This recipe is an amalgam of the best recipes I could find for making smoked pastrami from a beef brisket. It involves multiple steps over multiple days, but at the end you have a real treat in store for yourself, your friends and your loved ones. I experimented a lot and finally arrived at perfection. That means this smoked pastrami is equal to the best I have ever tasted, even in the best Jewish delicatessens. Thus, this recipe is given the highest Food Nirvana rating. Are you interested in perfection too? If so, read on ... if not ... well ... I hope you find something else to float your boat.
Due to safety considerations in curing meats I decided to make this a teaching recipe, which is one reason why it is longer than typical recipes in Food Nirvana. Note that I have a variety of teaching recipes for different foods in Food Nirvana when the process steps/measurements need to be done very accurately and done in a particular order.
I sometimes use 2, 3 pound chuck roasts instead of one 5 pound beef brisket for making both corned beef and pastrami, due to the price of beef brisket. A good chuck roast will have nice marbling that will approximate that of brisket. I cut away all large fat areas and cut the chuck roasts into the two sections with different grain directions before cutting it into 2" thick pieces across/perpendicular to the grain. I then cure the meat for five or six days using the brining recipe shown below. If you are curing brisket that is thicker than 2" you can cure the meat for seven or eight days. That produces raw corned beef. You can choose to use either brisket or chuck roasts.
If I am using chuck roasts, I apply McCormicks® bromelain based meat tenderizer to all surfaces of the raw corned beef, and then I apply the pastrami rub mixture to all surfaces of the meat. The meat is refrigerated overnight and then smoked in an electric smoker at 250°F for two hours.
The meat is then allowed to finish cooking/steaming using the aluminum foil drip pan of steaming water (plus pour two cups of boiling water into the drip pan in the smoker, and more later, to keep the steaming happening) placed in the smoker, to a final internal meat temperature of 205°F. Note that I use a wireless thermometer to monitor the internal temperature of the meat.
If the temperature increase of the meat stalls at around 190°F you can increase the temperature of your smoker to either 325°F, or lower if your maximum temperature is like my smoker, 275°F. Why would it stall? Because the extra moisture in the meat from brine curing is partially evaporating and the cooling effect of that can very much slow down the temperature increase until the "excess" water has evaporated. Alternatively, if you have an Instant Pot® pressure steamer you can stop the smoking step at 190°F and then use the Instant Pot® pressure steamer to complete the cooking of the pastrami. That will promote keeping/making it moist and tender, which is highly desirable.
The final step is to cut very thin slices (1/8th inch thick or less) of the pastrami, cross grain.
Use the hot pastrami slices with partially melted Swiss cheese on top to make the sandwiches on (optionally grilled) rye bread slices that have been spread with brown deli style mustard. Now you have a delicious hot pastrami and Swiss on rye sandwich. Serve a Kosher dill pickle and some potato chips on the side. Serve cold beer or some other cold carbonated beverage.
You can also make either a Reuben sandwich or a variation of a Rachel sandwich (usually made with corned beef or turkey), the first using warm (but not wet) sauerkraut and thousand island dressing (instead of mustard) and the latter using room temperature coleslaw (moist but not dripping wet) along with thousand island dressing.
I hope you make this pastrami. It looks like it takes a long time and is difficult to make, but in reality it is easy ... there are simply multiple steps, but you do need to have various essential items like a kitchen scale, an electric smoker and a pressure steamer to make great pastrami, and a wireless thermometer is important too, as is a vacuum sealer. If necessary you can use an instant read thermometer and aluminum foil wrapping instead of vacuum sealing. You can also steam slices of pastrami on a stovetop steamer if you lack a pressure steamer, but the final product will be somewhat less tender and less moist. You also need to be careful in doing all measurements of weight and volume of ingredients. The prize at the end is more than worth the effort. Just think of the bragging rights you will have as a fine chef!
Now let's proceed to make pastrami with the first of six steps ...
