Pastrami #4: four more curing variations

Our previous four variations of 4 and 8% brine for 3.5 and 7 days turned out too chewy and dry; we had also used a dry rub containing more salt and sugar. It was also a bit too ropey on the exterior from smoking or from desiccation by the rub's salt and sugar. This time we're going to dial down the brine and remove the salt and sugar from the rub to see if we can still get the pink cure but preserve moisture; we'll cheat and use liquid smoke to avoid drying the exterior. We'll use 2 and 4% brine for 2 and 4 days.

Brisket

2.1 Kg Brisket (4.64 pound), cut into quarters evenly

Brine

Make a full batch of 2% brine that will be divided between two buckets; we'll add more salt to the second bucket to bring it to 4%. For speed, we'll actually heat only half the water then top up with ice.

2.25 L Water
90 g Salt, kosher
250 g Brown Sugar
30 g Pink Salt
40 g Black Peppercorns
35 g Coriander Seed
5 g Yellow Mustard Seed
5 g Pink Peppercorns (didn't have, used White)
2.5 g Fennel Seed
2 g Cinnamon
4 g Chili Flakes (not too spicy, or omit: used 1g very spicy Korean)
0.35 g Clove
0.25 g Bay Leaf, fresh
5 g Garlic Powder
5 g Juniper Berries
20 ml Liquid Smoke

Heat everything but the Brisket until the Sugar and Salt have dissolved.
Divide into two 4-Liter Cambro buckets or other heat-proof containers.
Label one "2%".

Add additional 45 g Salt to the other and label it "4%"; stir to dissolve the Salt.

Add Ice to both buckets to bring the level to 2.25L in each.

When cool, add two brisket quarters to each bucket.
Brine for two days.
Remove a brisket quarter from each bucket, and label them "2 days" and with their brine percent; store in a ziplock bag in the fridge.
After another two days, remove the other two briskets, and label them "4 days" with their brine percent.

Dry rub

40 g Black Peppercorns

30 g Coriander Seeds

5 g Garlic Powder

5 g Juniper Berries

3 g Chili Flake (mild, or omit)

Grind all the herbs in a spice/coffee grinder.
Pat the dry rub around the 4 Brisket quarters.

Seal each in a vacuum bag labelled with the brine percent and time; a Sharpie marker that will withstand the bath.

Freeze if you're not ready to cook.

Cook

Cook sous vide at 53C/135F for 72 hours.

You can do this directly from frozen.
When done, let cool on counter for an hour, then overnight in the fridge to reabsorb juices.

Taste Test

Texture of all batches is fine.

Not smelling any smoke :-(

Not enough pastrami pickle-y taste.

When cooled, the combined jus was a gelatinous texture like good meat stock -- that's a great sign; curious why we didn't get it from the previous batch.

2d @ 2%

Not overly salty.

I don't like the sweetness.

Not enough seasoning!

Needs salt.

Sufficiently cooked, a little dry.

Too mild, no flavor.

4d @ 2%

More flavorful than 2d@2%

Not enough flavor

A strange bitterness.

Rancidity in fat

Afterburn from chili.

Needs salt.

2d @ 4%

Better, decent amount of flavor.

I think this is good.

4d @ 4%

Not as flavorful as 2d@4% and a bit more chewy? 

A little grainer and tougher than 2d@4%

Eat

We took 4d@4% and made a dinner from it.

First we trimmed off the fat cap, it wasn't appealing and added nothing to the dish.

Reheat the gelatinous jus and mount with a bit of butter for richness.

Slice the meat thinly on a meat slicer; thinner was more elegant and attractive, perhaps because it held more just.

This was pretty good, good enough to serve to guests.

Next time: for guests

Cut most of the fat cap off the brisket before brining, it's not pleasant at service.

Bump up the salt to make a 5% brine to boost the flavor.

Back out the sugar some more

Either add more liquid smoke, or don't add any since we couldn't taste it.

Brine 4 days.

After cooking sous vide 3 days, let cool at room temp then overnight in the fridge to reabsorb juices.

Brush off rub before slicing before slicing.

Slice very thinly on a meat slicer for the nicest texture.

Strain and heat the gelatinized jus, add some butter for richness.

