Making Meathead's Corned Beef & Pastrami

[wcpreston]

I decided to give Meathead's Pastrami recipe a try. I started with this article on how to make your own pastrami:
https://amazingribs.com/tested-recip...e-katzs-recipe

Which led me to this article on how to make your own corned beef:
https://amazingribs.com/tested-recip...ed-beef-recipe

Which led to this article on how to cure meats (VERY IMPORTANT):
https://amazingribs.com/tested-recip...g-meats-safely

UPDATE: I'll be posting the rest of the story as updates on this post. Check them out!

Shopping Note: I got a Prime Brisket from Costco. Big sucker at 20 lbs. I got a food safe five gallon bucket at Smart & Final. I was able to get most of the spices from my local "Sprouts" where you can buy spices by weight. But I had to buy Star Anise, Juniper Berries, and Dill Seed from Amazon. (Everyone had just regular Anise, and Dill Weed, not seed. NO ONE had Juniper berries. BTW, I know these were optional ingredients, but...) Had I not been able to buy most of them by the ounce, though, it would have been a lot more expensive.

If you do this wrong you can make people sick, so I read w/great interest how I had to very careful how much pickling salt I put in, and what kind I use. If scaling the recipe, you cannot just double or triple the amount like you do with most recipes. You can do that with all of the ingredients EXCEPT the curing salt. For that, you use the calculator on the curing meats blog to figure out how much curing salt to use and how long you'll need to cure things.

I needed to know how much the brisket was going to weigh, how thick it would be, AND how much water I would need to submerge it properly. So I trimmed it up, did my best to split the point from the flat (as suggested by Meathead for curing), and then put them in big ziplock bags and into the five gallon food safe bucket I was going to use for curing and covered them with water. (I put them in bags to minimize cross-contamination during the process, as I would be using distilled water for the solution.

I determined I needed three gallons to submerge my brisket in the five gallon bucket. To me, that meant I needed to triple the recipe, since it was based on 1 gallon of water. That way I kept the PPM the same for the spices and salt. I thought about quadrupling it, since I was putting in quadruple the meat, but it seems like what mattered was keeping the same salt/spice level in the brine. I used three times as much water, so I would triple the recipe (plus the calculated amount of curing salt).

I returned the meat bags to the prep table, cleaned out the bucket well, and put a solution of Star San sanitizer in the bucket so sanitize it (as recommended in the directions). I have Star San from brewing beer. You can also use bleach.

The brisket weighed 17.2 pounds and I needed three gallons of water in the bucket. I put that into the calculator. I set the slider to 150 ppm, and it said I needed 3.4 TBs or 46.3g of Prague Powder #1 (pink curing salt). NOTE: I was trippling the recipe. If I had tripled the Prague Powder, I would be putting in 6 TBs, but it was only calling for 3.4. Big difference.)

I put three gallons of distilled water ($.95/each from Walmart) in the bucket, then put in triple the amount of all the ingredients, and the precise amount of Prague Powder that was specified. I put a plate over the meat chunks, then a little container on that to keep the plate down.)

The calculator said i will need 12.2 days of curing time. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bucket w/brine and not meat. Looks like I was stirring it




Just over three gallons in the bucket before adding the meat. I guess that's from all the salt and spices, as I know I poured three gallons of distilled water in there.



Meat submerged w/plate over it and container w/a little solution in it to hold down the plate. The cover holds the container perfectly in place. Notice I'm sporting my new Venom Steel Nitrile Gloves. These things are strong.



Resting place for 12.2 days

[EdF]

Next time you need juniper berries: https://www.butcher-packer.com/index...83dd339219f70f

[wcpreston]

Thanks, but based on the amount I had to buy and the amount I had to use, I think it will be a while :-) by the way, that’s about what I paid on Amazon. I have even more star Annise

[Murdy]

I've had trouble finding them in the past. Finally, found some at a Whole Foods.

[tdimond]

I actually have a local store that carries juniper berries. Alas, I have a side-by-side fridge, and space is at a premium. One day...

[ecowper]

I solve refrigerator space problem for big stuff, like this, by putting quart ziplock bags full of ice in my curing container. And my container is kept out in the garage in the winter. That combination keeps my brine at about 37F for several days. I change the ice when needed.

[SmokeyGator]

You will be fine. Followed the wet cure instructions twice. I had the best corned beef ever. Certainly worth the effort. Last st Patrick’s Day I cut my corned beef brisket in half. The st Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage was fhe flat, the point (and part of the flat) became pastrami. My boss, who was BIG on pastrami said what I made passed the test. So it must have been good.

