Of course you love them too! Did you know you can also cure your own? Of course you can! You just need a little room in your fridge and 10 days.
Get Packer Brisket.
This is the time you want to trim to your taste.. Some will like a little more fat with theirs, you are now the DeliMaster, you decide, this is about the fat I like.
Now we put the meat in a bucket, we fill the bucket with water and then we see how much water that is. For me a trimmed & separated 15lb. brisket in a cat litter bucket will usually take right around 1 gallon of water.
Now we put in our curing agent and other ingredients
1 1/2 cups Kosher Salt,
4 medium garlic cloves, unpeeled and cut in half,
2/3 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons coriander seed
10 allspice berries
2 teaspoons yellow mustard seed
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
Small handful black peppercorns
I use what is called Modern Cure #1 (Insta Cure #1 or Pink curing salt #1), it contains 6.25% sodium nitrite and 93.75% table salt. Thanks to knowledge of Papa Tom at Pelletheads.com, I was advised to use 1/4 cup #1 per gallon of water. I do not dry cure, I just don't get and will leave it at that. When I 1st started to do this all I did was leave it in the cure for 10 days, since then I have started to inject all over. It is simple, and easy and not messy since you can just put the bucket in the sink and fill the injector right in the bucket. No fuss, no mess, I inject all over the meat about 50 injections! In about 7-10 days you will have this.
Now this is Corned Beef, all you have to do is cook it the way you like. I like mine steamed to 210° internal temperature.
Pastrami is one more step after the CB is cured but not cooked.. You need to put a rub on it, mine is very simple for the above mentioned size brisket you will need 1 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup molasses, 1/2 cup cracked black peppercorns 1/2 cup coriander seeds crushed 2 tablespoons mustard seeds crushed. Mix all ingredients except molasses. Rub corned beef with molasses, all sides, then apply rub. You can smoke under 200° or you can now BBQ, under 350° your meat. I also like to finish pastrami in the steam, so I will usually pull from pit at about 175° IT (depending on what temperature you cook at from 4-10 hours) and finish in steam to that 210°.
You should end up with this...
or this...
And then you should end up with this, this, this or even this! Yeah, I know, mayo an onions with CB and NO Mustard...get over it!
