Corned beef is cured, a packer is just removed from the beast and packed.
Corned beeves can be flats or points usually for the Feast of St. Patrick grocery stores will be double stacked with the “pre corned” variety. They are just fine but, throw the silly little package of “seasoning” away, it’s floor sweeping rubbish and use fresh goods to season.
If you want a real taste treat, do it all yourself! My sister in law did a feast at our parish for almost twenty years Corning the briskets from the “Cooks Illustrated” method, typically we did three full packers two large cauldrons on the Friday before, about seven hours cooking following the week of rubbing and turning. Feast for 60 with all the sides, “Black and Tans” Brussels sprouts, cabbage, baby potatoes, carrots, the whole shooting match! It was a great feast, the prep team on the afternoon before enjoyed hearty glasses of Scotch and laughter while setting the undercroft up for the celebration.
Sadly, We were exhausted after that many years with maybe two people helping so, we said we would be very willing to show how we did it and not one soul stepped up and it’s not being done anymore!
Bruce, PM me and I will shoot the recipe to you, it’s WELL worth the effort! I’ll be doing one again for the family this year.
I don’t use any pink salt so, it does not have the reddish hue but, the flavor is heavenly!
Brad is right, if you ve got the freezer space, get packers when they are “reasonable” and keep one or two around. I just used the last one I had on New Years Day and have not re stocked yet!