Pastrami on the Grill

[GrillinFool]

Originally Posted by Rambo

I'd recommend another deli for your strami' needs.

No kidding. That pink color of pastrami comes from the brine and not the smoke. Coating the brisket with all the spices you want and smoking it yields smoked brisket not pastrami.

Seems the biggest concern with self brining is the added nitrite/nitrate in the commercial process as well as being able to customize the spices. I don't know how much the former is an issue after the corned beef is leached. I honestly don't know. As for the latter, I can see that to personalize the pastrami as I'm a big fan of screwing with the recipes of others...

 

[Cary Grant]

Originally Posted by Piobaire

You're losing me now. Are you saying pastrami is merely seasoned and then smoked and that these are the only steps? I can tell you, 100% for sure, without a doubt, that is completely wrong, if that is what you're saying.

Are you saying most pastrami is rub cured, then washed off, re-seasoned, then smoked? While that procedure will give you pastrami, I would also say this is not the case but rather the rarity. Curing like this takes far more time and will give you loss of water as the salt draws it out during the curing process.

What you are not saying is, most pastrami is made by brining into corned beef, then re-seasoned and smoked into pastrami? I am afraid, this is the case. Maybe not at your friend's deli, where they might do the long, rubbed cure process, but this is the most common method you'll find.

Thanks Pio- I stand corrected.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Originally Posted by GrillinFool

No kidding. That pink color of pastrami comes from the brine and not the smoke.

Not necessarily true...

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by Cary Grant

Thanks Pio- I stand corrected.

 

[GrillinFool]

Originally Posted by iammatt

Not necessarily true...

There is no possible way to get a smoke ring all the way through meat that thick without turning it into something similar to jerky and even then I doubt you get it all the way through... If you are saying you can make pastrami that is not pink I believe you but the pink color comes from the brine and not the smoke...

 

[KJT]

Originally Posted by GrillinFool

There is no possible way to get a smoke ring all the way through meat that thick without turning it into something similar to jerky and even then I doubt you get it all the way through... If you are saying you can make pastrami that is not pink I believe you but the pink color comes from the brine and not the smoke...

Would it be possible to cold smoke it?

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by KJT

Would it be possible to cold smoke it?

You would not want to do that. Need the heat to break down the connective tissue. Remember, brisket is a hella tough cut of meat.

 

[Rambo]

Can you really cold smoke any large cut of beef?

 

[GrillinFool]

Originally Posted by Rambo

Can you really cold smoke any large cut of beef?

You could. Not exactly sure why you would want to. Pio is correct above. The reason for the smoking is usually two fold, one to add flavor of the smoke wood, and the other is to break down the connective tissue and take normally tough cuts of meat and make them tender while keeping them moist.

I'm wondering though, what it would be like to cold smoke a steak, and then sear it?

 

[Rambo]

Originally Posted by GrillinFool

You could. Not exactly sure why you would want to.
That was more along the lines of my thinking? This thread needs some russian dressing and rye bread. MMMMM, sammwich.

 

[TheButler]

Ok, so today I took a corned beef brisket (just for clarity's sake, a spice-brined brisket; and no, I didn't brine it myself), rinsed, patted a nice rub onto it, and sparked up the BBQ.

The BBQ is a gas grill, 3 burners. I turned the left burner to high, put a foil bread-pan onto it loaded with soaked apple woodchips. Added another foil bread-pan filled with beer and water beside it.

Put the brisket on the far right side, closed the lid, and let it go. Checked every half hour or so, added more liquid to the liquid pan and more chips to the wood pan. After about 2 hours things didn't look like they were moving much so I turned the middle burner on low to raise the temperature a little more. Kept checking every half hour or so.

Three hours later, internal temp was 180 degrees so I took it off. Let it rest for about 15 minutes and voila. Total cooking time about 5 hours.

Er, it wasn't great.

Crust was superb. Unfortunately, the brisket itself was:
(a) salty, and
(b) definitely not the melt-in-your-mouth experience I've had with good BBQ brisket. While it wasn't grisly, it was definitely chewy; sort of like an overcooked piece of ham.

Thoughts on what gives? When I first take the brisket out of the package should I wash it more thoroughly than a quick rinse or is pre-brined likely to be a lot more salty than if I'd done it myself (no idea really how long it had been brining as it was in a vac-bag with what I can only assume was still some brining liquid)? Is 5 hours low and slow enough or should I have kept the center burner off and targeted more like 7 or 8? Not enough moisture inside the hood?


Edit: oh, and had a gazpacho appetizer from the recipe in that other thread. That part turned out amazing - could have been the whole meal right there.

 

[Piobaire]

^ My initial diagnosis is you had a "flat," not a "packer's cut." For a five hour cook time on your grill, you want a packer's cut. A brisket has two parts, the flat (lean) and the point (mix of fat and meat). The packer's cut is both pieces together. You want the packer's for long cook times.

 

[KJT]

Originally Posted by GrillinFool

I'm wondering though, what it would be like to cold smoke a steak, and then sear it?

Please experiment and report back!

 

[GrillinFool]

TB,

Did you leach the salt out of the corned beef? Usually corned beef is boiled and thus a great deal of the salt is going to be pulled out of the meat during the cooking process. Since you will be smoking it you leave all that salt in there. Put it in cold water and change the water every hour for how many pounds the corned beef is plus one for good measure. Then smoke it.

Did you get any smoke? I haven't had good luck using soaked wood chips on a gas grill. I used unsoaked chips in a foil ball and they work great.

As for the tenderness issue, I haven't found that to be a problem... What temps did you get the grill to for the session?

 

[Piobaire]

I'm telling you, 99% chance the tenderness issue was it was a flat. Flats will turn out dry, every time, when you try to cook them like that. There's a reason flats get boiled or steamed.