Montreal Smoked Meat


 

Shawn W

TVWBB Emerald Member
Pics Here, click the 2005-08-22 Montreal Smoked Meat link.

I brined a 7lb brisket flat for 10 days in solution then drained and rinsed and put a heavy spinkle of McCormick's Montreal Steak Spice all over. I then cooked it on the WSM in the 235F zone for 6 hours to 170F internal using the Minion Method, then around 265F for another 2.5 hours to 190F internal. I sprinkled maple and hickory wood chips throughout the briquettes and added several handfulls throughout the cook. The brisket rested for an hour in foil before slicing. Served on rye bread, with dill pickles and cheap yellow mustard.

It had a nice flavor all the way through the meat, overall I'm fairly pleased but there are a couple of changes I will make for next time. The stuff is supposed to be pink through and through but as you can see from the pics the only pink was smoke ring. Next time I will try replacing 1 Tbsp of brine kosher salt with Tender Quick.

The brisket could have used a little longer in the WSM, it was still a little bit tough. To reheat the second day I placed a chunk in tightly wrapped foil with a bit of water and took it to 200F internal in a 260F oven. It worked well, the reheated meat was super tender (sandwich pics).

The brisket was a tad salty as well so I will make a saltless Montreal Steak rub to be applied before smoking instead of using the McCormick's which has salt listed as the number one ingrediant. I might even put a bit of sugar in the dry rub.


Brine
*******
20oz water
12oz de-alcoholized red wine
1/2C Tbsp Kosher salt, take away 1 Tbsp
1/2C Turbinado sugar

Bring brine to a boil then cool below 40F.

Add 2 Tbsp McCormick's Montreal Steak Spice to cryovac bag and add cooled brine.


Brining Method
****************
Nipped a corner of the cryovac open, just big enough to get seasoning and brine into bag.

Drained blood from brisket cryovac.

Put Montreal Steak Spice into cryovac with brisket.

Added brine to brisket in cryovac.

Carefully used my vacuum sealer to reseal the cryovac and get as much air out as possible. My sealer is the FoodSaver 1060 and it has an instant seal feature which stops the vacuum and seals the bag.
After the first pass, I gathered remaining air into one corner of the bag then pricked the air pocket with a pin near the seam. Then it was easy to gently squeeze out remaining air and reseal the corner AHEAD of the pin hole using seal only function (no vacuum). I had not quite 1 tbsp of air left in cryovac after doing this.

Put the cryovac in the fridge at 37F for 10 days and flipped it over once or twice per day.
 
Originally posted by Christopher:
... I have been looking for a montreal smoked recipe for the last few days. I have had no luck finding Tender Quick in Toronto, where have you found it?...
I spent some time in Montreal this year and consumed a bit of Montreal Smoked Meat, I even visted the famed
Schwartz's. Just had to try and make some. You can find another recipe on the TVWBB in this thread.

I found Morton's Tender Quick at my local Sobeys.

Good luck with your project and I hope to find out your thoughts on using the dry cure approach. I have exposed my email address in my TVWBB public profile.
 

 

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