weinoo. .thanks for the reply....Concerning brine/wet curing pastrami, I refer to Chef Fowke who conducted the original experiment in 2003 . Message #127 of "the Great Pastrami & Smoked meat experiment"...Sorry as a firt time poster, I don't know how to move a quote from another post to this one...Hopefully I will learn this soon. Anyhow in his experiment he tried both wet cure and dry cure and found he much preferred the dry cure...In addition, I have read other pastrami recipes where a dry cure is preferred... I have made pastrami only with a dry cure half a dozen times and have been very satisfied with the results... I have never done it with the wet/brine cure...Do you think I would be even more satisfied with the wet cure...??? From your reply, I understand that you feel there is no need to freeze as the vacuum packaging (cryovac) will suffice to keep it for 2-3 months in the fridge with out deterioration... Thanks for your input... Mike