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I bought a choice brisket (~15.5#)and trimmed the fat to ~1/4 inch. Since the end of the flat was a bit on the thin side, I cut off ~5" so that new end of the flat was ~1.5-2" thick. Applied my rub and let it sit overnight before putting it into the 020 @225*. Two probes, one in the flat, one in the point, and I pulled it @190* in the flat. I tested it with the probe and it entered easily in both the flat and the point (even though the probe only read 178*). It's now in foil since we won't be eating it until a little later and I'll reheat it in the oven until it's warmed. I tasted a bit of the point and it was very tender and moist. With the smaller piece that I cut off (~2.5-3#), I put in a brine to make corned beef which will likely end up as pastrami. Any thoughts on the idea of cutting off that thinner portion of the flat so that the brisket would be more uniform in thickness? Thanks for any input.
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Well, I've had the brisket in the brine (basically using one the recipes from the old thread on pastrami) for the last week, but I haven't noticed much of a color change toward the redder color of commercially made corned beef. Can any of the members who do corn their own beef advise me if this is normal when home corning or should there be a stronger red color to the brisket after a week in the brine? I was planning to smoke the corned beef for pastrami tomorrow. Thanks for any input.

BTW, the smoked brisket was great! It was tender and very moist. Made for a great dinner and many sandwiches.
The red color comes from a cure, without TQ or some other cure, the meat won't change red.

What recipe did you use?

Keep in mind the outside might not be red (because of the soaking in liquid) you'll only really be able to tell by cutting into it. As I say that I'm trying to remember the color of the outside of brisket soaking in a cure... hmmm
It was the recipe for a wet cure posted by dls back in 7/08 using pink salt for the cure.

The brisket took about 15 hours to get to 190* @225F. There was a short period of time, ~3 hrs, when the temp was 200F because I had to go back to work and was worried that it might get to temp before I returned. Turned out it was in one of those phases when the meat temp doesn't change (~158-163*) much for a period of time so when I returned it had only changed ~5-8* and the CS temp when back to 225F. Hope this helps.
Well, I used the piece of the flat that I corned to make pastrami. It came out a little dry, but was just fine for sandwiches since it was still tender, but firm to the bite and didn't fall apart. Turned out that the color was fine as well so I didn't need to be concerned that it didn't have the stronger red color of the commercial corned beefs.

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