Pastrami Oz style -SECOND TRY - with pics!

[stewiejp]

Smart people may suggest I'm a glutton for punishment - but nobody has ever suggested I'm a smart lad. Taking on board suggestions from the last attempts as well as a hell of a lot of googling - we attempted tonight - stage one for the second attempt of pastrami Oz style - with pics! Here we go!

We trimmed it - may have gone a tad too far and when I played around with the photo editing stuff.... it was never that red - stubby for reference.
Typing this several hours and cold ones (burp) later - I'm pretty sure I cut the thing in half before doing a lot more...

... no, I was wrong. Did I tell you I like taking pics? This is just a photo of the same stuff but at a different angle.. looking slightly more cool. Nice... We were, however under strict supervision from the one that vacuums all the left overs!

Bowie - not even our puppy but since ours is no longer here (but we know she looks over us every day! -fk we miss her) - Bowie just likes to keep an eye on me whenever briskets or other cool things need a bit of a trip - he did me a solid favour and got rid of a scrap or two!
So.. I cut the brisket in half!

It was nor as red as that (it was actually really nice - too much red = me doing too much on photo editing software!) - so the plan is - flat = pastrami. Point = freezer for the next get together / BBQ . OR both if timing works well... we'll see

^^ See that? It's in the container. How cool. I added the following for the epic brine etc:


Brisket 1.8kg (bigger than the last one!!)
Water 2.6L
Curing Salt @ 2.95% (I know it's weird) - 24.12g
Salt 90.62g
Sugar (brown) 45.61g

Same formula as last time - only difference being this time the water is cool - and all ingredients mixed in at room temp.

Again - stubby for ref - Mum bought me the stubby holder for my 50th - I reckon it's pretty cool!

Also added for the cure (which may explain the colour)

Brown Sugar (as mentioned)
1 teaspoon each of:
Coriander seeds
Whole Peppers
Mustard Seed
Cumin (maybe - -8 hrs later and a number of beers in and i think we may have missed this one)
a cinnamon stick


Plan is to let is sit for a week or so before smoking - flipping each day or so - comments last time indicated a week may be not enough - should we go for 2 weeks? Thickness is 4cm - almost 2 inches at the thickest part.
Other than next weekend I have a day off on the Tuesday (18th) - so maybe we some it the Monday night? Or the weekend of the 22nd. Otherwise next weekend (night of the 15th - into the 16th) - thoughts?

Even though last attempt failed - it was not wasted - let's rock with this one!

 

[jcam222]

Good start, for pastrami I like to add some pickling spice

 

[stewiejp]

Ok 9 days later and we are on the smoker! The weekend was a bit bigger than I thought it would be so I delayed the smoke for today (Tues AM) since I am off today and don't have to go back in to work until Wednesday afternoon at this stage - an extra couple of days never hurt did it? Was considering doing it overnight tonight into Wednesday like I usually do with fresh brisket but did not want to risk it running late into Wed afternoon...

Monday night after work 6pm (no pics, sorry) I removed the brisket from the brine, rinsed well with cold tap water and put it back in the tub with clean fresh water to desalinate. Changed the water and rinsed again about 9pm before bed, and again rinsed it this morning at 6am for the final time.
Seasoned with the same leftover Christmas rub I used on the ham - but added a good handful of black pepper. Christmas rub was brown sugar, paprika, pepper and probably garlic and onion powder... maybe a bit of ground coriander/cumin but I cannot be sure.

That sat on the kitchen bench for an hour or so, making the kitchen smell pretty good while I got the morning caffeine in - and fired up the trusty Traeger.

I think I missed a nice sunrise shot by about 20 minutes. Noob mistake.

That early smokey smoke one day will make the neighbours panic - it's a good thing they like our food!
Brisket in - and a pan of water

I know that's a lot of smoke/steam (I just added the water from the kettle) and the temp display is not likely readable but it looks good in photos, and settled down within 10 minutes or less. Was 20-30 deg C (68-86F) - just warming up.

Have started on the "smoke" setting which generally sits around 80 deg C (176F) - will crank it to 107 (225F) after an hour or so.
We get a lot of different smoke pellets down here, and the Traeger branded ones are ALWAYS the most expensive - though discounted at by BBQ store if you buy 2 or 3 bags at a time. Over covid they were also pretty hard to get so I experimented with a few other brands available at Bunnings (our local big chain hardware store) which at times was the only place you could get them at a reasonable price. This one's what we are using today:

Going by the Made in the USA label, and Spanish and French on the bag I guess it's to cater to the Spanish speakers in NA and French Canadians? Not the first time we have seen Eng/French labelled pellets - especially when supplies were scarce. First time I have seen Spanish though.

Will update at dinner time!

 

[SmokinEdge]

Looks great.

 

[mike243]

If I was going to use a pan I put a cookie rack under it so it doesn't set in the grease and lets some smoke get under it, I got a premade corned beef to make 1, yours will be better.

 

[sandyut]

im in. honors for making your own corned beef. I am too lazy and just buy the premade stuff for pastrami. maybe one day...but I doubt it.

 

[stewiejp]

Great idea re the cookie rack - I might try it next time.
Sadly I think it may be third time lucky - this one did not work either. Starting to think my curing salt is actually either Himalayan salt or simply pink salt.... Though not a complete disaster - nothing needed to be thrown out, like last time the brisket appeared - and tasted a lot like a normal smoked brisket as opposed to pastrami.

Though it tasted pretty good - there was not a hint of that "hammy" cured taste one would expect from a pastrami.
Pic below shows a smoke ring - something I did not think was possible with cured beef.

Unless anyone has any other thoughts my third attempt will be with a new batch of curing salt from a reputable supplier.

 

[crazymoon]

SJP, Kudos for starting from scratch on your pastrami project. You may not have got your desired results but it looks delicious !

 

[millerbuilds]

Nice work, that looks wonderful. A lot of work, but I am sure after the first bite, it was all worth it!

- Jason

 

[hoity toit]

Good Gosh ! That color and smoke ring - WOW..some good eating right there. What temp did you say you ran the smoker at??

HT

 

[stewiejp]

Good Gosh ! That color and smoke ring - WOW..some good eating right there. What temp did you say you ran the smoker at??

HT

Whist it definitely went ok - the aim was for Pastrami rather than what became essentially a normal brisket.
Temp was most likely 107 deg C (225F) for the most part after the first 2 hours or so on the "smoke" setting which sits around 80 C (175F). 121C/250F for the last bit IF time is running short!