First attempt at pastrami... success!

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Tony M

Senior Cook
Joined
Sep 15, 2008
Messages
209
Location
Carson City, NV
I decided to take the easier route and bought a raw corned beef brisket from Costco. I figured it's my first attempt I don't want to waste weeks of curing time if it turned out bad.

This was my first smoke using just maple. What a wonderful scent maple smoke has!

I decided to make my own rub. I wanted a pastrami with some bold flavor. Consisted of cracked black peppercorns, coriander, white pepper, herbs, mustard seed, onion, garlic, brown sugar, sea salt, a dash or three of cajun seasoning and a dash or three of my homemade BBQ rub.

Here's the corned beef just after being rubbed down:
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Look at all the different flavors going on here!
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Into the thin blue smoke it goes... boy, that maple sure smells good!
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A little under half-way through. Smoking stopped and I did not reload. Had about 3 hours of smoke time (just perfect as it turned out)
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The pastrami after refrigerating overnight. First cut, getting it ready for the slicer:
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The bounty! A towering plate of thinly sliced pastrami!
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Will be making some giant Rubens on sourdough rye for lunch today when the kids and wife come back from their walk. Can't wait! (although I've snacked on so much of this stuff I'm not too hungry! Oooops!)
 
That do look good. Never snagged a corned beef from the store which was not overly too salty to start with...then I notice you adding about 3 or 4 other sources of salt afore cooking. How did it come out on the salty factor? Thanks.

bigwheel
 
I soaked the corned beef in iced water for about 4 hours, dumping and refreshing water every hour. Takes most of the salt out of the beef.

The salt portions used in the rub was very little compared to the other stuff.

It is not salty at all, the water soak really did a good job of taking out the salt originally.
 
Looks real good. I like at least 50% black pepper. I may try the bought corned beef. Brining sucks.
 
Well glad to hear the soaking thang works. I tried it a few times w/o much success. Guess I didn't change the agua often enough or something like that. Course I mighta been drunk:) Who knows? Thanks.

bigwhee
 
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