For the corned beef/pastrami I bought an 8 lb brisket flat, one half of which had more of a fat cap than the other. I cut it in half, leaving the fat on the fattier half I'd later use for pastrami, and trimmed all of the fat off the half I'd end up leaving as corned beef. But to start I cured them both using the corned beef recipe linked above, including the optional pickling spice mix (bought premix from Penzey's), brown sugar and garlic. I removed them from the cure after 6 days and soaked them in water overnight to desalinate them. I then braised the corned beef and made
hash (pic doesn't do justice, meant to take one when browned up and plated w/ eggs but forgot). I then applied the rub to the pastrami and left that in the fridge uncovered overnight to set up. There are two options for pastrami: smoke all the way to 203 and eat immediately, or smoke to 150, remove from cooker, wrap for up to a week, then steam to completion. It was SB Sunday and intent was to cook to completion but it stalled in no-man's-land at 180 and stayed there for 4 hours. So I took it off, cooled then wrapped it, and steamed it the following Saturday. I honestly thought it was going to be a disaster but
it was awesome, one of the best things I've ever made.
For the bacon, started with a
raw 4 lb pork belly (I do two at a time) which I put in a bag and
cured for 5 days. I smoked it for
three hours to 150, then let it cool in fridge overnight before
slicing and
sizzling up in a skillet. Stuff is like crack. Have used it in everything but favorite was in a simple pasta carbonara recipe. I also reserve all of the rendered fat when I fry it and use whenever I cook eggs, potatoes, etc.
Not a curing project but for good measure here are some pics from smoking turkey breasts, which I've also done a lot of lately instead of buying cold cuts:
raw -
rubbed after 4 hour brine -
smoking on BGE -
sliced