[wcpreston]

13 days later and I pulled the cured brisket out of the bucket, emptied and rinsed the bucket, rinsed the meat of spices, and put it back in the bucket and filled it with fresh water. I'll smoke it tomorrow.

[Troutman]

Be sure to change that water 2-3 times. Trust me one rinse is not enough. Good luck I make it regularly, it’s really good !’

[wcpreston]

Rinse/fill, leave 8 hours, rinse/fill, leave 8 hours, rinse, leave 8 hours? How long should I leave it in each time?

[EdF]

That should be plenty adequate. Do it that way for the first time, and refine later.

[wcpreston]

If I read correctly, the recipe says to smoke it only til it hits the stall at 150F. Then you steam it for serving. Two questions:

1. I read that correctly, right? I'm not smoking it to 203F?
2. If I'm going to portion, vacuseal & freeze, I do it before steaming, right? I'll use sous vide for defrost & getting ready to eat.

Have I got that right?

[Jerod Broussard]

I wouldn't wrap until you have ample bark. I cook mine just like a brisket, only this one is ALL "smoke ring."

[Troutman]

To answer your question either method gets good results. If you want a traditional pastrami, steaming works great. Or if you want a more brisket type, deep bark finish then take it up to 200*+ like a conventional brisket. Not to complicate things but there's a third option which is sous vide que, but that's for another day. Pick your desired finish and go for it !!!

[wcpreston]

I actually have four pieces and was thinking about sous vide que for half.

[Willard]

This is an interesting subject to me as I spent hours last weekend going over MH’s instructions. This is one of my goals for 2019, not to mention home brewing. Would like to hear your trials and tribulations on that front. Oh, and I’m getting started on composting. Busy year. Thanks for posting your efforts.

[wcpreston]

All I will say is pay very close attention to the part about calculating the amount of curing salts.

[wcpreston]

UPDATE: The curing is done and now begins the pastrami section.

See how the color of the brine changed over time.



Here I am stirring the mix. I did that every day. What you can't see from this picture is the enormous paddle I'm using. It's from my beer brewing stuff. It's 36" long, and the paddle part is like 6" wide, and is for stirring huge brews. It was perfect for this.



This is how I kept the meat under the brine. A plate floating on top, and a container to keep the plate down. The top of the bucket held down the container, which held down the plate. Perfect!



Here I am pulling the corned beef out of the brine. You can see I spilled a bit. Ooops.



Here it is all ready for the corned beef recipes! Yes, recipes w/an S.



I've decided to do both the sous vide method on half and the regular method on half and see how it goes.

[RonB]

I just put a well marbled chucky in the brining solution an hour or so ago. It's supposed to go 10.2 days...

[wcpreston]

Alright, the deed is done. I had four chunks of corned beef, so I thought I'd do two w/sous vide and two the regular way. A lot more work, but interesting.

SOUS VIDE

I did the Sous Vide in the same bucket I used for the brine, after cleaning it out, of course.

I used double-crimped Foodsaver bags, as that's what I normally sous vide in. But this is my first time doing 36 hours. I'm pretty sure they leaked, as there was a LOT of liquid in those things 36 hours later. If I was being scientfic, I would have weighted before and after but the liquid was not rendered fat - it was water. And I'm pretty sure it messed up the flavor.

Sorry, no pics of what that looked like. The weird thing is there were no detectable leaks. But if I do it again, I'll use ziplocks.

I then threw rub on the results and put it in the fridge for a couple of days.


REGULAR PASTRAMI

I smoked the regular pastrami at the same time as the sous vide'd pastrami. Here's what they both looked like going in.

Regular pastrami:




Sous vide pastrami


Several hours later, here's what the regular pastrami looked like as I was putting it in the steamer:




Looks nice, right? For the steamer, I used a large disposable aluminum pan, with a large wire rack inside. The briskets were unwrapped but sitting in an aluminum boat, and then covered with a giant aluminum tent.




Here is what the Sous Vide'd pastrami looked like after:



And the regular pastrami after


Yes, the cuts are different. But both had some of the flat and some of the point.

After having a sandwich or two, here's what the SV looked like vacuum packed:


And the regular vacuum packed:




VERDICT

The Sous Vide was way easier, but partly because I really wasn't sure how to do the steaming part. But the regular brisket tasted much better. It was juicier and more tender than the sous vide pastrami. But I think I screwed up the sous vide one.

