Porkstrami

[siffring]

This is my first post, but I've gotten so much value out of this community that I wanted to share a recipe that we served to 1,000 people at a local BBQ competition and won first place.

We served a seven day cured porkstrami that was then rubbed and smoked for 15 hours. We served it on a homemade rye bread with "special sauce", quick pickle, pickled mustard seed and a coriander/lemon dust.

Here's how we made the porkstrami.


Ingredients

• 1 gallon water
• 3/4 cup salt
• 1/4 cup pink curing salt
  (Use this calculator to make sure you use the correct amount.)
• 2 tbsp whole corriander seed
• 2 tbsp whole black pepper seed
• 2 tbsp red chili flake
• 2 tbsp pickling spice
• 3/4 cup brown sugar

Instructions

1. Warm water in a large stock pot.

2. Add all ingredients to the simmering water until the salt and sugar have dissolved.

3. Remove the pot from the heat.

4. Add 3 quarts of ice to cool the liquid.

5. Add the pork shoulder to a large food grade container.

6. Pour the brine over the meat. Meat should remain fully submerge during the process. You can use pickling weights or a plate to assure the meat remains submerged.

7. Brine shoulder for 5-7 days (depending on size). Turning daily to assure all parts of the shoulder are evenly brine.

8. Remove the shoulder from the brine and rinse off any whole seeds or spices with cold water.

9. Place the shoulder on a pan and place in the refrigerator uncovered overnight.

10. Remove shoulder from fridge, coat the shoulder evenly with the rub.

11. Smoke at your desired temperature until you reach an internal temp of 192-ish.

13. Remove the shoulder from the smoker. Let rest.

14. Pull / Chop the shoulder and serve Tips

(9) We have skipped this step in the past but feel it's a better result after a night of resting in the fridge.

(11)This is only a recommendation. We have tried internal temp of 203. The result taste great but it's a little too loose (i.e. pulled pork) for slicing. We have tried 165 sliced thinly. Taste great, holds together well for slicing (i.e. lunch meat) but its a little fattier result.

If you plan to use a slicer, after you remove the shoulder from the smoker, tent the meat with foil and cool until room temp. Wrap the meat in foil and refrigerate overnight. Once ready, slice to desired thickness and slowly warm to temp in a steam table. If you warm the meat too fast it will curl up like bacon (especially if sliced thin).

Let me know if you have any questions. I'd love to share what we learned.

[treesmacker]

First, congrats on the first place!
Second, first place and you're sharing the recipe, that's very kind - thank you!

Here it is - all saved under the Pork tab of my OneNote collection. I want to try this.

[siffring]

Make it and tell me how we could do better next time.

[mountainsmoker]

Congrat! it looks delicous. What was your rub for the smoker? Coriander and black pepper like a normal pastrami or something else?

[siffring]

The rub was equal parts black pepper, coriander and brown sugar. The sugar helped a lot with the bark and we were careful to keep the temp low so it didn’t burn.

[mountainsmoker]

siffring that sounds like a winner. thank you.

[Oakgrovebacon]

Welcome to the pit from Southern Illinois! Congrats on the Win! Your recipe looks great, I will try it this fall. Do you debone the shoulder before the cure?

[siffring]

Hi neighbor! We used boneless shoulder which saved a lot of work since we cooked 7 of them. I’d definitely debone before curing.

[jecucolo]

Beautiful! I’m going to give it a try!
What rub do you use?

[siffring]

Equal parts black pepper, coriander and brown sugar.

[RonB]

Welcome to The Pit. That meat looks great.

[Troutman]

Impressive first showing. I love the way you came out of the gate with an awesome first showing. This definitely has my attention!!!

[Polarbear777]

I noticed no salt purge soak step. With this scaling is that not needed? When making normal pastrami, the soak is usually necessary to desalinate a bit so it it palatable.

Thanks, and great post.

[siffring]

We gave it a really good rinse but no soak. It was definitely not too salty for our bite sized competition portions but I’d probably give it a soak if making it for myself.

[siffring]

I forgot to mention the pickled mustard seed, or as we started calling it, Hillbilly Caviar.

It has a nice, mild mustard flavor and a great pop when you bite it.

0.75	cup	Yellow Mustard Seed
1	cup	Apple cider vinegar
4	tbsp	Honey
1	tsp	tumeric
0.5	tsp	salt

[jecucolo]

How do you use the Hillbilly Caviar?

[siffring]

We put a little squeeze on top. That’s the little yellow balls on top of the pickle in the photo.

[Thunder77]

Congrats on the first place! That looks and sounds amazing. Your presentation is really good!

[Mudkat]

You got it all goin' on! Welcome to the Pit!

[Spinaker]

Wow, thank you for sharing this with us! And congrats on the big win! This sounds and looks incredible.

I love that you are using the calculator to be safe while curing, that is awesome to see!

.....so about that "special Sauce"

[siffring]

We basically made thousand island with BBQ instead of ketchup.