PICS--Pastrami, The Easy Way

Instead of buying a brisket and curing first, I bought already corned beef and only had to pastramify it. I actually bought 6 of them since they were on sale at half price cause of too much inventory the day after St Patty's. I'm on a mission to lower my overall meat/fish/fowl cost and am buying heavily what's on sale (half off not 10%).

I found a 5 lb corned beef (really would like larger but hard to find) and applied the rub dls uses:

- 2 parts cracked peppercorns (just black)
- 1 part cracked coriander seeds
- 1/2 part cracked mustard seeds
- 1/2 part minced garlic (I used granules)

To the rub I added the packet of Juniper Berries that came with the corned beef. Here's a picture of it rubbed.


Next I wrapped the rubbed corn beef in foil and weighed it down. I didn't have foiled bricks so I used a panini lid and improvised weights. Don't laugh.


After sitting in the fridge for 24 hrs, I pulled it. Here's a picture after weighting it down. Did flatten and more evenly distributed the corned beef.


I placed the corned beef into a preheated 225* smoker along with a chunk of white oak and a chunk of wild cherry. After 5 hrs in the smoker, the corned beef hit 164* and was now pastrami.


Once the pastrami cooled a bit, I wrapped it in foil, placed the weights back on it and placed it back in the fridge. The weighting helps with the texture. The cooling makes it easier to slice the pastrami thinly. After 24 hrs I sliced the pastrami in my meat slicer.


Texture and taste were great. Very thinly sliced although I'm thinking of upgrading my slicer. Grilled pastrami sandwiches were delicious. Next time I'll trim the outside fat before starting the process, but all in all, very pleased with the results.