Corned Beef At Home: Recipes, Tips, etc.

[LRunkle]

Brining or marinade liquid volume can be reduced by putting the brisket or whatever in a trash bag and adding the liquid and squeezing the air out. You can then stabilize this in most any clean bucket, large bowl or even a cardboard box.

You can just slosh the bag contents around a couple of times a day.

[&roid]

Hi,

This is my first post on here so looking forward to hearing people's thoughts on this problem.

I've been making salt beef (or corned beef depending on which side of the atlantic you live) to take back to the family for Christmas for the last few years and have seen a steady progression and improvement. Unfortunately, it's still not quite how I'd like it, I've done a good bit of searching but I'm still not sure what I should try next.

The problem I have is that although the taste was the best I've managed the texture was still a bit on the tough/dry side.

Here's what I did so feel free to suggest anything I might try next time:

brined in an 80:20 solution of water:prontocure (pre-made mix of nitrate, nitrite and normal salt) equal to half the weight of the 6.5lb brisket. I left the meat in for 7 days which was slightly too short a time (tiny area of grey meat in the very centre after cooking). I then rinsed the joint thoroughly in cold water and put it in a large stockpot with plenty of cold water, a couple of onions, some celery, carrot, cloves, juniper berries and put it on a very low heat, this took about 4-5hrs to get the water upto 65C, I then did another couple of hours at a slightly higher flame which brought the water upto about 75-80C. The internal temp of the meat was mid 70sC so I took it off the heat and cooled it in the brine before vac packing and taking it down for the holidays. It was very tasty but also very firm and needed to be sliced wafer thin to not be too chewy.

Sorry for the long ramble but any thoughts?

[Kerry Beal]

Only thing I wonder about is whether the cut you are using has enough fat. The times I've made corned beef and been disappointed in past have been when the meat is so well trimmed that it lacks the fat that moistens the meat.

And by the way - welcome &droid. Great moniker!

[&roid]

Hi Kerry,

you may have something there, certainly this was the leanest of all the pieces I have tried. What sort of time/temperature combinations do you use?

[Kerry Beal]

Hi Kerry,

you may have something there, certainly this was the leanest of all the pieces I have tried.  What sort of time/temperature combinations do you use?

←

Been quite a while since I last corned any beef - so I don't know that I'd be able to track down times or temperatures. Just know that lean has disappointed me in the past and fatty has been much better.

I'm willing to bet the last time I made this I probably used saltpeter - so I'm thinking it might be more than 20 years ago.

Edited December 31, 2008 by Kerry Beal (log)

[budrichard]

You need to start with a cut of beef equivalent to USDA choice or better with the fat cap left on. I don't know what that equates to in the UK.

I use simple canning salt, spices and saltpeter and usually corn for at least 3 weeks, followed by slow simmer for about 3-4 hours. I suspect its your beef.

Don't fall for the thinking that long slow cooking can make any cut/grade of beef tender because it just won't. I have made briskets from Waygu animals also which resulted in very nice results. I susally corn at least two whole briskets and smoke at least 6 per year on the 'Q.-Dick

[infernooo]

I would try getting the internal temp to 185-190f (85-90c) slowly - this has produced the best corned beef for me!

[&roid]

You need to start with a cut of beef equivalent to USDA choice or better with the fat cap left on. I don't know what that equates to in the UK.

I use simple canning salt, spices and saltpeter and usually corn for at least 3 weeks, followed by slow simmer for about 3-4 hours. I suspect its your beef.

Don't fall for the thinking that long slow cooking can make any cut/grade of beef tender because it just won't. I have made briskets from Waygu animals also which resulted in very nice results. I susally corn at least two whole briskets and smoke at least 6 per year on the 'Q.-Dick

←

Hi, I think the cut may have had too much fat trimmed off it and this affected the end result but the quality of the meat was beyond doubt - local artisan butcher that we have a really good relationship with and have always had outstanding meat from.

I would try getting the internal temp to 185-190f (85-90c) slowly - this has produced the best corned beef for me!

←

Interesting, I'll give this a go next time and see if I can produce better results.

thanks for all the input guys

[Toliver]

Past Corned Beef discussions on eGullet that may be of help:

"Corned Beef At Home - Recipes, Tips, etc., Merged topics"

"Corned Beef (and cabbage?), The topic (merged)"

"Smoked Corned Beef, Would you like some?"