It was a LOT of work and the elapsed time was way more than anything I'd ever done. There was the 12 day curing, based on how much meat I had. One day of rinsing, based on input from others. (Rinse, soak 8 hours, rinse, repeat three times) Then 2 days in the fridge with the rub on it. Then the smoke. Then the steam. Holy crap that was a lot of work.

No wonder good pastrami's so stinking expensive.

Ingredient procurement was fun. Some of those things were not easy to get. But now I've got (had) about 20 vacuum-sealed freezer bags ready for fresh home-made pastrami whenever I want it. I think I'm down to 16.

BTW, the rye bread we bought was lame. I eat it with mustard. The wife eats it nekkid. And she doesn't put anything on her pastrami either. LOL.

I will do it again.

[wcpreston]

Troutman I got the Sous Vide idea from you. What do you think about my comments above about the liquid? Also, what I consider to be inferior results.

[realdocBBQ]

What temp did you do the sous vide pastrami at? 36 hours may not have been enough, and also with that much soak and water change to pull out salt, then you do it sous vide, it loses a lot of purge liquid, and probably a lot of salt, too. I'm thinking you may have needed longer sous vide time with it. Excellent first effort, though! Way to go!

I've done pastrami 3 or 4 times, now. The curing is the worst part. It is better than store bought, but it's not leaps and bounds... I've done it with store bought corned beef and it still turned out absolutely phenomenal. You do lose a LOT of weight, even with smoking. I had a 4 pound flat and a 3 pound point, minimal trimming, and after smoking and steaming, I ended up with just over 2 pounds of pastrami.

[wcpreston]

I guess what I'm questioning on the Sous Vide method is this: So it never gets to 200F? And it's still tender? Troutman

[wcpreston]

realdocBBQ I used the Sous Vide pastrami recipe on the site:

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/beef-and-bison-recipes/sous-vide-que-pastrami-recipe

So that means 36 hours at 150.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "it loses a lot of purge liquid." Are you saying that w/that much rinsing, I put more water INTO it, which creates more liquid to purge? I think I like @Troutman's suggest to double bag, though.

[realdocBBQ]

wcpreston no, you don't put more into it, but sous vide ALWAYS seems to lose a lot more liquid than you think it would, yet is still juicy. I doubt your bags leaked. I think it's a testament to how much moisture one loses when smoking and you don't realize it. Doing some weight comparisons would be interesting.

[Troutman]

wcpreston, Here's a conventional pastrami I did using the Meathead method;

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...astrami-reuben

and here's an example of some of my QVQ pastrami;

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...ng-2018/page39 (go down to bottom of the page)

The method you used for your sous vide version is really a different animal. Along with Potkettleblack and Polarbear777 , the current way I do pastrami is after the cure and purge, I smoke it to about 120* or so, put it into a bath at 135* for 72 hours, then give it a post smoke to re-set the bark. I never exceed 135* so the result is more of a medium rare finish then smoking to 203*.

I can't say that what you did was necessarily wrong but I don't see what temp you SV at nor do you say what type of post smoke you went through. I do like the fact that you showed a lot of detail in this post, keep tweaking your recipe, you'll get nailed down. And if traditional tastes better to you then go for it, nothing wrong with Katz's type pastrami !!!!

[wcpreston]

Hey Potkettleblack and Polarbear777 what do you think of my question about the liquid in the vacuum bag? I thought it was a ton, and it ran like water, not fat.

As I said, I saw no evidence of seasonings or meat juice in the sous vide bath, nor did I see any leaks in the bags, AND when i tugged on the bag, it seemed like it still had the vacuum. So I wasn't convinced it leaked.

But the question remains...

Is it normal to have to have that much liquid SVing raw brisket for 36 hours?

[realdocBBQ]

Bottom line - yes. Sous vide always seems to have way more liquid than you would expect, and the briskets I have done have had a TON of liquid. Double bagged.

[brennanmh]

I think you said it was a prime brisket too? That’s gonna create even more bag liquid in sous vide, and as pointed out, a lot is expected already. I’ve done several briskets sous vide and have gotten great results with a 2 day brine and a 36 hour cook. Not so much with them corned, though. Still working on that. I don’t know why it’s different.

