# Venison Pastrami



## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 17, 2021)

I recently made venison pastrami from the top sirloin roast.  

The curing process took a total of 5 days.  I factored two days per pound, and the roast weighed approximately 2.1 lbs.  

I tried to enhance the venison flavor with celery seed, but other than that the spices consisted of the usual suspects... Coriander, black pepper, bay leaves, thyme, etc...  If anyone wants the exact recipe hit me up.

I smoked it on my Yoder YS 640S at 180 degrees until the roast hit an internal temperature of 145.  I was using cookin hickory pellets and was periodically putting beef tallow on the roast to keep it moist.

It was very good, I will absolutely be doing this again.


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## sandyut (Nov 17, 2021)

Oh man that looks great!  Love venison and pastrami!  Great cook!


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 17, 2021)

sandyut said:


> Oh man that looks great!  Love venison and pastrami!  Great cook!


Thanks, it made a great Reuben.


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## TNJAKE (Nov 17, 2021)

Man that looks great. Nice work bud


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 17, 2021)

TNJAKE said:


> Man that looks great. Nice work bud


Thanks brother!


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## BrianGSDTexoma (Nov 17, 2021)

I have  roast in freezer.  Sounds like a plan.


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## tallbm (Nov 17, 2021)

Schwarzwald Metzger said:


> I recently made venison pastrami from the top sirloin roast.
> 
> The curing process took a total of 5 days.  I factored two days per pound, and the roast weighed approximately 2.1 lbs.
> 
> ...


Hi there and welcome!

That is looking good for sure.

FYI, it is my understanding from the cure experts here that cure#1 travels at about 1/4 inch a day. So you can get 1/4 penetration from top and bottom giving 1/2 inch a day for flat-ish pieces of meat.

The thicker the meat the longer it will take. 
I have wet cured to make pastrami and it works fine as well. The benefit of wet curing is that once you mix up your liquid cure you drop in the meat and the take a meat syringe to draw the cure solution and inject all over within the meat. Now you get cure travel from inside and outside ensuring everything gets cured AND speeding up the cure time by quite a bit :)

If you ever get interested in making a ground venison pastrami sandwich meat let me know. I have done that a number of times and the flavor is outstanding! 
It's pretty simple and all you need is some ground venison and ground beef fat (80/20 meat to fat) and mix in all the seaosning + cure #1.  Form into a block/loaf and smoke like it is sausage with mostly maple wood if you have it.
Let it cool in the fridge then slice and vac seal.  It's damn good!

Grats on the venison and great looking pastrami.


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 17, 2021)

tallbm said:


> Hi there and welcome!
> 
> That is looking good for sure.
> 
> ...


Great information thanks!  Ground venison pastrami sounds amazing.  I am going to try that.  I will post results.  I'd imagine that the high beef fat content would really help to keep the venison from drying out... Honestly, I never even considered that method until you brought it up.

Thanks!


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## tallbm (Nov 17, 2021)

Schwarzwald Metzger said:


> Great information thanks!  Ground venison pastrami sounds amazing.  I am going to try that.  I will post results.  I'd imagine that the high beef fat content would really help to keep the venison from drying out... Honestly, I never even considered that method until you brought it up.
> 
> Thanks!



I'm glad you are interested!

Here is my post about it.  Don't let the word "loaf" fool you, it's not a meat loaf.  It's simply formed into a block/loaf for smoking and then sliced for sandwich meat.
You can sub out the soy protein binder for Non-Fat Dry Milk if you like.  This stuff is SUPER awesome and you can even stuff as sausage links if you want but I've never done that because I like my pastrami as sandwich meat not as an actual sausage.

Yeah I do all my wild game sausage at 80/20 and it comes out perfect each time.  It also helps that I do my sausage prep and smoking processes properly.  

Finally, I have taken all of this meat to 165F Internal Temp (IT) by slowly inching the smoker up to 180F smoker temp.   It comes out fine as long as you do it properly and your smoker can hold super tight temps like mine does (holds within 1 degree of set temp).  I've done this due to wild pigs though there are indications that trichinella may not be as common in them as once thought.  I just have never taken in the chance in the past.