Step One: Prepare the meat to be cured
Ingredients:
5 lb. beef brisket (or two 3 lb. chuck roasts, defatted, separated into sections by grain direction, and sliced vertically across the grain into 2" thick pieces)
Directions:
If you are using beef brisket, cut away the exterior layer of fat and silver skin, but do not cut out any interior fat layer. If you are using chuck roast cut away all large areas of fat and any sinew/silver skin. Note that removing the fat and silver skin from brisket is a tedious task due to the large area of the meat surface that is affected. Use a very sharp knife. I use a boning knife as it is easier to push it under the fat/silver skin layer due to its long thin shape and sharp point. Chuck roast may also have some silver skin that must be cut off if it covers a meat surface that will need to be penetrated with curing brine.
Weigh the meat after fat/silver skin removal. You will want to make the correct amount/concentration of brine, where the amount of curing agent is matched to the real weight of the meat being cured, not to the weight shown on the supermarket package, and not the weight before you remove fat. Otherwise, you will use too much Prague #1 curing salt, and that is not a good idea. Specifically, you risk making the brine toxic. I typically wear latex or nitrile gloves when working with curing agents.
Put the prepared meat into the refrigerator on a plate.
Step Two: Make the curing brine
If you look at a number of recipes and recommendations for curing meat with Prague #1 pink curing salt via the Internet, you will find a confusing mess of apparently conflicting recommendations. Why? The pink curing salt is used in dry brining and wet brining, the meats are different, the overall recipes differ, like in brine/water volume, and the final end point for sodium nitrite content in the meat, per the FDA, is a range, not a specific quantity.
Based on the actual weight of the meat to be cured, (and using a liquid volume of one gallon of water), you will use pink curing salt (Prague #1) at the rate of about 1/2 teaspoon (2.9 grams) per pound of meat. That translates to about 14.6 grams of curing salt for 5 pounds of meat in one gallon of water. Note that the most accurate way to measure the curing salt is by weighing it, not by using a measuring spoon, so use a good kitchen scale that can measure weight in grams. Why? The weight per unit volume of pink curing salt varies considerably based on what brand you purchase (anywhere from 4 to 6 grams per teaspoon, due partly to grain size), so measuring something as critical as pink curing salt should be done by weight, not volume.
Note that the FDA specifies final cured meat content of 120 to 200 parts per million of sodium nitrite, depending on the type of meat product, which is a narrow but comfortable range allowing some variation in the amount of pink curing salt to be used in one gallon of water for five pounds of meat. Note that pink curing salt is only 6.25% sodium nitrite. Note that meat is around 60 to 70 percent water. Note also that most of the sodium nitrite remains in the brine after curing the meat, and part of it is consumed when it reacts chemically with the myoglobin (a protein) in the meat, turning that amount of pink curing salt into nitric oxide, which is non-toxic at the amounts produced during curing, and turning the meat pink in color. Thus, the amount of pink curing salt recommended in this recipe for making pastrami is estimated to be about mid-range of the FDA specification in final sodium nitrite content. You can refer to the Food Nirvana recipe for making Canadian bacon for a detailed description of calculating the right amount of curing salt to use to wet brine cure five pounds of meat in one gallon of water starting with the FDA specification in parts per million (ppm) and converting that into the grams of pink curing salt to use in wet brining.
The final weight of the meat to be cured becomes part of the calculation for amount of pink curing salt to be used. That is the reason the list of ingredients below shows a variable amount of pink curing salt, for you don't actually know the weight of the meat until you have removed any excess or otherwise unwanted fat. In short, weigh the meat accurately after fat removal and adjust the exact amount of pink curing salt you use based on the exact weight of the meat.
Kosher salt content of the curing brine is recommended to be 3% to 6% of the weight of the water, so the Kosher salt should weigh about 5 ounces for one gallon of water. Kosher salts vary a lot in weight per unit volume based on crystal size and shape, so it is important to weigh the salt. Consider that salt retains water, so having the right amount of salt determines in part the moisture content of the cured meat, as well as how salty the meat will taste after cooking.
