Corned Beef

[Vindii]

I have a brisket brining per this recipe. I just found this section of the forum and it seems like a lot of you have some pretty good experience with curing meat so I thought I would throw this out there. I have never done this before so if something looks wrong let me know.

For every 5 lbs of brisket (flat or point whatever your preference)

1 gallon spring water
2 cups ksalt
½ white cup sugar
5 tsps pink curing salt
2 tsp granulated garlic
2 TBLSPN good grade pickling spice
2 Turkish bay leaves

I have a 15lb brisket so I tripled everything. Recipe calls for leaving it cure for 2 week. Our local butch says he does his for 5 weeks.

I'm a week in right now. Any ideas when I should pull this out?

[wheels]

Hi

Does the recipe for the 5lbs of meat say to leave it for 2 weeks?

Is the 15lbs brisket all in one piece?

Phil

[Vindii]

Hi

Does the recipe for the 5lbs of meat say to leave it for 2 weeks?

Is the 15lbs brisket all in one piece?

Phil

The person that gave me the recipe said he tried it from 1 week to 4 weeks. He thinks 2 weeks is best.

I trimmed the brisket and separated it into two pieces. I may be less weight now that it is trimmed. I didn't weight is after.

[wheels]

This may seem a daft question, but it will help me (and I'll explain in due course). Does your friend soak it in water for a while before cooking to remove some of the salt?

Phil

[DanMcG]

Dang , I hate spoon measurements
this will require me to do some math.

[wheels]

Dan

I've done the math. If it's done to equilibrium calcs it should, in theory, be very salty. Hence my (what may seem daft at face value) question about soaking. Calculated by pick-up - it should be grossly undercured. Oh boy, I hate immersion cures!

Let me know how you see it - two heads are better than one!

Phil

[DanMcG]

I thought it sounded "salty " but like I said I don't do spoons only grams, but 2 cups of salt scared me right off, (not saying its wrong mind ya) I've got a touch of the Bourbon flu at the moment . so will play with some numbers later

[Vindii]

I'm supposed to soak it in water for 24 hours before cooking. Changing out the water throughout the day.

[DanMcG]

One thing I see with doing the math is the salt is close to 9% of the total brine.
brine weight is 4300 grams and salt is 384 grams
But like I've said a couple times before my math is usually wrong the first times around.
The last one I did was one gallon, 4245g with 220g salt and I found it a tad salty but I only soaked it for an hour to remove the brine from the outside. most people would be ok with the salt content

[NCPaul]

Welcome to the forum. The recipe is from Ruhlman and Polcyn's book. They equate 5 teaspoons of pink salt to 25 g, 2 cups of salt to 450 g and 1/2 cup sugar to 100g. The book calls for the corned beef to be cured for five days then rinsed and boiled in fresh water for three hours.

[wheels]

According to your test results then, it's within US cure parameters at just over 5 days for the 5lb piece, that would be 15 days for the 15lbs. If the brisket's well trimmed of fat and kept as a flat piece, as against rolled and tied, I'm guessing that this will be more than adequate.

NCPaul/Dan, your opinions on this will be much appreciated.

Phil

[Vindii]

I soaked the brisket for 2 weeks. Made half into corned beef and the other half into pastrami. Corned beef came out fantastic. Easily the best I have ever made.

Cooked it in a dutch oven in my big steel keg grill. Corned beef, onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, spices.



Done





Sliced.





Once it was sliced you could cut it with a fork.



Plated.





Pastrami after smoking and 2.5 hours of steaming. I’ll slice it on the slicer tomorrow.

[wheels]

Now you're making me hungry!

Looks great.

Phil

[Vindii]

Sliced up the pastrami tonight. It came out better than I thought. It seemed like it may be kind of dry after it got done smoking. Not sure if that is just how briskets are but after steaming it for a couple hours and then resting overnight it came out fantastic. I used quite a bit of pepper in the rub and it has a nice little kick to it between the pepper and the smoke. Great combo. I have not had pastrami in a long time and I don't remember it being this good. This came out really good!

Sliced thin with the Hobart.













I'll be making a loaf of rye bread tomorrow for some sammys

[tristar]

How I wish we could purchase Brisket here in Norway with that sort of marbling, looks fantastic!