And a variation on corned beef but lots of info and links:

"The Great Pastrami & Smoked Meat Experiment, Getting to the bottom of things"

[prasantrin]

My local Costco (in Japan) no longer carries brisket, but I really really really want to make corned beef. They now carry flap steak. According to an article in the SF Gate

Flap meat, flap steak. Called bavette d'aloyau in France, this fan-shaped cut is an extension of the T-bone and Porterhouse on the short loin.

It also says

Like skirt or flank steak, flap meat benefits from marinating and being cooked on high, dry heat, whether grilled, broiled, pan-fried or stir-fried. It's vital to cut the meat very thinly across the grain, and it is at its best not too much past medium-rare.

Does this mean there's no way it can be used to make corned beef? My only other option would be to order from Tokyo, but then I'd either have to get a reasonably-sized salt-cured ready-to-boil brisket or a huge uncured piece of meat. The flap steak would give me a reasonably-sized uncured piece of meat, but if it won't make good corned beef, then there's no point.

[Shel_B]

Last week I had some corned beef at a neighbor's house and decided that it's about time I make my own, and would like to start the learning process by purchasing a prepared package to cook up myself. I did this once about 25 years ago and the results were terrible, which may be the reason I've not tried it again. So, perhaps someone can give me some pointers on how to best prepare a package prepared beef.

What cut should I be looking for? Brisket or something else - round? Is the meat already "cured" and all that I'd need to do is boil or simmer it, or does the meat need to be marinated a while? The packages I've seen have small packets of spices included. Do I use those spices to marinate the meat or just dump them into the cooking liquid? Is there anything else that might be added, or needs to be added, to the cooking water besides the spice packet? Does the meat get cooked in plain water, or would adding some broth be helpful? Apart from rinsing the meat, should it be soaked to remove excess salt, etc.? Does the meat get boiled or is it simmered? On the stove top or in the oven? If in the oven, at what temperature and for how long?

Once I've done this a time or two I'll try making it myself, and will start looking for a spice recipe beginning with the information David posted earlier in this thread.

Thanks for any help. This Jewish boy is missing good corned beef.

[Porthos]

My Cooking method:

I prefer the point cut which has a bit more fat - but don't worry about the fat for the finally product. I am not brand-specific, I just buy what's on sale for Saint Patrick's Day.

I use (depending on the qty I am making) either my 8 qt electric chicken roaster or my 18 qt electric turkey roaster. You can use a dutch oven in the oven also but having an insert helps.

I put corned beef (fat side up) onto an insert so that it is up off of the bottom of the vessel, and then sprinkle the spice packet over the meat. For each corned beef I use one can of bottle of Guinness beer poured over the top to wash a bit of the seasoning into the liquid. I cook at 275 degrees F for 8 hours. After the cooking I pull the meat out and allow to cool for a few minutes and then scrap the fat off before slicing.

FWIW I use this recipe to cook 3 or 4 at a time to share as part of a lunch feast with my fellow guild members (but not the public) at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire and have people tell me that "I don't like corned beef but I like this."

[qrn]

The briskets from the stores have already been corned, the little packets dont have enough stuff to do much of anything,,I do mine in a Pressure cooker I add at least a third of a cup of pickling spice and a couple of cloves of garlic..and water to just cover,then cook for at least an hour, at max pressure. If you want to corn your own,from scratch, that is another matter...look on the Charcuitrie thread and there is probably some direction...

Bud

[MSRadell]

We have found that adding the Guinness beer makes a huge difference! We discovered that trick a few years ago and have been using it ever since. It gives the meat much more flavor and makes it very tender. You certainly don't get a beer taste from it when the cooking is done so you can do it even if you don't like beer.

[scubadoo97]

Well it's that time again. Prepared corned beefs for sale in the supermarket. I often will smoke one using pastrami spices to make my own pastrami. I look carefully at the sodium content between brands. They can vary a lot. Some can have over 1600mg/4oz and others 600mg/4oz. That makes a big difference in how long you need to soak them to leach out the salt. When cooking a corned beef in liquid as it's intended, a lot of the salt is leached out during the long cooking process but if you are doing a short cook in a pressure cooker I would think that this would be a big detail to watch for.