Reheat the sliced meat in the enriched jus.

Pastrami #3: four curing variations

Our previous pastrami was too salty, it started with commercially-cured brisket; this time we'll cure it ourselves. To dial-in the salt, we'll do four brine variations: two salt densities (4, 8%) and two durations (3, 7 days). We'll then cook sous vide to a steak-like texture with a lower temperature than most: 72 hours at 135F.

Rhulman has a bunch of writing on pastrami brining but his cups and teaspoons measurements aren't the best for repeatability, especially for pink salt with its nitrates. He's added comments about weights, and indicates he uses a 10% brine because he's going to boil it to cook, drawing out the excess salt; he adds that he'd do 5% if he was going to cook by baking where the salt won't be reduced. His book is full of conversion errors going from volume to weight and he's never bothered to publish errata, so we're a bit suspicious of trusting his recipes.

ChefSteps talks about "equilibrium brining", which uses a brine concentration the same as you'd want in your finished product, rather than starting with a high concentration and hoping to pull it out of the brine before it gets too salty. (This is a similar approach to sous vide cooking where you cook it at the target temperature so you can never over-heat it). The also have a couple excellent posts on sous vide pastrami, including the "worlds largest pastrami".  More immediately useful is their very-clear is the "sous vide pastrami" which we're going to use as the basis for our variations.

ChefSteps uses a 4.1% salt brine (plus sugar and other pickling spices, and pink salt), and lets the meat brine for 7 days. We'll split our brisket into 4 chunks and use both a 4% and 8% concentration, and brine for 3 and 7 days.

We'll make one 4% brine then split into two buckets and add extra salt to one to bring it to 8%. To expedite, we'll heat everything to dissolve Sugar and Salt in half the total required water, then add ice to bring it up to our desired volume in each bucket.

5.14 Lb Brisket (2.33 Kg) split in 2, each 1135 g
For 4% Brine: 180 g Kosher Salt

Brine

For combined, concentrated Brine:

2.5 L Water (we'll dilute to 4.5 L with ice later)
328 g Sugar
180 g Salt (we'll increase this for the 8% bucket later)
30 g Pink Salt
41 g Black Pepper

34 g Coriander Seeds

5 g Yellow Mustard Seed
4 g Pink Pepper Corns
2.3 g Fennel Seed, whole
1.6 g Cinnamon, whole
4.3 g Chili flakes
0.35 g Clove
0.25 g Bay Leaf,
5 g Garlic Powder
5 g Juniper Berries

Add half the water, 2.25 L, to a pot with all the ingredients above, bring to simmer and dissolve Salt and Sugar.
Divide between two containers, at this point they'll both be 4% salt.
Add an additional 180 g Salt  (WRONG see below) to the second container to bring it up to 8%.
Add an additional 2.25 L ice water split between both buckets to chill them down.
Add 1135 g Brisket slab to each

THIS IS WRONG: the high-concentration should be 8% of 2.25 L for the one bucket, so 180 g total; we get 90 g from the combined big brine, so need another 90 for the second bucket, not 90 g + 180 g in 2.25L = 10.8% brine. TO FIX, we can dilute: need 3.375 L to bring this down to 8%; add 7.5 g Pink Salt and 82 g Brown Sugar to balance and don't worry about the spices. Next time: 180 g in combined plus 90 in 8% bucket.)

(In retrospect, I should have made a combined batch of the dry spices and sugar and pink salt, then divided those, dosed each with the correct amount of Kosher Salt, and simmered separately to avoid confusion.)

Store in fridge for 3.5 days, turning slabs once a day to ensure they're evenly brined.
Cut each one in half, and return one half of each to their buckets for 3.5 more days;
wrap and store the 3-day brined pieces until time to smoke and rub.

Dry Rub

Remove all from fridge, drain and dry -- and note which is which! :-)
Make a rub using Chef Steps' list:

37 g Brown Sugar
37 g Salt, kosher
36 g Black Pepper corns
27 g Coriander Seed, whole
5 g Juniper Berries, whole
4 g Chili Flake
5 g Garlic powder

Grind Pepper, Coriander, Juniper and Chili in a spice grinder until a bit more coarse than fine; you probably should do these separately so you can actually grind the Juniper that tends to bounce around more than grind like the dry Coriander; mix with the rest.
Pat into the four slabs coating all surface.

