Originally Posted by
bluecat
I'd be interested in the pastrami process.
Then I shall oblige. This method uses sous vide for the cooking phase followed by 3-4 hours in a smoker. To replace that you have a couple of options. First, you can just go straight into the smoker for however long it takes you to get to an internal temp of 200°F. The second, more traditional route is to smoke to an internal temp of 150°F and then steam to an internal temp of 200°F.
1) Trim the external fat on your brisket so that a layer about 1/8" thick remains. If you're doing a whole brisket you might want to cut it in half for easier handling and so that it will fit inside large zip-loc bags. The one I just did was a 12 lb flat cut in half so it would fit in two 2-gallon bags.
2) I use a basic equilibrium dry cure targeting 2.5% salt by weight (you can tweak that up or down .5% to suit your own tastes) with some black pepper and pre-mixed pickling spice added. Since it's an equiibrium cure you need to measure the salt and sugar by weight rather than volume. For each 5 lbs of meat:
51.4 g (1.8 oz) Kosher Salt
22.7 g (0.8 oz) Brown Sugar
5.66 g (0.2 oz) Cure #1 (1 tsp if you don't have a scale that precise)
¼ cup Coarse Ground Black Pepper
2 Tbsp Pickling Spice
3) Place each cut of brisket inside zip-loc bag(s). Pour in the cure mixture, seal the bag and shake/turn the bag to coat the entire outside surface of the meat. Open each bag just a bit so that you can squeeze out as much air as you can and then zip them shut again.
4) Place the meat in the fridge for 1 day for each 1/2" of meat at the thickest part, turning over once every day to distribute the cure in the moisture that will begin to be drawn from the meat. If you have multiple bags it's OK to stack them on top of each other if need be due to shelf space constraints. Also, if you need to leave the meat in the cure for a few extra days because you're unable to get to it for whatever reason, that's fine too. You won't over-cure it.
5) At the end of the curing period take the meat out of the bag(s) and rinse thoroughly with cold water to remove all of the spices from the surface. You now have corned beef.
6) Seal brisket in a plastic bag (either vacuum or freezer zip-loc) and sous vide at 155ºF for 24-36 hours.
7) Remove from sous vide bath and plastic bag.
8) Cover the meat evenly with a coating of dry rub. For my 12 lbs of brisket (less a little moisture loss) I'll be using the following:
1/8 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup smoked paprika
3 Tbsp whole black pepper corns, coarsly ground
2 Tbsp whole coriander seeds, coarsly ground
1 Tbsp ground white pepper
1 Tbsp garlic powder
Of course you can tweak that however you like, but I find that it works quite well.
9) Put the meat into a smoker for 3-4 hours at ~225-300°F. I use wood pellets that are a blend of multiple hardwoods, but pecan chips/chunks also work very well.
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