[kayb]

Bumping this thread up -- I'm about to take the plunge and corn my very first brisket, mostly because I'm jonesing for a good Reuben and some corned beef hash. I'm wondering, what other things are out there to make with corned beef? I'm not a fan of cooked cabbage, so about one meal of that should do me; one can only eat so many Reubens and hash-n-eggs. I know I can do meat pies, and that's a good potential. Other suggestions?

[jnash85]

I tried making corned beef for the first time and did not have good results. I used Alton Brown's recipe. The only change I made was my brisket was in the 3lb range. Is 10 days too long to cure it? After I cooked it is was very dry. It texture was more like jerky than tender corned beef. Any hints on what to do next time?

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/corned-beef-recipe/index.html

[budrichard]

First the quality of your brisket greatly influences the final product. even though briskets are not usually sold graded, i have used them from Select to Waygu grade and I can tell you that there are some select briskets that are just plain tough. Try to find a source such as Sam's Club that has good brisket from Choice or better animals.

Second, 10 days is likely not enough and I typically cure for about 3 weeks. I also use Saltpeter for color preservation but the lack of usage will not affect the quality.

Brisket needs to be cooked in liquid long and slow, at least 6 hours until you can visibly observe the fibers of meat starting to come apart. Good luck on your next try!-Dick

[docdix]

It looks like the brining time is a little long. I follow the recipe of Polcyn and Ruhlman in their Charcuterie book and so far I haven't had any misses so far. I am sure the quality of the brisket matters but even an inexpensive cut will do. The recipe brines the brisket incorporating the herbs in the brine and uses some pink salt instead of saltpeter. Meat should be completely submerged and cooked for about 4-6 hours under very low fire with the liquid hardly bubbling. After the 3rd of 4th hour stick a fork into the meat and if you can twist the fork with little effort with the meat going apart, then it's done. the thing is you have to check and make sure that the brisket is always completely submerged in water, adding throughout the process as necessary. here's the topic list:

http://egullet.org/charcuterieindex

[docdix]

This too:

and chck out the book... highly recommend it! http://www.amazon.com/Charcuterie-Craft-Salting-Smoking-Curing/dp/0393058298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292472473&sr=8-1

[David A. Goldfarb]

I do it with a dry cure following the proportions in Julia Child's recipe from The Way to Cook. Add several cloves of garlic for Jewish style corned beef. I've done it both with and without pink salt. I usually cure at least two weeks, but if it let it stay for four weeks, it will keep for months, which I've done, and it doesn't change much after four weeks. If I know that I'm not planning to cook it for a long time (usually because I've bought a large amount of beef as part of a cooperative beef purchase, and making a corned beef saves some freezer space), I tend to use the pink salt.

If you do let it cure more than four weeks, you need to let it soak overnight or even for two days to de-salt it.

Then I usually simmer it until a fork slides in and out of the meat easily, but recently I made a pastrami by coating it with pepper and coriander and hot smoking it on the stovetop in a wok, and it was excellent. It took about three hours smoking with no additional cooking.

Brisket is a cut that shrinks a lot. I wouldn't bother with a brisket smaller than 4-5 lbs. That's usually the whole flat end or the "first cut" as it's sometimes called. The second cut is much fattier, but pastrami made from the second cut fries up nicely like bacon.

[sunbeam]

In my opinion there is no reason to make your own corned beef as long as Fray Bentos are in business.

Quite apart from the fact that the product is quite delicious, there is the added foodie challenge of not severing a major artery when opening the tin.

[jnash85]

Thanks for the help guys. It sounds like I didn't cook it long enough (2-1/2 hours) and had it going in a nice steady simmer. I'll try cooking it in a low oven next time.

[abooja]

I recently made pastrami with a similar, jerky-like texture. I am 95% certain that the culprit was not a too brief smoke (in the case of pastrami), but a too lean brisket. The briskets I have braised in the past -- for the same three or so hours as the Alton Brown recipe -- have consistently been tender. Lean briskets are the devil.

[jnash85]

Perhaps I should try a different cut? Ruhlman has praised corned beef short ribs.