Pastrami

[JamesB]

Sorta but not quite. You want to sub out some of the salt for TQ not all of it. Try 1 cup of TQ and 1 cup of pickling salt in conjunctiion with two cups of brown sugar. Should work just fine and not need rinsing. Now this be for a two gallon batch of brine. I like to cook it till the temp peaks out and don't seem to want to go any higher. Happens around 175-180 or so. Once it peaks out continuing to cook just dry it out like Papa say.
bigwheel

Yeppers, just like ol' BW say... don't take it much past ~170°, slice thin... it's good eats!

[DATsBBQ]

BWs post came too late as I went with what Papa T wrote, more or less. and the pickle is in the reefer cooling down. This is what I put in the pickle.:
2 gallons Rocky Mountain water
1.5 cups Morton Tender Quick
1.5 cups 50-50 mix of brown sugar and Turbinado sugar (wanted to use up the brown sugar)
1/4 cup granulated garlic
1/3 cup fresh ground black pepper
1/2 cup dried onion stuff
1 healthy squirt yellow mustard
1 TBS Thyme
Shake of Allspice
Shake of ground Cloves
7 bay leaves (they were kinda of the smallish side)

Brought it all to simmer except the MTQ, removed from heat and added the MTQ. The cooled in an ice bath till room temperature. The pickle is now in the fridge.

After the briskets are injected I'll cure them in my kegerator. I'll secure the door with ratchet straps so the bears can't get 'em.

[bigwheel]

Yeppers..makes us know why the Good Lord give us briskets huh? Now in my training the deciding factor is this..each cup of salt needs a cup of sugar to counteract the salt. Now if a person want a real old timey preservative brine to make the pig last all winter...you need enough salt in the brine to float a raw egg. Fortunantly we just involved in this project for flavor..texture color ect. Old timey brine projects requires the meat to be simmered to desalt it on the cooking cycle..sorta like a Country Ham. Everybody knows there is a special way to cook country Ham but they dont know how to do it. Fortunantly I bumped into a fella from Missippiiie one time who tole me how to deal with it. When constructing a brine anything less than a cup of salt per gallon aint a brine. Salt water soak maybe? Sugar or sweet stuff in equal amounts. Everybody be happy if the brine be kept cold. Raise the temp and it will uptake too much salt.

bigwheel

[DATsBBQ]

Yeppers..makes us know why the Good Lord give us briskets huh? Now in my training the deciding factor is this..each cup of salt needs a cup of sugar to counteract the salt. Now if a person want a real old timey preservative brine to make the pig last all winter...you need enough salt in the brine to float a raw egg. Fortunantly we just involved in this project for flavor..texture color ect. Old timey brine projects requires the meat to be simmered to desalt it on the cooking cycle..sorta like a Country Ham. Everybody knows there is a special way to cook country Ham but they dont know how to do it. Fortunantly I bumped into a fella from Missippiiie one time who tole me how to deal with it. When constructing a brine anything less than a cup of salt per gallon aint a brine. Salt water soak maybe? Sugar or sweet stuff in equal amounts. Everybody be happy if the brine be kept cold. Raise the temp and it will uptake too much salt.

bigwheel

So should I add 1/2 cup of pickling salt? Picking salt is pretty course and MTQ is pretty fine. I heard something a while back that the surface area of the salts determine the how salty something tastes. The finer the salt, the saltier it is. That's why we're suppose to weight the stuff. Maybe it was just a dream. But if I need to add a 1/2 to the pickle, its not too late to do that.

[bigwheel]

Well yes you definitely on the right track here. In a perfect world and if the cops did not arrest folks for having doper scales (drug parphenalia) you could weigh out the ingredients sorta like reloading bullets. I tried boiling the brine a time or two an noticed the stuff come in dead last so I quit. I jut mix it up with hot tap water and let it set a few days and cool it down then chill it in the ice box for a day or two. As you say salt varies by it saltiness as compared to its weight. Kosher salt is fluffier than table or pickling salt...so it got a less salty effect on the finished product. Pickling and table salt is the same as far as the brine goes. If you got Kosher add an extry 1/4 cup when the recipe calls for table salt. Now on Morton's Kosher salt they say to sub it one for one so I guess it aint that critical. Only way a person can mess it up is to slice it lengthwise with the grain. That is why the Lord gave us electric slicers so so we could screw up in slicing Corned beef/Pastrami. Electric slicers do not know when the grain direction changes. That is why sometimes at Jason's Deli you get a good Reuben and sometimes you get one which is tough and will strangle a person to death when they try to swallow the stuff. I know a real Jewish deli over in Grapevine which teaches a person the same lesson at 10 bucks a pop. Now I can eat it either way as long as it got kraut on it. I would put the fella who invented the electric slicer in the same class as them who invented panty hose for wimmen and neck ties for men. The devil done it I think. That is why the Lord gave Forschners for them who are dedicated. Humans can figger out which way the grain is running unless they real drunk or something.

