St Paddy’s Day 2024…Corned Beef Cook

Just put my 5.5lb corned beef (flat) brisket on. Plan is for a roughly 2 hour smoke, then wrap it, and take it to tender…about 200-205.

I put a plain ol’ mustard slather on top and sprinkled some of the seasoning packet on top of that. I do have it fat side up as I’m using a “water pan” (with 4 beers…no water…and the rest of the seasoning packet in with the beer) this time. I’ve never been able to do that before. Typically, I’d have the stock grates in with no water pan…fat side down. But I did suggest in a recent post that I was gonna try this since I have my PCS Rackworks shelves installed. So here goes.

Notes:
1. With the original recteq grates out and the large bottom PCS rack in, there wasn’t enough room to put my water pan on that bottom shelf with the middle rack in…where I’ve got my meat. So I pulled the bottom shelf out and put my water pan on the drip tray. I didn’t want to cook on the very top rack slot…worried about cooker temp that high up in the chamber. The smart thing to do would’ve been to take that big bottom shelf out and put the stock recteq grates in. I think that would’ve given me adequate clearance for the aluminum water pan below the meat that was on the middle shelf.
2. I need to have figured all that out BEFORE cranking up the grill/smoker. Stupid me.
I’m using the metal pins on my PCS shelves that keep them from sliding out. So taking those out when the grill is at 250 is interesting.
3. For today’s cook, I’m using Cooking pellets.com “apple mash” pellets. I found it interesting that these pellets are small in length. I think that last bag of their “Perfect Mix” had some lengthy pellets. I haven’t had a problem with them but I like to keep mental notes in case issues come up.
4. Finally, and to the chagrin of many corned beef and cabbage traditionalists, I cook my cabbage, potatoes, and carrots separately. I simply like tasting the individual veggies as opposed to their flavors/tastes when cooked in the traditional New England boiled dinner style. To my palate, it all tastes the same that way. (I know I may lose my forum membership card for saying that.)

Anyway, here are my starting pics. I’ll follow-up with more pics later.

Oh! The corned beef came from Costco.

Luck of the Irish to ya!!!!

Interested to hear how Corned beef comes out with the RT cooking method.

Now I’m hungry !

I, also, am interested to hear how it turns out. We are doing ours the traditional way today in the slow cooker. We’ll compare notes later.

Our corned beef also came from Costco, but is the Snake River Farms American Wagyu variety. We’ve had them before and they are extraordinary.

Next week(well, tomorrow onward) is the proper time to buy/cook corned beef. 50% off!

Amazing ribs' pastrami recipe.

Well, I totally blew it; no photo of my conventional, slow-cooker corned beef cook. Sorry. Things got a little crazy around meal time and I completely forgot.

I will say the SRF Wagyu corned beef is amazing and we enjoyed it greatly with the traditional steamed potatoes and cabbage plus soda bread—and a good beer, of course.

Jim6820 said:

Well, I totally blew it; no photo of my conventional, slow-cooker corned beef cook. Sorry. Things got a little crazy around meal time and I completely forgot.

I will say the SRF Wagyu corned beef is amazing and we enjoyed it greatly with the traditional steamed potatoes and cabbage plus soda bread—and a good beer, of course.

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Name the beer!

SmokeOCD said:

Name the beer!

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I should probably say Guinness, but it wasn’t. Smithwick’s Red Ale was the brew of choice, of course.

I only smoked it at 250 for 2 hours. Temp was only around 116 at that time. But that all the smoke I wanted. Wrapped in foil as opposed to butcher paper because keeping it moist was a primary objective for today. Turned the heat up to 325 because dinner is at 2pm EDT. Probed and took it off the grill at 12:25pm. Temp was 203. Put it in the cooler to rest. The “reveal” coming in a little while.

Tender and delicious.

Again, for me, it’s about a little bit of smoke. Not trying to smoke the corned beef flavor out. Plus, it saves the oven or stove for other stuff.

Regarding my pics…first pic is from the top…fat cap up. I previously mentioned I was going to try that with the water pan (beer) underneath. Second pic is the bottom. I did not notice any signs of drying out…which was important for this experiment. Last pic…for me, it had to be a Guinness, a Harp, or Smithwicks.

Oops! I failed to take any pics of the side dishes. It got a little crazy once I started slicing the corned beef. Everyone was hungry.

I hope everyone had a great day!

Lager1829 said:

Amazing ribs' pastrami recipe. View attachment 21482

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I’d love to know more about your recipe or process for this.

Jim6820 said:

I, also, am interested to hear how it turns out. We are doing ours the traditional way today in the slow cooker. We’ll compare notes later.

Our corned beef also came from Costco, but is the Snake River Farms American Wagyu variety. We’ve had them before and they are extraordinary.