Digression: One might assume that doubling the weight of the meat would require the amount of curing agent to also be doubled. That turns out to be a bad mistake, for that much curing agent, even with the meat weight doubled, creates a toxic brine. Instead, if you double the weight of the meat, but use the same brine volume, then increase the amount of curing agent by only 25%, or about an additional one half of a teaspoon (or 2.8 grams). The reason for this limit is based on the fact that the amount of curing agent to be used is determined by the combined weight of the water and the meat, and the calculation method, which is not provided here, appears to be nonlinear. My advice? Don't double the amount of meat unless you also double the rest of the brine and cure the pieces of meat in separate containers/bags.
Ingredients:
Curing:
1 gallon of water
2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons (or 14.6 grams for 5 pounds of beef) of pink curing salt (Prague #1), based on the actual final weight of the meat to be cured plus the weight of the one gallon of water [about 2.9 grams per pound of meat when brining in one gallon of water]
¼ cup of granulated sugar
10 garlic cloves, chopped or sliced thin
2/3 to 1 cup of Kosher salt (You want the Kosher salt to be around 6% of the weight of the water. Kosher salts vary in weight per unit volume due to crystal size and shape. 6% of 8.34 pounds/gallon of water is about 5 weight ounces. Weigh the salt to get the right amount.)
Seasonings: (If you are curing two chuck roasts then increase the seasoning ingredient amounts shown next by 25%)
2 teaspoons each of black peppercorns, yellow mustard seeds and coriander seeds
1 teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons of whole allspice
2 teaspoons of ground nutmeg
2 whole cinnamon sticks, broken up into around eight smaller pieces (or 1 tbsp. of ground cinnamon)
6 bay leaves, crumbled
2 teaspoons of whole cloves
2 teaspoons of ground ginger
Directions:
Mix the seeds and seasoning powders and pieces of cinnamon stick and bay leaves in a bowl. You will use half of that mixture when you brine/cure the brisket/chuck roasts, and the other half to store in a canning jar for future use the next time you want to make pastrami. (But if you are making corned beef instead of pastrami you can use the other half of the seasonings after the curing step, when you simmer the corned beef in water for 3 to 4 hours before serving it).
Combine the water, pink curing (Prague #1) salt, sugar, chopped garlic cloves and Kosher salt in a two gallon pot.
Put the seasonings into the larger of the two Magic Bullet® mixer containers, then mix for 30 seconds. That will partially crush the seeds in the seasonings. Alternatively, you can seal the seasonings in a Ziploc® freezer bag, spread them out roughly flat, and pound them briefly with the flat side of a kitchen mallet. Add half of the partially crushed seasonings to the pot. Set the other half of the seasonings aside in a tightly closed small canning jar to use at a later time. Put a label on the jar to identify the contents.
Bring the brine to a simmer on high heat, stirring until the sugar and salts have dissolved. Remove the pot from the heat and allow the brine to cool to room temperature.
Refrigerate the brine for a few hours until it is completely chilled.
Use a volume marked pitcher to measure the exact volume of brine. You will want to distribute the brine to the different curing bags based on the comparative weights of the meat in each bag. If all you are curing is one beef brisket you can skip this step, unless you have cut the brisket into halves to make handling of the bag, brine and meat easier.
Step 3: Cure the beef
Put the refrigerated beef into one or more 10" x 16" vacuum sealing bags. Alternatively, you can use two, one gallon Ziploc® freezer bags for a beef brisket that has been cut in half, or two or more, one gallon Ziploc® freezer bags if the meat you are using started as two chuck roasts.
Hold the vacuum sealing bag(s) [or Ziploc® freezer bag(s)] vertically and add the chilled curing brine/seasonings. Divide the brine volume across the bags based on the weight of the meat in each bag. For example, if one bag contains 2 pounds of meat and the second bag contains 3 pounds of meat, then the first bag should get about 40% of the brine and the second bag should get about 60% of the brine. Then, let's assume the actual brine volume is one gallon, (or a bit more) due to added solids and dissolved salts and sugar. 40% of one gallon is about 51 volume ounces of brine, and 60% of one gallon is about 77 volume ounces of brine. So that approximation is how you determine how much of the brine to put into each bag.
