Pastrami-along Final Steps: Smoking and Steaming

All in Corey’s words:

Smoking

At last smoking day has arrived. Remove the meat from the fridge, uncover and let sit away from dogs, flies, and toddlers until it reaches room temperature.

You’re going to want to smoke this thing at ~250 degrees for 6 hours or more, so be prepared to sit tight for a while.

Before prepping the smoker, soak your chips. For this, we will be using bourbon barrel chips. The sweet boozy smoke from these oak chips works wonders. Just throw a few big handfuls in a bowl of water.

Now prep your smoker. I use a good old fashioned Weber kettle. This is how:

Light a half chimney or so of the best lump charcoal you can find. I prefer Wicked Good Charcoal - it burns hot and slow is relatively predictable. I don’t think commercial briquettes would be a good idea; too much icky stuff in there for such a slow long cook.

Dump the whitened coal in the kettle off to one side. Place a foil tin with some water adjacent to the coals. Cover and put a meat thermometer in the lid vent. When the temperature calms down to about 250, place the brisket on the grill opposite the coals and above the water.

Throw a handful of wood chips on the coals. Cover the grill with  the lid vents over the meat. This way the smoke funnels over the meat before exiting.

I like to put a digital thermometer in the meat that runs to a unit outside the grill. This way I can geek out on the internal brisket temp at any time without raising the lid. You can just open the lid and stick a thermometer in the meat intermittently if you don’t have a digital thermometer.

Keep on eye on the grill temperature. If it gets too warm, close the vents on the bottom. If it gets too cool, open the vents. If it starts to cool too much with the vents open, add a few lumps of coal (maybe lit, maybe not). I like to light a second chimney after a few hours to have some hot coals on hand. Every now and then throw on more chips to keep things smoky.

After 6-8 hours of this, your meat will reach an internal temperature of ~170 degrees. This is good. 180 is better. 165 is doable. You now have pastrami.

Remove the pastrami from the grill and wrap in foil for a good long rest - first on the counter, then in the fridge. Ideally you will consume this in a day or so after its rested and you’ve reheated it by steaming. But you are gonna want to taste this now so go ahead and slice some off. You deserve it.

Steaming

After a day or two, you are ready for some hot bourbon smoked pastrami.  The best way to reheat this is by steaming it. I just place it on a broiling grate in a pan of water on the stovetop. Steam till it’s all sweaty and soft and the fat cap is oozy. The meat will have a spongy texture and the kitchen will smell like a tenement dream. Slice with a sharp knife.

Don’t stop till you get enough.

Pastrami-along Step 3: The Rub

Once desalinated, the brisket is ready for its rub. Mix these things and rub all over the meat:

4 tbs coarsely ground black pepper

2 tbs ground coriander

1 tsp mustard powder

1 tbs brown sugar

1 tbs Spanish paprika 

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp onion powder

This will smell really good. Really. Good.

Now the whole thing goes back in the fridge in that covered container for five days or so. This well help develop a nice crusty outer layer later.

Pastrami-along Step 2: Desalinate

Corey says: “After five days of soaking the meat in the brine, remove and wash off the brisket. Discard the brine. At this point, you’ve a vary salty thing on your hands. Best to remove some of this. Re-submerge the meat in new water, cover, and get it back in the fridge for 1-2 days. Maybe change the water a few times.”

So, how’s it going, meat lovers? I got my brisket brining on Friday, so it’ll be a couple more days before I desalinate.

Pastrami-along Step 1: Corning the Beef

Kids, it’s time to start the pastrami-along. I bought my brisket this afternoon, and will begin corning this evening. (In case you missed it, here’s the full ingredients list and general overview.)

Let’s use the comments section of this post as an open thread for asking questions, sharing tips, etc., about this step. When you blog, tweet, pin or generally post about your progress, remember to use the #pastramialong hashtag so people can follow along!

Here are Corey’s corning instructions:

(Corning takes about 7 days.)

I use a brine adopted from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn and the corning spice blend from Penzey’s*. 

Make a corning brine.

1/2 gallon gallon of water

1/2 gallon of ice water

2 cups kosher salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 ounce pink salt (5 teaspoons)

3 garlic cloves crushed

2 tablespoons Penzeys Corned Beef mix*

* Theirs is a frank but melodious blend of brown and yellow mustard seeds, coriander, allspice, cracked cassia, dill seed, bay leaves, cloves, ginger, peppercorns, star anise, juniper, mace, cardamom, and red pepper. 

