Beef Homemade Corned Beef / Pastrami

FastEddie

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I decided to try homemade corned beef and pastrami after being curious and influenced by my friends here on this forum. The pastrami was delicious. Haven't tried the corned beef yet. Saving that one for St. Paddy's Day. Here's how it went.

Purchased a 21 lb. choice brisket from a local market.
Used the recipe from amazingribs to get the brine and beef going.
Trimmed and separated the flat and point to make even thickness, and taste test the difference between the two.
Cut the point and flat in half. Four pieces total.
Brined for 6 days, and fresh water soak for one day to desalinate.
Used the pastrami rub recipe from amazingribs pastrami recipe to rub down 1/2 the point and 1/2 the flat. The other two will be corned beef later.
Smoked at 225 till 165* then wrapped in pink butchers paper till 203*. The point one the race, so I bumped up the heat a little for the flat.
Into the fridge for the night, and sliced the next day.
Good cold, but amazing heated up a few seconds in the microwave covered with a damp paper towel.
Vacuum packed the rest for another time.

Hope you try it. It's easy. Just have to have patience. Will update on the corned beef.
 

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I decided to try homemade corned beef and pastrami after being curious and influenced by my friends here on this forum. The pastrami was delicious. Haven't tried the corned beef yet. Saving that one for St. Paddy's Day. Here's how it went.

Purchased a 21 lb. choice brisket from a local market.
Used the recipe from amazingribs to get the brine and beef going.
Trimmed and separated the flat and point to make even thickness, and taste test the difference between the two.
Cut the point and flat in half. Four pieces total.
Brined for 6 days, and fresh water soak for one day to desalinate.
Used the pastrami rub recipe from amazingribs pastrami recipe to rub down 1/2 the point and 1/2 the flat. The other two will be corned beef later.
Smoked at 225 till 165* then wrapped in pink butchers paper till 203*. The point one the race, so I bumped up the heat a little for the flat.
Into the fridge for the night, and sliced the next day.
Good cold, but amazing heated up a few seconds in the microwave covered with a damp paper towel.
Vacuum packed the rest for another time.

Hope you try it. It's easy. Just have to have patience. Will update on the corned beef.
Nice work! That looks delicious 😋
 
Very nicely done! I'm a little slow so my full packer is still defrosting. I may have my next pastrami ready by April Fool's day. For those that haven't tried, it's not hard, just a lot of time from idea to slicing. It does help to have a garage fridge or similar. I'm really looking forward to doing a pastrami from scratch again.
 
I just did the same exact recipe, but did it for a full packer brisket that I bought last year. I trimmed and separated the flat / point for easier brining and brined in 2 large 2 gallon ziplock bags since my wife wouldn't let me take the shelves out of our garage fridge for a week.

Mine turned out really good as well and I lovingly joke about my 3 weeks to make reuben with homemade rye bread and homemade dressing. It was so worth it though! :)
 

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I decided to try homemade corned beef and pastrami after being curious and influenced by my friends here on this forum. The pastrami was delicious. Haven't tried the corned beef yet. Saving that one for St. Paddy's Day. Here's how it went.

Purchased a 21 lb. choice brisket from a local market.
Used the recipe from amazingribs to get the brine and beef going.
Trimmed and separated the flat and point to make even thickness, and taste test the difference between the two.
Cut the point and flat in half. Four pieces total.
Brined for 6 days, and fresh water soak for one day to desalinate.
Used the pastrami rub recipe from amazingribs pastrami recipe to rub down 1/2 the point and 1/2 the flat. The other two will be corned beef later.
Smoked at 225 till 165* then wrapped in pink butchers paper till 203*. The point one the race, so I bumped up the heat a little for the flat.
Into the fridge for the night, and sliced the next day.
Good cold, but amazing heated up a few seconds in the microwave covered with a damp paper towel.
Vacuum packed the rest for another time.

Hope you try it. It's easy. Just have to have patience. Will update on the corned beef.

I see where you did the fresh water desalination soak. Did the final result have much salt flavor?
I am asking because I did the same recipe for the corned beef and made corned beef & cabbage with it. The cabbage recipe called for simmering the corned beef for 1/2 an hour & changing the water which I did. The brisket did not have much salt flavor when done cooking & we had to add more salt.
 
I see where you did the fresh water desalination soak. Did the final result have much salt flavor?
I am asking because I did the same recipe for the corned beef and made corned beef & cabbage with it. The cabbage recipe called for simmering the corned beef for 1/2 an hour & changing the water which I did. The brisket did not have much salt flavor when done cooking & we had to add more salt.
Good question.
I also added more salt to the plate. Which I think is better than too salty and no going back.
The water soak took the saltiness down to almost nothing.
I did one water change in a 36 hour soak.
We cook ours in the crock pot. Cabbage in another pot with some of the juices.
I'll vac pack the point 1/2 for another day. ;)(y)
 
I cut off a small piece of the brisket after it came out of the brine. I want to try the pastrami recipe & was wondering if I should do the soak or just go for it. I wonder how much salt would be removed in an 8 hour soak.
 
I think others mentioned and I would also suspect that boiled or Instapot corned beef probably doesn't need much desalinization. My first pastrami definitely benefited from s 24 soak in a 5 gallon bucket of clear water before smoking.

Stand by, my next packer is almost defrosted for pastrami 2.0. I'm kind of liking @flh69 's idea of quartering the full packer.
 
I think others mentioned and I would also suspect that boiled or Instapot corned beef probably doesn't need much desalinization. My first pastrami definitely benefited from s 24 soak in a 5 gallon bucket of clear water before smoking.

Stand by, my next packer is almost defrosted for pastrami 2.0. I'm kind of liking @flh69 's idea of quartering the full packer.
Did it happen?
 
Did it happen?
Haha... it did, but I neglected to document it in photos. I thought I posted in one of these threads, but I honestly don't remember any longer.

I hacked off the point and smoked it as pastrami. It was very good, but I took it almost too far as is was so tender that it was nearly falling apart. I vacuum packed and froze the flat as another future pastrami or corned beef at a later date.

I'm now interested in trying another cut for the corning process as other folks have mentioned eye of round or even tri tip as worthy candidates. Others have posted some pretty good looking "deli slices" and I'm interested in duplicating.

I will reiterate that the AmazingRibs recipes/instructions for corning are spot on, but I did add spices to my brine even though Meathead says to do it, "If you have to." Well I "had to" as I was hedging my bets of turning part of the brisket into corned beef with no rub. I wrapped in butcher paper on this last pastrami around the stall and did not steam before slicing.

Off-topic, but I've been doing a bunch of poultry in the last two weeks. Apparently I upset the neighborhood as this character has been showing up on my front lawn in the last several days.

1649459668791.png
 
I've cured maybe half a dozen to a dozen tri tips. A well marbled tri tip is probably my favorite of the cuts to cure.

Go with slightly less cooked than super tender for sandwiches.
 
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