Vacuum seal the meat and brine in the 10" x 16" vacuum seal bag(s). Alternatively, expel the air from the Ziploc® freezer bag(s) by partially folding them and then close/seal them manually.
Refrigerate the vacuum sealed meat and brine (or the sealed Ziploc® bags of meat and brine) and let the brining happen for 5 or 6 days. Turn the bag(s) over once each day. Note: If you are using Ziploc® bags you will want to put them in disposable aluminum foil pans with a 1" high border all the way around, to protect your refrigerator in case brine leakage occurs from the Ziploc® bags.
Note that the penetration of the brine and curing agent in particular is usually about 1/4" per day, starting from all surfaces to the inside center of the meat. So if the meat is 2" thick at its thickest part, then the brine should be at the center of the meat in four days. But that is a highly variable result, such that providing an extra day or two to know for certain the curing agent has penetrated all the way to the center of the meat is a smart idea. That is why you cure the meat in this recipe for five to six days, not four days.
Note, however, that allowing some extra time for curing the meat does not mean there is no upper limit. Do not exceed six days as additional time can increase the salt content of the cured meat, and that is not desirable, for it will taste too salty. Also, you only want enough sodium nitrite to migrate into the meat to reach the center of the meat and cure it. Conversely, you do not want inadequate penetration of the meat.
All it takes is one bad experience where not enough penetration occurred and you will recognize with serious disappointment that you cannot trust the uncured area to be safe to eat later or to look right or taste right after the remaining steps in making the pastrami. Incomplete curing of the middle of the meat is indicated by it having a dull light brown color instead of the expected pink color. In short, don't make that mistake.
Well ... what can you do if the meat you are curing is very thick, like 4"? How can you be sure the brine/curing agent has penetrated all the way into the center of the meat? The answer is to inject brine into the center of the meat at the start of the curing period. A brine injector looks like some old time hypodermic syringe made of metal, and it is strong enough for you to apply manual pressure to force brine inside the meat. I inject through the middle of the meat if I have a tube of meat, like pork loin used to make Canadian bacon, or an eye round roast of 4" or more in diameter. The injection guarantees that the curing agent will be all the way in to the center of the meat, but you still have to allow plenty of time for the curing period based on what is appropriate for the actual thickness of the meat. Think of the brine injection like an insurance policy, not a replacement for a slowly penetrating brine cure.
After five days (or six days or possibly longer by another day or two, to be certain of the cure, especially if the meat is more than 2" thick) of brining, put the vacuum sealed bag(s) [or Ziploc® bag(s)] into the sink, then cut or open it/them and drain off the brine. Then rinse the meat.
You now have raw, brine cured, corned beef. No further directions are provided in this recipe if all you want to make is corned beef. Refer to the Food Nirvana recipe for making corned beef.
Put the raw corned beef into a pot somewhat larger than the height of the combined pieces of meat and cover it with cold water.
Refrigerate it for 8 hours, changing the water once, after 4 hours. That removes excess surface area salt absorbed by the meat during brining.
Thinking ahead: Buy rye bread (seeded or not), deli style brown mustard, sliced Swiss cheese, Kosher pickles and potato chips. Also good beer, and chill it.
Step 4: Make the rub that will be used to coat the raw corned beef.
Ingredients:
To tenderize corned beef made from chuck roasts:
About 2 tbsp. of McCormick's® Meat Tenderizer at the rate of one teaspoon per pound of meat
Rub seasonings: (You will want to increase (by 25%) the rub seasoning ingredient amounts shown below if you have multiple pieces of cured meat, i.e., chuck roasts.) The reason is that you have increased the total surface area of the meat to be coated with the rub.
