My first experience with corn beef and some spare rids

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scmelik

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Apr 17, 2009
114
10
South Dakota
First off I want to apologize for not having any pictures, I do not own a digital camera. I tried to get some pictures with my blackberry but they were really bad

Anyways thanks to Dude I wanted to try my hand at a corn beef pastrami this weekend. I am not a real big fan of pastrami but have also never had good pastrami either. So I ran to walmart Saturday afternoon and picked up a corn beef, old bay, and pickeling spice. I also figured that if I was going to have the smoker going I mightas well make it worth my while and picked up some spare ribs too.

When I got home I took the corn beef and soaked it for about two hours in salt water, which I am now thinking was a mistake, and then rubbed her down with evoo, old bay, and the pickling spice and threw her in the fridge to rest till morning. I also got the spares trimmed up and rubbed down with raw sugar, kosher salt, paprika, course ground black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregono, thyme, and dry mustard.

When I woke up on sunday morning to a nice rain. No big deal I just brought the smoker into the garage and but out of the rain and wind, plus it gave me reason to clean my garage.

About 10:30 both pieces of meat went on and rolled nicely at 230ish for about an hour and half then the the beef got sprayed ever hour after that with straight apple juice and the ribs got a mix of pineapple juice and rum

I decided that I was going to try not foiling the ribs at all which was a good idea and I dint know if I will ever foil again. About 5 the ribs were done and were amazing, hands down the top 5 ribs I have ever had. They had good bark and just the rightamount of chew, I am not a fan of ribs that fall off the bone I like just alittle bit of resistane. I was pretty happy with them

Now the pastrami on the other hand what a disaster. Everything was rolling along good I hit an internal temp of about 157 at 2pm and it sat there till about 5 when the ribs came off and I was thinking that it was going to be perfect. The when I pulled the ribs the temp of the beef dropped by about 12 degrees so I started decond guessing my thermometer and pulled it off after another hour. After letting it sit for an hour I went and sliced part of it and wow. Salty as hell and tough as shoe leather. I guess my therm was right because I decided to check after that and it read a perfect 212 in boiling water. I still have half that didn't get sliced so I am going to attempt to steam it tonight and see what happens. All in all I was not impressed.
 
Dang, I was so hoping you'd have a great smoke with the CBB and you'd be a pastrami convert. Don't give up on it. Yeah I guess at this point steam the heck out it and bring it up to 200 and see if it can be saved.

They can be pesky little suckers. But I think they're well worth the pay off. I've had them stall for a while, but never like what you had. A longer soak surley would've helped in the salt dept.

Let us know how it turns out after steaming.
 
Glad to hear the ribs turned out good, but sorry to hear about the pastrami. I hope the next time turns out better for you.
 
well I steamed the corn beef for about an hour and a half to two hours tonight just to see what happened and it actually ended up being pretty good. It was fairly tender and tasted decent. It was still just a bit salty but after talking with Dude I figured out that I misread his posts and instead of soaking the corned beef in just water, I soaked it in salt water which added to the saltiness of the meat. After steaming it though the strong salt flavor and toughness of the meat greatly reduced and a guy could actually make a sandwich out of it. I will definitely be trying this again in the upcoming weeks...I will NOT let it beat me, I will make it taste good.
 
corned beefs are already brined, now you realize you should have soaked in fresh water a couple hours to remove the salt. Black pepper, coriander and Paprika is the only rub I use when making pastrami. Trust your equipment and chalk it up to experiance. We've all been there and I'm still certainly learning with the help of this site. Good Luck on the next one. Never give up, never surrender.
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Ya I know I should have trusted my therm but when I saw an unheard of 12 degree drop I figured it had to be the batteries dying.

I like your rub idea, I may have to try that on the next one.
 
I'm sorry to hear about you delemma with the corned beef but thats how we learn is having to eat our mistakes it thought me how to do it right. Well keep on trying it will work out for you soon.
 
Does the soak process happen at room temps? Sorry for asking but, it's a bit unclear to me.

And you foil at 165 till .....????

Fat side up and do you trim the cap any?

Thanks!!!!
 
Yep...... sounds like your gonna have to do a do over. Pastrami is Reds favorite thing off the smoker and I've gotten pretty good at it. Never had one to stall like that though. Probably due to the brand I'm buying but I've never had to soak one at all. I put my seasonings on right before I smoke it. Take it to 160 and foil with some juice to 180. Slice nice and thin. I put a lot of seasoning on when I do pastrami and then scrap it off after it is cold and before I slice it up.

Any time I do a soak on anything I keep it in the fridge where it's cool.
If I've got my brisket seasoned for pastrami I take it to 180 for slicing. I also love a brisket without the pastrami seasoning cooked to 195-200 and pull it apart. It is tasteeeee.
I leave all the fat cap on my pastrami. I think it adds mucho to the flavor. I also prefer the point to the flat but I'll do either or both.
 
Just like I have always taught you. The best lessons in life are learned by making mistakes. I think I had a bad smoke once. I just don't remember when that was.......LOL Keep trying you are just stubborn enough to get it right
 
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