Smoke

Place on wire rack to allow airflow.

Cold smoke 12 hours; it was about 40F/2C out today and we used an  "A-Maze-N" cold smoker tube that keeps the smoke going without producing much heat.

Vacuum bag each piece individually and freeze until ready to cook sous vide.

Cook Sous Vide

Cook sous vide, directly from frozen for 72 hours at 57C/135F.

Results: Disappointing

We removed each hunk from its bag, sliced and put on plates with hidden labels indicating the brine and brine time for a blind test. I could tell when slicing that some were much tougher than I expected, than the previous trial with factory-cured brisket.  Below are our tasting notes, ordered from best to worst.

3.5d @ 4%: Best

Texture OK.

Good smoke.

Too sweet.

Outer smoked edge dried out, though.

Most tender texture.

7d @ 4%

Tough again in outer edge.

Chili heat is inappropriate.

Outer edge is ropey.

More chewy than 3.5d@4%.

3.5d @ 8%

More tender than the worst one, but still too chewy.

Less salt than the worst.

Meh, barely acceptable for serving to guests.

7d @ 8%: Worst

Way too chewy.

Burn from salt.

Terrible texture even in center.

Unpleasant chew. 

Ropy edge.

Don't serve to friends.

Overall defects

When the meat cooled, even the best one turned chewy, almost beef-jerky like.

Was the 12-our smoke drying it out?

Back out sugar.

The spice crust was intrusive.

Even the lowest time and concentration was pink throughout from the nitrates, so we've got enough time/intensity.

Cloyingly sweet.

Next Time

Eliminate the smoking and use liquid smoke in the brine to eliminate ropy edge.
Eliminate the salt and sugar from the dry rub to reduce saltiness and sweetness and prevent desiccation; use only the spices and herbs.
We used bitchin' hot Korean chili flakes, reduce or use a less intense chili, or eliminate.
Remove rub for service.

Since the cure penetrated completely, our max time/concentration should be 4% for 3.5 days. Let's do a similar set of 4 variations:

3.5d @ 4%, 3.5d @ 2%
1.5d @ 4%, 1.5d @ 2%

Pastrami Steak (Sous Vide Smoked Brisket #2)

We're going for a pastrami-flavored but steak-textured experience and this hit the mark: we could slice it while still hot into very thin strips without shredding.  We enjoyed the last time we did sous vide smoked brisket but thought it could use a bit more time than 40 hours to become tender, so we bumped it up to 69 hours -- again at 135F so we could keep the pink rare-beef look.

This one was a bit salty, however, and we think we know why.  Foolishly, we didn't keep adequate notes about our pre-cooking prep. We believe it was a factory-cured brisket we got around St. Patrick's day when they were on sale. If so, we would have then cold-smoked it, then "corned" by coating with spices, and finally vacuum-bagged it for the water bath. It'd been waiting patiently in our freezer for this event: we pulled it straight from there, still bagged with its seasoning, into the water bath and let it repose for almost 3 days.

When we took it out, it had released maybe a cup of flavorful liquid. Again, a bit salty, but worth mounting with butter and saving to brightening up mashed potatoes or something that needed a boost.

The procedure's a bit of an inversion on the classic pastrami which cures the meat in brine and pink salt (nitrites), then hydrates it to knock down some of the strong saltiness, then spices and hot-smokes, then steams for service. We didn't have a hydration step to leech out the excess salt that we expect is part of the factory cure. That said, while a bit salty when served hot, it was perfect when served cold on a sandwich. Curiously, there wan't much smoke flavor... but then again, I've not noticed strong smoke in commercial deli pastrami, nothing like Texas-style smoked brisket with smoke ring.

Next time:

Brine and cure at home where we can measure and control the salinity: a 5% by weight brine should give it flavor without becoming a salt-lick that requires a desalinization bath.  Same cold-smoke: we don't want to cook it here. Same flavorful spice rub (cracked pepper corns, bay, mustard seed -- classic pickling spice mix). Bag and freeze until the week you want to serve it, then almost 3 days in a 135F water bath.