1 tablespoon of whole black peppercorns
2 tablespoons of whole coriander seeds
1 tablespoon of coriander powder
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of paprika
1 tablespoon of garlic powder
1 tablespoon of onion powder
½ teaspoon of whole yellow (white) mustard seeds
Directions:
If you started with chuck roasts, then apply the meat tenderizer all over the surfaces of the raw corned beef.
If you do not have a Magic Bullet® mixer then put the peppercorns, coriander seeds and mustard seeds into a Ziploc® freezer bag, seal it flat with the air expelled, then break up the seeds with the flat side of a kitchen mallet. Then combine the cracked seeds with the rest of the seasonings in a bowl and mix them with a spoon. Then skip the next two instructions.
If you have a Magic Bullet® mixer, then put all of the rub ingredients into a bowl. If you had to increase the ingredient amounts then use the larger of the two Magic Bullet® containers in the next step to hold the seasonings.
Spoon them into a Magic Bullet® mixer container and run the mixer briefly (about 30 to 60 seconds) until the whole seeds are "cracked" but not completely powdered.
Apply the rub liberally to the cured meat and press it into the entire surface of the meat by hand to help it adhere.
Refrigerate the (pieces of) meat overnight on a rack (or racks) placed on a disposable aluminum foil pan(s). Smaller pieces of meat should be placed against each other on a rack to make what looks like a larger piece of meat.
Step 5: Smoke the cured, rub coated beef
Set up your electric smoker:
Put a disposable aluminum foil drip pan on a low smoker shelf. That will help keep the smoker clean, collect some liquid from the smoking meat, and help with the later steaming process.
Decide what type of wood you want to use for smoking the meat. Hickory chips are a good choice, as are apple, maple or cherry, or a mixture.
Put 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the wood chips into the smoke tray and put it into the smoker.
Preheat the smoker to 275°F.
Once the chips are smoldering/making smoke, reduce the smoker temperature setting to 250°F.
Put the rack(s) of cured rubbed meat into the smoker on a high shelf/shelves, and be sure you that put a disposable empty aluminum foil tray/pan on a low shelf to catch any rub or drippings that fall from the meat during smoking. There will be a lot of liquid and that is good as it will start part of the steaming process. If you fail to do that, the meat drippings from the smoking process will soil the interior of your smoker.
If you used chuck roasts, insert a wireless thermometer into the center of one of the smaller pieces the meat. If you lack a wireless thermometer you will have to use an instant read thermometer to periodically (every fifteen to thirty minutes) check the internal temperature of the meat.
Smoke the meat for two hours. Then add two cups of boiling water to the foil tray/pan used to collect meat drippings, then close the smoker door, to create a steam environment. Note that there will already be some water from drippings in the foil tray/pan. About 30 minutes later, check the water level and add boiling water as necessary to continue steaming the meat.
If you don't have an Instant Pot® pressure steamer, you should smoke and steam the meat in the smoker until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 205°F. Add water as needed to keep up the supply of steam. If the temperature increase stalls once it is around 190 degrees F, then increase the smoker temperature to 275 degrees F (or higher, like 325 degrees F, if your smoker temperature maximum is above 275 degrees F). If you plan to use an Instant Pot® pressure steamer later then you can end the smoking process when the internal temperature of the meat is 190 degrees F. Why? Pressure steaming will take care of the remainder of the cooking.
The smaller pieces of meat will be done first, so remove them when they reach 205°F (or at 190°F if you will later be using an Instant Pot® pressure steamer).
Insert the wireless thermometer into the center of one of the large pieces of meat. Or use the instant read thermometer periodically. Continue the smoking/steaming process until the meat is at 205°F, or 190°F if you will later be using an Instant Pot® pressure steamer. Be sure to keep water in the steaming tray in the smoker.
Remove the large pieces of meat from the smoker and allow all of the meat to rest/cool to room temperature for about 30 minutes.