[Spinaker]

I used to smoke then finish sous vide. Now, I just smoke it all the way to finishing temp, no steaming and no cooking sous vide. Smoke all the way; better bark and more flavor. Results don't lie. LFG

[wcpreston]

Doesn't finishing it to 203F in the smoker leave it too soft to cut for pastrami? Probe tender means pretty soft meat.

[IowaGirl]

Mmmmm. I can just about smell that. Yum.

[Spinaker]

Nope, it still slices up great, just like a normal brisket. wcpreston

[wcpreston]

Troutman

Sorry, I thought I covered what I was doing in the beginning. I followed this recipe:

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/beef-and-bison-recipes/sous-vide-que-pastrami-recipe

Here's a summary.

1. sous vide'd at 150 for 36 hours
2. Ice bath
3. Opened and seasoned w/pastrami seasoning
4. Left in fridge for 2 days
5. Smoked it w/the traditional pastrami @225F to 125F

My big question was all that liquid in the bags after sous vide. It was a lot more liquid than i was expecting, so I suspected leakage from the sous vide water because I used foodsaver bags vs a ziplock like the recipe called for. But I didn't see any evidence of meat/seasonings in the water, nor did I find any drips coming out of either sous vide bag. So then I'm asking "should there really have been that much liquid?"

But if you're not sous vide'ing raw brisket, yours would not be the same. Hmm....

If I did it again, I would weigh it before/after. I might also still use the vacuum bags, but clip to the side hanging inside an OPEN freezer bag. That way I get the weightlessness of the vacuum bag, but the sure seal of the ziplock. Overkill?

[Troutman]

I’ve had it happen to me, it’s usually a leak. It just takes a pinhole, that’s why on long cooks I double bag. Now having said that you will get a certain amount of purge regardless, it leaves the meat as the tissues render. But if it was a lot then my money is on a leak.

[Potkettleblack]

No shade to Cliff, Meathead or anyone at AR. But this method leaves much to be desired. I said so when they originally posted the recipe here in the forum, and I went at Cliff at a lot harder than I should have, more than he deserved, and so on. But... this already existed... or at least some version of it...

https://kosherdosher4.blogspot.com/2015/03/megillah-of-pastrami.html

Kosher Dosher lives for this stuff. He has pastramied everything (https://kosherdosher4.blogspot.com/p/just-pastrami.html) and made enough to be given the key to Pastrami City (Los Angeles... for real).

Equilibrium dry brine is the jam. When you wet brine the meat, then sous vide at 150, you're basically loading a sponge and then squeezing it. When you do a dry brine, you're not loading the meat, so the 149 x 48 isn't as squeezey.

No one on AR's staff likes cold smoking. I get it. Food safety is rule #1. You've already cured the bejeezus out of it. We used prague, so we're pretty sure it's not a good source for Botox. Live a little. Cold smoke on a cured navel or brisket that we're gonna sous vide for two days seems pretty food safe to me.

Without a picture, I can't really say if you had a leak or not. Purge is not fatty. It is basically concentrated stock. If you shocked the bag properly, it should have gelled if it were just purge. Pinhole leak might allow water in without putting any out. I've had that happen with some steaks in ziplocks, mostly things with bones that punch a wee hole in plastic rendered a bit more elastic by the warm water. Pork shanks are worth double bagging because the bone is just out there. Any rate, when I have that happen, I generally pitch the ensuing result. The extra water will have leeched a lot of the flavor.

The equilibrium brine as done by KosherDosher eliminates the need for the rinse. I'm curious about the decision to go 12 days in the cure. Meathead says up to 7 if it's thick. Your slices look a bit floppy. It shouldn't be steaky. 'Strami has a texture all it's own.



The TLR:

• Maybe a leak
• Maybe too much brine
• Maybe too much soak
• Equilibrium brines are amazing
• Cold smoking + sous vide + post smoking is food safe (AFAIK)

[Troutman]

Potkettleblack - Question: In the article by KD you provide above, his formula for his cure is to use 2% salt per weight of meat. He then sites an article that talks further about equilibrium curing where the author says 2.5% to 3.5%. Seems like a healthy swing percentage wise, what have you used?

[Potkettleblack]

Used KD’s number as seen in the image. He rewrote the cure and the rub recipes after initially creating the Megillah. So, I think 2% is the final number. But preference is personal.

[wcpreston]

The 12.2 days came directly from the formula. I entered the thickness of the brisket in it's biggest part, and that's what came out.

But this sounds really interesting