Corned Beef At Home: Recipes, Tips, etc.

[Duvel]

1.4 kg of Rinderbrust (aka brisket) dry-curing away in the fridge …

 

[rotuts]

@Duvel 

 

nice  

 

I remember , some time ago

 

there were 'bags ' one might buy

 

and then a large cut of meat

 

would be hygienically place in it

 

then vac sealed 

 

and place in your ReFrig

 

for , what ? 30 days , etc ?

 

then carefully trimmed or the ' pretty odd bits '

 

and you would get 

 

nicely aged meat

 

at your 3o day or ++ point

 

never got to it 

 

is this similar ?

 

I do know its gong to be tasty when you finish !

[Duvel]

This is just a regular SV bag. The brisket was dusted with a ground mixture of sugar, pepper, allspice, juniper, mustard seeds, coriander, mace, dried garlic and dried ginger and - of course - pink salt. It‘ll cure for the next 10 days and cooked to tender perfection in a SV bath …

[cyalexa]

On 3/6/2022 at 8:46 AM, rotuts said:

in the past i was never very successful 

 

removing much of the salt by soaking.

@rotuts, thanks for the advice.

[TdeV]

@Duvel, when you cure the brisket, do you air dry it in the fridge? Also, could you please guesstimate the amounts of spice (whole spices) in your recipe?

[rotuts]

unfortunately 

 

my Anova was left unplugged for 8 hours.

 

I have circuitry issues in my kitchen

 

Micro //  CSO are on the same circuit 

 

and someone forgot to get the Anova going after using the

 

Micro , the the CSO

 

so CB was canceled for now

 

of note :  w a beer-cooler , a bubble wrap ' top ' for the 

 

BC :

 

142.5  goes to 95 F  in 8 hours.

 

there is also currently no snow , in general a good thing

 

but not a good thing for cold Weber smoking

 

as I used to shovel snow on top of the Weber for the

 

hour's smoking.

 

based on Current Affairs

 

maybe next year., although that's looking like an iffy thing.

 

 

[gfweb]

@rotuts Does your tube smoker actually heat up the Weber?  Mine doesn't.

[rotuts]

no Im sure its minimal

 

but leaving the CB  for an hour

 

is a concern when its warm outside.

[Duvel]

21 minutes ago, rotuts said:

no Im sure its minimal

 

but leaving the CB  for an hour

 

is a concern when its warm outside.

From my point of view not. That is cured meat and I would expect it starts without a major bacterial growth on its surface, so an hour will be no issue …

[Tri2Cook]

Last week, I pulled a brisket flat I picked up at the farmer's market last summer from the freezer to thaw. Saturday, I calculated for a dry equilibrium brine, ran the spices I wanted to use (standard corned beef stuff) through my spice grinder, rubbed the brisket down, split it into two pieces and vac bagged 'em. They'll have 10 days of fridge time before a trip through the sous vide tank.

 

[TdeV]

@Tri2Cook, where could I find what those dry equilibrium brine calculations should be?

[Tri2Cook]

3 hours ago, TdeV said:

@Tri2Cook, where could I find what those dry equilibrium brine calculations should be?

 

There are online equilibrium brine calculators all over google that will allow you to fine tune the salt level and give you the numbers but I used 2.5% salt, 1.25% sugar and .25% #1 cure by weight based on the weight of the meat.

[rotuts]

Ha Ha Ha :

 

3 " of snow coming !

 

[ed.:  Heavenly cooling , pre=paid ]

 

I might have done a re- do 

 

Ill Prepare Myself 

 

and open the Upright Freezer

 

ans see what I already have in it

 

need very serious defrosting 

[scubadoo97]

I usually cheat and buy prepared corned beefs when on sale.  Desalinate them add  spices and smoke them to make pastrami 

[Tri2Cook]

2 hours ago, scubadoo97 said:

I usually cheat and buy prepared corned beefs

 

If the local grocery store could be counted on to bring in decent looking corned beef briskets, I'd be tempted to do the same. But most years they don't bring in any and the few times they have, it would have been less disappointing if they hadn't. They looked pretty awful.

[cyalexa]

6 hours ago, scubadoo97 said:

Desalinate them

Please explain how you desalinate. 

[gfweb]

5 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

 

If the local grocery store could be counted on to bring in decent looking corned beef briskets, I'd be tempted to do the same. But most years they don't bring in any and the few times they have, it would have been less disappointing if they hadn't. They looked pretty awful.

I rummaged through a bin of points and flats and found one that wasn't floppy from papain and general crapitude. One out of about 20. And at a good price. Usually I'll corn a brisket, but this was too cheap to pass up. We shall see on 3/17.

[rotuts]

Stop & Shop does have CB on sale !

 

sitting down ?

 

$ 1.49 /lbs  limit 2 , point cut !

 

Shaw's    point cut , $ 0.97  , limit 2 , w $ 25 purchase !

 

indeed , in the past here , the first week of sale @ S&S  had some

 

very nice cuts , which became not so nice as the sale progressed.

 

good luck finding any point cut w/o gobs and gobs of fat k the week of ..

 

I did in the past get some nice points that had not so much external

 

gobs of fat , but quite a decent amount intramuscularly .

 

those , cold smoked , cut thin in the summer for a sandwich ? 

 

Devine

[kayb]

I am toying with the notion of going to the local diner and ordering a plate of corned beef hash and over easy eggs, and calling it done. May my Irish forebearers forgive me!

[cyalexa]

Prepared the second of 2 cheap CBs from Aldi's. The first was very salty. Soaked the second one overnight, dumped the water, braised in beer as per my usual. The second specimen was not overly salty. Maybe it was the soaking step, maybe it was something else. 

[scubadoo97]

On 3/10/2022 at 9:05 PM, cyalexa said:

Please explain how you desalinate. 

Soaking in fresh water to leach out the salt, and do one or two water changes until the water no long taste of salt

Usually when cooking in water this occurs naturally.   More often than not, I use these prepared corned beefs to make my version of  pastrami.   After desalination, the meat is dried overnight in the fridge and covered in a pastrami spice blend.   I use mustard as the binder to hold the spices on.    Then it goes in the smoker and finished in the oven over steam.   I set up a foil pan with water off the boil and a rack on top to hold the meat and cover with another pan with clips to hold the top on and pop it in the oven to steam finish.  May not be Katz Deli but it gets close 

[chileheadmike]

I've done this as well with good results. Not the mustard step though, that's a good idea.

For steaming, I use the IP. Works pretty well.

[gfweb]

I just had my first CB failure. Store bought pre-cured flat CB.

 

140F x 2 days... which I've done many times, though almost always with CB I cured myself.

 

This time it was pure mush.  I guess there was papain involved at the packer (which I didn't see on the label).  I looked up the temp optimum of papain. It is right around the SV temp.

 

So I'm smarter, but still hungry.

[btbyrd]

Exogenous enzymatic tenderization is no bueno. Sorry for your loss.

[btbyrd]

But now that I've thought about it for a second, a shio koji cured corned brisket has potential. Appropriate all the cultures!