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%
