Pastrami and...

[CarrieAnn]

Thinking seriously of smoking a corned beef into pastrami. I've read a couple recipes/cooks-does it need to be steamed??

Secondly, during St Pats, like all the good Italian girls, I made corned beef.   I did my usual and braised in Guinness and beef broth and it was great, as usual. Leftovers the next day and I recalled a dish I ate years and years ago that was a roasted corned beef with an orange glaze. They made a gravy from the dripping which was just flat out weird tasting but that corned beef with the orange glaze was quite tasty. So I made a quick glaze with a little orange marmalade in the pan with pan juices as I was reheating some slices and it was delish. So good that my family accused me of holding out on them, ingrates.

So here's the question. I have more than one corned beef flat. I'm thinking of smoking the one like a traditional pastrami and the other, glazing with an orange glaze as the finish. I imagine it will get mopped much like I do with ribs and BBQ sauce.  This is why I'm asking about the steam - if it needs it, I'm not sure I want to glaze then steam.

Thoughts??


Sent from my iPhone using Weber Kettle Club mobile app

[JDD]

Hello Carrie, I have done them both ways and it does not have to be steamed. I will say it was more tender with steam. On the other hand, it was still very tasty and moist without. 

[effinUker]

I've done 3 or 4 this season already. I only steamed them when I was reheating for my Reuben Sandwich. Be sure to soak them in clear water for a couple days before smoking though. They tend to be REALLY salty if you don't. I normally go 2 or 3 days, and try to change the water twice a day.

Let us know how they turn out, and bring lots of pictures!

[CarrieAnn]

So an update:

This is a story of "everything that can go wrong and did" with a touch of redemption at the end.

I have only one photo that I can't seem to load at the moment that that was of the pair of corned beef going on the smoker.

I soaked and then rubbed with a simple pepper, touch of sugar, garlic - probably 3-4 more things I can't recall.

I set my WSM up for a minion. That was my fist mistake. I should have gone with the snake.  My  WSM runs hot. She's an old gal with a few rust holes and a bit out of round so she gets a little more breeze than she needs. My last couple smokes ran great and I even had one that I had a hard time getting to temp. (Too little fuel on a snake). My last smoke I used the minion method so I got cocky and thought I had this licked. And I may well have but it was a hot windy day and I didn't factor that.

And I was running behind so rather than get set up and have my thermometer set up so I knew the lay of the land I set it up after my meat was on. Mistake 2. I set up my Maverick and actually went and got my spare probes to check because the temps were running high. Grates were 350, meat was 110 only 30 min in.

In retrospect, I should have grabbed a stone and a frozen pizza at this point instead of the spare probes. I thought that I was seeing a spike as a result of having the lid off while I got set up but my real spike was still to come. About 15 minutes later the remote reported 425 at the grate. WTF?!?  The wind had really kicked up and when I took a peek could see all my carefully placed wood was on fire. I closed all my vents and it was like the thing laughed at me. The wind was blowing perfectly in such a way as to whip up from the rust holes in the bottom and the out of round places in the sides. In desperation, I took a spray bottle to extinguish the flames and was able to bring her down to about 335. I've read about hot and fast brisket so I knew I could get something edible out of the endeavor.  This did not stop me from offering up a small prayer. If nothing else, my dogs were going to get one hell of a treat.

I watched the probe temp rise pretty steadily over the next 2 hours. I kept thinking I'd hit a stall but that never happened. In fact it kind of accelerated on me. I got involved in another project and when I went to check, they were at 190. No time to wrap, crap, so I just pulled them, wrapped and let them rest in a cooler.

When I could see it was kind of going to hell I made alternate plans for dinner so I could have some time to figure this out. They went into the fridge that night, but Honeybun took off a slice for a taster and said they were good.

The next day I went to survey the damage. A little dry but not nearly as terrible as I had anticipated. But not very tender. Since steaming had been recommended, I thought about that but remembered a recipe I had for a pastrami in the crockpot using sliced deli pastrami. So I sliced it thin and plopped it into the crock with a bottle of dark beer, all the drippings from the foil and enough hot water to make a cup (recipe called for beef broth, this was about the same as that) and a little worcestshire sauce and let it simmer. That actually turned out quite well. I sautéed some onion and mushrooms, pulled out some Swiss, made coleslaw and told the Honeybun to pick up rolls and some smoked potato salad. He and my daughters are theirs sliced as is, I diced mine up so I could mix in the mushroom and onion. The dogs each got a slice as they had offered their emotional support throughout the ordeal and never gave up on me. .

One was sliced, the other is in the freezer for an easy weeknight dinner.

Not the ideal cook, but not a total disaster. I often say there's little that the addition of some beer, cheese and some sautéed onion and mushroom won't fix and I guess I was right. We had enough leftover for my and Honeybun's lunch today, plus one more sandwich and a nice container of juice to treat the dogs dinner.

Lessons learned: no minions on windy days- go with the snake instead, always set up the grate thermometer first (which I usually do)and you can achieve 425 on a WSM even with a full water pan!  I'll keep that in mind should I decide to bake bread or make naan.






Sent from my iPhone using Weber Kettle Club mobile app

[effinUker]

Sound like you have a great baseline to work from for next time.    Glad it wasn't a total loss.