I love a good deli roast beef. I've made it before when I only had an oven and didn't have good thermometers and it still came out pretty good, if slightly over cooked. On that one I covered an eye of round roast in oil, then did a generous rub of salt, pepper, and herbs, and wrapped it in plastic to hang out in the fridge for 3-4 days. Then it got cooked in the oven at 250 until it hit 135 internal. After resting it was medium/medium well, but the color (a little grey) left a lot to be desired. It was also a bit on the dry side plain, but once on a fully dressed sandwich, it was awesome. The flavor was great all the way through.
This time I brined the eye of round roast with a bit of cure (sodium nitrite) to help preserve the awesome red/pink that you get at the deli counter. After a week in brine, it got rinsed, dried, and rubbed with salt, pepper, onion, garlic, and cayenne, then into the kettle at 225 with pecan and mesquite smoke.
I pulled it at 125 after 2 hours or so, and double wrapped in foil for another hour to settle and cool a bit. When I cut into it, I saw this:
Wow, what beautiful color, awesome! Wait, what is that lighter spot in the middle?
Turns out 1 week wasn't quite enough for a piece of meat that thick, the cure didn't fully reach the interior of the meat. It was also so salty I couldn't eat it (except for the lighter spot, which had no flavor at all). It was a real bummer to be looking forward to this for a week and screw it up.
Brine was 1 quart water, 1/4 salt, tablespoon of white sugar, and 1 teaspoon Prague Powder #1. My basic brine is 1 quart water, 1/4 salt, and 1/4 brown sugar with no cure, and I've never had anything be too salty.
Next time I think I'll give it 10 days in brine and then give it a couple soaks in plain water to draw out excess salt.
If anyone has any tips, I would appreciate them!