You should have no problem doing 80/20 sausage whether it's wild game or not, plus the math is super easy this way.  4 pounds of meat and 1 pound of fat makes 5 pounds of 80/20 sausage.  8 pounds meat 2 pounds fat = 10 pounds sausage.  Make 5 or 10 pound increments easily knowing this :D

Finally, finally, - I never mix fat with my 100% pure ground game meat when bagging and freezing.  Why??? I also make ground meat jerky and like the flexibility of taking the 100% pure grind and being able to deside if I want to make jerky, burgers, brown for tacos/spaghetti, or mix with fat to make sausage.  Nothing but options!!! :D
I hope all this info helps







						Pastrami Loaf with QView!!!
					

I did a Pastrami Loaf today and WOW!!!!  Don't let the word "Loaf" fool you.  It's more like a Sausage and not really like a Meatloaf.   Pics first and write up after.  **************************************************  [EDIT: added link to recipe I used]  Hi guys I figured I would make it...




					www.smokingmeatforums.com


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 17, 2021)

That is all great information.  Thanks for sharing.  I too don't pre mix my lipids with protein.  It's surely a fascinating approach that you developed.


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## tallbm (Nov 17, 2021)

Schwarzwald Metzger said:


> That is all great information.  Thanks for sharing.  I too don't pre mix my lipids with protein.  It's surely a fascinating approach that you developed.


I love all this hunting and wild game cooking stuff.
And with the pandemic and not being able to hunt for 2 years now I am living vicariously through all of you until I can get back to it.

There is a chance I can do some wild hog hunting here over the holidays but we'll see.  Time is just so hard to come by and I right now I'm hellbent on pandemic and crisis proofing my life which basically comes to fruition end of April 2022, so just gotta keep my head down then I will get back to my yearly hunting ways :D


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 17, 2021)

tallbm said:


> I love all this hunting and wild game cooking stuff.
> And with the pandemic and not being able to hunt for 2 years now I am living vicariously through all of you until I can get back to it.
> 
> There is a chance I can do some wild hog hunting here over the holidays but we'll see.  Time is just so hard to come by and I right now I'm hellbent on pandemic and crisis proofing my life which basically comes to fruition end of April 2022, so just gotta keep my head down then I will get back to my yearly hunting ways :D


I hear what you are saying.  Time is the commodity that is of greatest value, but is in such limited supply.

Full disclosure, I only butchered the beast I didn't harvest it.  My buddy did the killing and because I like to process, he let me keep half as payment... Which I am absolutely OK with.


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## indaswamp (Nov 18, 2021)

Awesome venison pastrami! I make it often and I like to take the INT temp up to 130*F and hold for bout 30 minutes. The meat is pasteurized, fully cooked and a lot more moist.


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Nov 18, 2021)

indaswamp said:


> Awesome venison pastrami! I make it often and I like to take the INT temp up to 130*F and hold for bout 30 minutes. The meat is pasteurized, fully cooked and a lot more moist.


Nice! I will try that next time.


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## BrianGSDTexoma (Jan 5, 2022)

I found couple venison roast, stew meat, loin and ground while cleaning out a freezer today.  When my buddy gave me all this I did not record it in my freezer app last year.  Going to have to try your  pastrami on roast.  Put baskets in the top freezer.  Got tired of everything falling out!  2 freezers gone threw and the big one to go!  I think more venison in there.  Not getting any this year so this is good.  He loaded me up last year.


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## TNJAKE (Jan 5, 2022)

Funny this popped up. Putting some venison in some cure for pastrami as we speak


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Jan 5, 2022)

TNJAKE said:


> Funny this popped up. Putting some venison in some cure for pastrami as we speak


Nice man, what is in your cure?