Combine 1/2 gallon of water with all the dry ingredients. Bring to a simmer, stirring all the while. Once the salt and sugar dissolve, remove from the heat. Add the 1/2 gallon of ice water and put this all in the fridge to completely cool off. This should take a few hours.

Submerge the brisket in the cooled brine and cover tight. Let this sit in the fridge for five days.

In five days, we’ll be back with the next (last) corning step!

Pastrami-along: Ingredients List

I apologize for taking so durn long to post this next instalment of information about the pastrami-along that’ll begin on Wednesday!

We’ll be following Corey’s recipe and instructions to make bourbon smoked pastrami, but you’re of course welcome to follow any recipe you’d like.

Here’s a bit more of an intro to what we’ll be doing, in Corey’s words (ingredients list further down this page): “Pastrami is the result of compounding four consecutive magical activities - corning, rubbing, smoking, and steaming. These conspire with time (two weeks!) to transform a humble brisket into a jewel in the crown of deli meats. The complex nature of pastrami’s manufacture results in a layered flavor experience akin to wine or good bourbon. In fact, the addition of this latter substance to the smoking process by using bourbon barrel chips complements pastrami’s flavor profile in a particularly happy way.”

My mouth is watering already. If yours is too, please join us on this two-week culinary adventure! Just chime in in the comments, and use the hashtag #pastramialong on the social media you love and abuse.

First, buy a brisket. Corey sez: “Get yourself a 4-5 pound beef brisket of the best beef you can afford. I like a nice 1/8 inch fat cap. Soaks up a lot of flavor, that.”

The first step in making pastrami is to corn the beef, which takes about a week. Corey sez: “I suppose you could buy a pre-packaged corned beef from the supermarket but 1) heaven knows what chemistry they employ in some far away corned beef factory and, 2) corning is fun! I use a brine adopted from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn and the corning spice blend from Penzey’s*.”

Ingredients List for Corning Brine

1/2 gallon of water

1/2 gallon of ice water

2 cups kosher salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 ounce pink salt (5 teaspoons)

3 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tablespoons Penzeys Corned Beef mix*

* Theirs is a frank but melodious blend of brown and yellow mustard seeds, coriander, allspice, cracked cassia, dill seed, bay leaves, cloves, ginger, peppercorns, star anise, juniper, mace, cardamom, and red pepper. 

The next thing requiring ingredients is the rub:

Ingredients List for the Rub

4 tbs coarsely ground black pepper

2 tbs ground coriander

1 tsp mustard powder

1 tbs brown sugar

1 tbs Spanish paprika 

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp onion powder

Ingredients for Smoking

Bourbon barrel chips

Charcoal

General Equipment List

We’re also going to need some tools and equipment to make the pastrami. Gather the following:

• A pot large enough for a gallon of water plus the brisket, a cover for it, and room to accommodate it in your fridge.
• Grill, for smoking
• Meat thermometer (ideally one you can read from outside the grill during the lengthy smoking process)

So, gather ye stuff and get ready to make some delicious meat with us! We’ll start Wednesday with instructions on corning the beef, and we’ll go from there.

Post questions in the comments, and let us know how you’re doing on Twitter, Facebook and G+!

Announcing: The Pastrami-Along!

During one our first meetings about making The Holocene, we discovered that Brett and Corey make their own pastrami. I do not make my own pastrami, but my partner does, and I’ve eaten it. And so a significant part of the growing culture of our company has come to be centred around the spicing, curing, smoking and eating of meat. Like at most companies, obviously.

So now I want to make pastrami, too. And Brett’s mom is excited to make pastrami. And, admit it, the more I say “pastrami”, the more you want to make some, too.

So let’s all make pastrami together!

Corey will share his favourite recipe, and he and Brett will walk us noobs through all the steps. If you’re a seasoned (see what I did there?) pastrami maker, we hope you’ll chime in with your own recipes, tips and advice, too.

We’ll kick off the pastrami-along on Wednesday, April 3rd, and it’ll last a couple weeks, culminating in our collective tasting (and photographing) of the meats of our labour.

Over the next few days, I’ll post an ingredients and tools list so we can gather all the stuff we’ll need to get started on the 3rd. I’ll also share some ways you can connect with other participants, and how you can reach us and the others with questions, tips and stories. (Of course there will be stories. It’s pastrami! It’s a very dramatic meat.)

Leave a comment and introduce yourself if you’re going to join in (and even if you’re not), and tell us about your favourite time eating pastrami! And please send this link to your friends and any random meat-lovers you know, so we can make this a proper pastrami party.

More soon!