Venison Backstrap Pastrami - 12 day process - QVIEW

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hoity toit

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
SMF Premier Member
I had back-straps from this years deer season and decided to see if I could turn them into  pastrami, or a venison dried "beef" for snacking. What I did was to take my pickling spices, some crumpled up bay leaves and some garlic and boiled them in a couple cups of the brine to release the oils in the spices. Then after doing a super trim job on the meat removing all the sinew and stringy membranes that always get in between you teeth, I submerged into the brine and weighted it down with a plate inside of a 5 gallon food grade bucket and back in the fridge it went. I rotated and turned the meat slabs each day. Ten (10) days later they were removed from the brine rinsed off and patted dry with paper towels. Next, and I know some of you here don't like this method, I coated all the meat with a horseradish mustard, sprinkled on some Mrs Dash (garlic/herb/no salt), and packed them heavy with black pepper. I then place on the bottom rack in my meat frig overnight.

Preheated the MES40 to 150* and put the meat in along with hickory in the Amaze-n-smoker tray.

2 hrs into the smoke the meat IT was 128/127 . I used an i-Grill 4 probe thermometer to monitor progress.

at the 3 hr mark I raised the temp to 170

at 4 hr mark bump to 180 - meat is now at 139/.140

at 8 hrs I bump to 200 , meat is now 150/146

at 9-1/2hrs I turned heat off and let it sit while I eat my dinner,  IT is at 157/162.

brought it inside after an hour and put in the frig overnight

Just finished slicing and bagging up.

The taste is good, mustard is gone, and it has a nice color and finish. I only have a few photos so here they are below.

Enjoy !




Nice n Red


I will do this again. Like Pop said in one of his posts., it takes time, don't get in a hurry. How true that statement is.
 
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That looks Great !!!   You will be sending out samples ?

Gary
 
Man that looks awesome.

I have a small venison roast that I now know what to do with.

Great job.
 
HT, They look incredible !!!!
points.gif
 
That sure does look great but there's no way I could sacrifice any of my backstrap.  I do have a few elk roasts that I'm just waiting for the snow to melt of a bit to give pastrami a try, though.
 
 
That sure does look great but there's no way I could sacrifice any of my backstrap.  I do have a few elk roasts that I'm just waiting for the snow to melt of a bit to give pastrami a try, though.
--

Yep I know , it was a tough decision for me to sacrifice them, however I wanted to try something different for a change.

And Thanks for the nice comments, I appreciate it.
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