And here I was proud of myself last night for pastrami-ing a whole 17½ pound brisket! Little did I know, you'd already totally blown mine away and were just WAITING to post yours and make mine look like a clown car! lol

Seriously, though... awesome job, that looks incredible.

Now, question... how thick were those brisket chunks? You said six days to brine, my thickest was only 2.5" and it told me 7.8 days to brine. I think the 2" piece (the flat) was 2 days when I adjusted for that thickness, but still - I'd expect yours was even thicker than mine. 2.5"?

I can't wait 'till next week, though, but I'll only end up with about half of what you did - which means it's likely to be all gone in one day with all the people we're planning on having here. lol

I'm gonna need to make another one.

[realdocBBQ]

I will say, however, it sounds like you ended up with 13 lbs or so pre-cure - I ended up with 5.517 kg - so 12.13lb. Makes me glad I DIDN'T go for one of those 21 or 22 lb briskies I was eyeing at Costco, because they just looked like they had SO. MUCH. MORE. fat cap on them - I'd have ended up probably cutting off as much as you did.

[Draznnl]

I still have a 15 pounder from Wild Fork in the freezer. Not sure if that's getting turned into the traditional Chanukah pastrami or if I'll try to save a pound of this one. Oh hell, who am I kidding? I best get curing.

As I mentioned to Spinaker , this wasn't very thick. Heck, the two pieces took up the whole top shelf of my Yoder. This was the biggest brisket I've cooked. I think I'll try to keep them in the 13-16 pound range from now on.