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Jan 5, 2022)

BrianGSDTexoma said:


> I found couple venison roast, stew meat, loin and ground while cleaning out a freezer today.  When my buddy gave me all this I did not record it in my freezer app last year.  Going to have to try your  pastrami on roast.  Put baskets in the top freezer.  Got tired of everything falling out!  2 freezers gone threw and the big one to go!  I think more venison in there.  Not getting any this year so this is good.  He loaded me up last year.
> 
> View attachment 521182


It is a great recipe, the cure is perfect for it.  Let me know how it goes.  I have also used this cure on top round, it works awesome on lean protein.


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Jan 5, 2022)

BrianGSDTexoma said:


> I found couple venison roast, stew meat, loin and ground while cleaning out a freezer today.  When my buddy gave me all this I did not record it in my freezer app last year.  Going to have to try your  pastrami on roast.  Put baskets in the top freezer.  Got tired of everything falling out!  2 freezers gone threw and the big one to go!  I think more venison in there.  Not getting any this year so this is good.  He loaded me up last year.
> 
> View attachment 521182




 tallbm
 has a great pastrami loaf recipe, that my dad tried it and loved it... It was as good as tallbm said it was.  Cheers.


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## TNJAKE (Jan 5, 2022)

Schwarzwald Metzger said:


> Nice man, what is in your cure?


Just used cure, kosher salt and brown sugar. Once done curing will rub with meatheads pastrami rub from amazing ribs


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## TNJAKE (Jan 5, 2022)

TNJAKE said:


> Just used cure, kosher salt and brown sugar. Once done curing will rub with meatheads pastrami rub from amazing ribs


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Jan 5, 2022)

Awesome!


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## Schwarzwald Metzger (Jan 5, 2022)

BrianGSDTexoma said:


> I found couple venison roast, stew meat, loin and ground while cleaning out a freezer today.  When my buddy gave me all this I did not record it in my freezer app last year.  Going to have to try your  pastrami on roast.  Put baskets in the top freezer.  Got tired of everything falling out!  2 freezers gone threw and the big one to go!  I think more venison in there.  Not getting any this year so this is good.  He loaded me up last year.
> 
> View attachment 521182


I realized I didn't actually provide a recipe for it.  

But I recommend using a single muscle roast.

Recipe is based off of 2 lbs piece of venison.

18 grams of kosher salt
3 grams of instacure no. 1
1/2 Tsp dried thyme
1/4 Tsp celery seed
1/4 Tsp caraway seed
1 Tsp sugar
1/4 Tsp crushed juniper
1 Tsp plus 3 Tbs ground black pepper
1/4 cup vinegar
3 Tbs coarsely ground coriander

Mix the salt, curing salt and sugar, as well as thyme, celery seed, caraway, juniper, and Tsp of black pepper, and grind all together in spice grinder.  

Pack the venison with this mixture, massaging into meat.  Put the meat into a ziplock bag or vacuum seal it and set in fridge for 3 to 5 days.  (I left this roast in cure for 5 days)... General rule is 2 days per lbs.

After curing period, rinse cure off of the venison and pat dry... Some cure on it won't matter, but you don't want too much.  Put the venison on a rack in the fridge and let dry uncovered for a day.

Dip meat into vinegar- or any liquid you want- and coat thoroughly in the remaining black pepper and ground coriander seed.

Smoke venison at about 160 degrees F to 209 degrees F until the interior hits 145 (approximately 3 hours).


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## tallbm (Jan 6, 2022)

Schwarzwald Metzger said:


> tallbm
> has a great pastrami loaf recipe, that my dad tried it and loved it... It was as good as tallbm said it was.  Cheers.



Glad to hear your dad gave it a shot and loved it!!
It is good stuff man and just another reason why I grind so my of my venison. I love the versatility being able to go any which way with 100% ground venison.

Add beef fat and make the pastrami loaf sandwich meat.
Add pork fat and makes sausages.
Add no fat and make ground meat jerky.
Add no fat and use for tacos, spaghetti, or anything needing ground meat...

Endless options! :D


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## BrianGSDTexoma (Jan 6, 2022)

Deleted  wrong thread


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