Click to expand...

I’m not sure I’ve seen SRF meats a my Costco in Charleston. I’m just now starting to see “prime” full packer briskets there. I should at least try the prime brisket. I think it’s like a dollar a pound more than choice…or thereabouts.

My fear with the prime briskets I’m seeing is they appear to have a lot more of that beautiful firm white fat on them and I don’t have a ton of confidence or experience trimming briskets. I’ve done three. The last one I just trimmed any easily accessible fat down to about an inch or a little less, seasoned it, and cooked it. I was pleased with the results. I cut fat off of slices for my wife.

That looks fantastic @TheRicker

Jim6820 said:

Well, I totally blew it; no photo of my conventional, slow-cooker corned beef cook. Sorry. Things got a little crazy around meal time and I completely forgot.

I will say the SRF Wagyu corned beef is amazing and we enjoyed it greatly with the traditional steamed potatoes and cabbage plus soda bread—and a good beer, of course.

Click to expand...

@Jim6820
I’m cooking the same SRF Corned beef today.
I noticed the cut was a Round, as opposed to a brisket.
Marbling looks nice and even with minimal fat.
Is a Round typically preferred to a brisket for corned beef in your household sir ?

RHEINLEIN said:

@Jim6820
I’m cooking the same SRF Corned beef today.
I noticed the cut was a Round, as opposed to a brisket.
Marbling looks nice and even with minimal fat.
Is a Round typically preferred to a brisket for corned beef in your household sir ?

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I noticed my Costco had some corned beef packs that weren’t brisket. I’m wondering if that’s what it was…a round roast or something else. It’s thick but not very long. Probably a perfect size for 2 - 4 people. I’m interested to hear how it turns out.

RHEINLEIN said:

@Jim6820
I’m cooking the same SRF Corned beef today.
I noticed the cut was a Round, as opposed to a brisket.
Marbling looks nice and even with minimal fat.
Is a Round typically preferred to a brisket for corned beef in your household sir ?

Click to expand...

IME, the SRF corned beef is Round and, quite honestly, we prefer it to brisket as it doesn’t have big fat pockets. It does usually have nicely distributed fat marbling, however—at least the SRF does. My taste buds say it all tastes the same. YMMV

Jim6820 said:

IME, the SRF corned beef is Round and, quite honestly, we prefer it to brisket as it doesn’t have big fat pockets. It does usually have nicely distributed fat marbling, however—at least the SRF does. My taste buds say it all tastes the same. YMMV

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If I see some still at Costco when I go this week, I may pickup one or two.

I also wanted to ask, do any of you soak your corned beef in water for any length of time before cooking it? I’m guessing not if you’re slow cooking it in a pot. I’m asking because two recipes I saw last week both said they soak their (store /company brined) corned beef for 6 hours before cooking it on the pellet grill. One came from a pellet company and the other from a pellet grill company. There are times I find corned beef saltier than I’d prefer. And I get it that it’s part of the process. But maybe I’ll try that sometime just to see if the outcome is more to my liking. (Interestingly, they didn’t recommend the water soak on home-brined corned beef. )

TheRicker said:

If I see some still at Costco when I go this week, I may pickup one or two.

I also wanted to ask, do any of you soak your corned beef in water for any length of time before cooking it? I’m guessing not if you’re slow cooking it in a pot. I’m asking because two recipes I saw last week both said they soak their (store /company brined) corned beef for 6 hours before cooking it on the pellet grill. One came from a pellet company and the other from a pellet grill company. There are times I find corned beef saltier than I’d prefer. And I get it that it’s part of the process. But maybe I’ll try that sometime just to see if the outcome is more to my liking. (Interestingly, they didn’t recommend the water soak on home-brined corned beef. )

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I use the Costco SRF corned beef for pastrami but always soak it overnight. It still has plenty of salt for my liking. Here is a picture of my
last pastrami so you can see the marbling.

TheRicker said:

If I see some still at Costco when I go this week, I may pickup one or two.

I also wanted to ask, do any of you soak your corned beef in water for any length of time before cooking it? I’m guessing not if you’re slow cooking it in a pot. I’m asking because two recipes I saw last week both said they soak their (store /company brined) corned beef for 6 hours before cooking it on the pellet grill. One came from a pellet company and the other from a pellet grill company. There are times I find corned beef saltier than I’d prefer. And I get it that it’s part of the process. But maybe I’ll try that sometime just to see if the outcome is more to my liking. (Interestingly, they didn’t recommend the water soak on home-brined corned beef. )

Click to expand...

When smoking/grilling corned beef, I soak it overnight (and change water at least once) to get rid of some of the salt. In a conventional slow-cooker, the water pulls the excess salt out.