Vacuum seal all of the pieces of meat once they have cooled to room temperature and then refrigerate them. Alternatively, wrap the pieces of meat tightly in aluminum foil and refrigerate them.
I wondered if I could pressure steam smoked pastrami to force an increase in meat moisture and tenderness and the answer is yes. Why? To make the meat juicy and tender, which is exactly what you want. The original recipes I found did not call for pressure steaming so I proceeded according to the directions given above. But I also bought an Instant Pot® pressure steamer and I used it with the pastrami produced by this recipe, with great results. Also, I learned from a different source that steaming was the last step in making the great pastrami at the former Katz's delicatessen in New York city.
Here are the Instant Pot® instructions: Add one cup of beer (or water) to the bottom of the Instant Pot® (if your pressure steamer has a volume of 6 liters use one cup of liquid. Double that if the volume is 8 liters.) and place the smoked pastrami on a rack in the Instant Pot®. Cook at high pressure for 45 minutes. Turn the steamer off and use the steam release lever/tab to exhaust all of the steam, until the steamer is no longer pressurized. Take off the lid and check to see if the meat is moist and tender all the way through. If not, then repeat the pressure steaming of the meat for ten to twenty minutes longer or until it is moist and tender internally. I did not find it necessary to do a second round of pressure steaming.
If you lack a pressure steamer then proceed to the next step, noting that you will want to steam the thin slices of pastrami in a stovetop steamer before making sandwiches.
Step 6: Serve the pastrami
Refrigerate the wrapped or vacuum sealed/pressure steamed pastrami for a few hours. Note that if you try to cut it immediately after smoking or after pressure steaming it will tend to break apart rather than cut into nice slices. The idea is the pressure steaming process makes the pastrami very tender and very moist. Chilling the meat first will help it hold together later during slicing.
Look at the meat and notice which way the grain is running.
Use a wood cutting board and cut the pastrami by hand (using a large, sharp knife) into thin slices, 1/8" thick, cross grain. Alternatively, use a good electric meat slicer like I do and you can (maybe) cut slices even thinner than 1/8th inch thick, which is very nice.
Rewrap any remaining piece of pastrami with aluminum foil (or vacuum seal it). Then put it into the refrigerator (along with any other wrapped/sealed pieces of pastrami that you will use later).
If you used a pressure steamer the pastrami slices are now ready to eat. Otherwise steam the pastrami slices for 15 minutes in a stovetop steamer. Actually, you may choose to steam the meat even if you used a pressure steamer, simply to heat the refrigerated meat.
You want to serve the pastrami hot with the rye bread, deli style brown mustard and partially melted Swiss cheese.
You might want to grill the rye bread first (Yes, you do), using a thin spread of butter on one side of both pieces, and grill them in a medium hot skillet, until the grilled surfaces are slightly crisp but not burned.
The final steps described below are for making a grilled pastrami and Swiss cheese sandwich on rye bread. If you are instead making a Reuben sandwich or a Rachel sandwich then do not put mustard on the slices of rye bread. You will instead use thousand island dressing, and warm (but not wet) sauerkraut for the Reuben sandwich, or room temperature coleslaw that is not dripping wet for the Rachel sandwich. For both of those types of sandwiches you do not want the sauerkraut or the coleslaw filling to make the rye bread wet.
Pile the thin slices of pastrami for one sandwich on a plate and put the Swiss cheese on top, then microwave it for 30 to 60 seconds to partially melt the cheese (This also heats the pastrami). Then make the sandwich, using the grilled rye bread with the mustard spread on the soft surfaces of both pieces. Cut the sandwich in half using a partially diagonal cut. Repeat these steps for any additional sandwiches.
As a last step you might choose to microwave one or more cut sandwiches briefly (15 to 30 seconds each) to make everything warm or hot.
Serve each sandwich on a plate with a Kosher dill pickle and potato chips to the side.
Cold beer is the perfect beverage to accompany this fine sandwich. Be sure to serve it, or at the least serve some cold carbonated beverage.
Enjoy! You have truly earned this delightful treat.