bigwheel

[Papa Tom]

Dats when you have completed this project you will have the benefit of experience. See BW and I both have it and we still differ he likes Ezra and I agree with his grandpa on Old Crow..........

[DATsBBQ]

Dats when you have completed this project you will have the benefit of experience. See BW and I both have it and we still differ he likes Ezra and I agree with his grandpa on Old Crow..........

They're getting injected today. Think my idea of using the kegerator (kept outside under an overhang due to lack of space) went out the window last night as we were graced with the presence of a hungry bear. Whilst s/he couldn't foil my bear-proof trash can, a little fridge with 13 pounds of raw beef might not fare as well

Last time I used TC in a brine, the results were on the salty side so I'm leaning against adding any more salt to the pickle.

[Papa Tom]

Dats when you have completed this project you will have the benefit of experience. See BW and I both have it and we still differ he likes Ezra and I agree with his grandpa on Old Crow..........

They're getting injected today. Think my idea of using the kegerator (kept outside under an overhang due to lack of space) went out the window last night as we were graced with the presence of a hungry bear. Whilst s/he couldn't foil my bear-proof trash can, a little fridge with 13 pounds of raw beef might not fare as well

Last time I used TC in a brine, the results were on the salty side so I'm leaning against adding any more salt to the pickle.

[DATsBBQ]

I'd stick that needle in and pickle would squirt out 8" away from the injection point, sometimes it'd puff up like a broken sprinkler line under Colorado turf. Anyway, had a couple of friends over and we had some fun.

Ended up putting 'em in food-saver bags sans the vaccuum mode. Amount of brine was perfect. They be in the fridge right now....da#n bears

Between the 2 they weigh a little over 13lbs total.

One of the guys showed up with 4# of beef short ribs he wants me to smoke...... no guts, no glory!

[bigwheel]

Now how you wind up with such puny little briskets? You doing flats maybe? Enquiring minds need to know this kinda stuff. I like em about 14 lbs. each. Course everything is bigga and mo betta in Texas ya know:)

bigwheel

[DATsBBQ]

Now how you wind up with such puny little briskets? You doing flats maybe? Enquiring minds need to know this kinda stuff. I like em about 14 lbs. each. Course everything is bigga and mo betta in Texas ya know:)

bigwheel

They be flats. Not much fat on 'em either. Maybe trimmed off a 3 oz. They were that way way out of the cryovac. Thought they'd make a better product than a big ol' packer.

[bigwheel]

Well guess it depends on a person's definition of good product. Aint nothing in the world mo betta to me than some good old mostly defatted brisket point meat..whether it be corned or uncorned..burnt or unbrunt etc. Guess I'm showing my age here cuz us old pharts tend to gravitate toward the point..simply because we have learnt that Fat is where the Flavor is At:)

bigwheel

ps..Borrowed that phraseology from Joe Ames but think he borrowed it from somebody else. Who knows? All I know is..its true.

[Papa Tom]

I am not a huge fan of the point and will pull the lean from the fat and connecting tissue. UNLESS it is pastrami then I like both the point and flat just as sliced. BTW I do separate the point and flat before curing. If you will go back and look at the showdown pastrami that is a point.

[DATsBBQ]

One day into the pickle and they're looking like briskets soaking in a pickle That said decided to use the WSM cause I'm lazy and would have to fire up both ceramics to cook 'em.

So what I have for aromatics are Hickory, Apple and Oak. What would be the wood of choice? I'm thinking Hickory but I am hoping the recommendations are oak. I have a whole lot of Oak in various sized blocks and 2 split halves of Hickory and a big old Apple Tree Branch. All are fully dried.

I plan on using a base of charcoal and then creating a bunch of coals with the aforementioned wood of choice and using that to light the WSM.

[OSD]

I think I would like oak with some apple thrown in.