The Pastrami Experiment

[John Bridgman]

OK, continuing from http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?27316-Pastrami-question&p=359414&viewfull=1#post359414 but with pictures now...

~6 pound eye of round, cut in half-ish with the thicker part butterflied. Cure from a jerky kit (couldn't find #1 or TQ) mixed with black pepper, coriander, brown sugar & garlic powder, then left in the fridge for a week.

Pics start as it comes out of the fridge :

Cure rinsed off, soaked for a few minutes :

Fresh application of coriander & black peppercorns, very poorly cracked :

Into the fridge overnight to dry, then on the WSM 18.5 at 220-ish with water in the pan. Off at 130 in the thickest part, ~90 minutes :

Into the fridge again... plan for tomorrow is to take the first chunk and steam to ~165 before slicing, then take second chunk to a higher temperature (several posts suggest 195 as if it was brisket) and slice to see which works better. Tasted a slice before steaming... texture was pretty much what you would expect from eye of round cooked to 130 although colour & taste were quite different.

Starting another one, slightly larger than the first, will tweak timings & temps based on how the first works out. So far no changes planned.

I was a bit more aggressive trimming off the silverskin this time (it was pretty thick on this cut). Best technique I found so far is to poke the tip of a chef's knife under the silverskin for a couple of inches, then twist the blade up so the edge is pulling the silverskin away from the meat and basically scrape the meat off the skin.

I screwed up the butterflying this time so 3 hunks instead of 2 :

Second batch is in the fridge curing now. Will update after steaming & slicing (& eating ).

 

[RCBaughn]

Do you have any problems keeping the rub on the outside of the slices when you cut it? I have read some people using a smear of mustard on pastrami before smoking and also grinding the peppercorns and coriander a bit finer. It looks like some of your coriander and peppercorns are left whole, uncracked. Does that result in any crunchy bits after the smoke or do they soften up afterwards?

 

[John Bridgman]

Everywhere I moved there were peppercorns and coriander seeds falling to the ground and crunching underfoot. Mustard sounds like a good idea.

I didn't have a spice grinder and didn't feel brave enough to use the coffee grinder so wrapped the spices in plastic film and would have pounded them with a mallet but couldn't find the mallet either... so ended up pounding them with an ice cream scoop until they all looked cracked.

I'm hoping the uncracked spices soften up after steaming... if not then all I have to do is look at them hard and they'll fall off anyways

 

[Mike Coffman]

Great looking pastrami John!

 

[John Bridgman]

OK, first attempt at steaming. Didn't have a good steaming basket so put a small loaf pan in a big pot with 1/4" of water, balanced a chunk of meat (maybe 1.5 pounds) on the loaf pan, and let it simmer for a while.

Time / temp was roughly :

- 40F at start (from fridge)
- 100F after 20 mins
- 140F after 40 mins
- 165F after 60 minutes

At 140F (outside temp was probably 160 or higher) a slice from the outside of the chunk started to have the texture I associate with pastrami, and white goop was oozing out of the connective tissue / fat layer in the middle of the chunk which seems like a good thing (it's better that the white goop be outside than inside).

Turned off the heat at 60 mins and let the meat rest for 30 mins before slicing, still in the pot. Texture & taste were both really good; not as tender as a good brisket but closer than I expected.

I will try steaming the next chunk to 195 before slicing (rather than 165-ish for this chunk) but I think this will be tough to beat :

I had to put the sliced meat in the fridge and cover it up so it didn't all get eaten immediately. Actually... back in a minute

 

[RCBaughn]

Thank you so much for documenting your results! I have a brisket curing in the fridge as we speak and it's good to know that I probably need to smear a little mustard to keep it on there. Can't wait to hear how the 195 one turns out too, will give me a better idea of what I need to do with mine come Thursday.

 

[Ed M.]

Great job on the pastrami, John! Looks fantastic.

 

[Jon Des.]

That's outstanding! I was saying after my last brisket pastrami that next time I'm using Eye of Round. How long did you cure?

 

[Derek Stapleton]

The pastrami looks great. I think I see some cure meat in my future.

 

[Mike from Little Rock]

John that looks like it turned out great!!!! I love pastrami, and I could eat a pile of what you have there!!!!! WELL DONE MY FINE FELLOW!!!

 

[Wolgast]

Looks mighty fine! I really need to try this one..

 

[John Bridgman]

That's outstanding! I was saying after my last brisket pastrami that next time I'm using Eye of Round. How long did you cure?

Just under 7 days... thickness was typically 2.5" but 3" at one spot. I was tempted to cure the entire roast without cutting but that would have pushed the cure time past the "best before" date (they were on sale) so I butterflied & cured for a shorter time. I couldn't find any 2 gallon ziploc bags either so cutting the roast in two solved both problems.

Next time I'll cure the whole roast and give it somewhere between 10 and 14 days.

 

[Ted M (FatEddy)]

OK, first attempt at steaming. Didn't have a good steaming basket so put a small loaf pan in a big pot with 1/4" of water, balanced a chunk of meat (maybe 1.5 pounds) on the loaf pan, and let it simmer for a while.

Time / temp was roughly :

- 40F at start (from fridge)
- 100F after 20 mins
- 140F after 40 mins
- 165F after 60 minutes

At 140F (outside temp was probably 160 or higher) a slice from the outside of the chunk started to have the texture I associate with pastrami, and white goop was oozing out of the connective tissue / fat layer in the middle of the chunk which seems like a good thing (it's better that the white goop be outside than inside).

Turned off the heat at 60 mins and let the meat rest for 30 mins before slicing, still in the pot. Texture & taste were both really good; not as tender as a good brisket but closer than I expected.

I will try steaming the next chunk to 195 before slicing (rather than 165-ish for this chunk) but I think this will be tough to beat :

I had to put the sliced meat in the fridge and cover it up so it didn't all get eaten immediately. Actually... back in a minute

Wow, I'm thinking you must have worked here

 

[Steve_A (Tatoosh)]

Nice job! I can only hope my first attempt will look half that good.

 

[John Bridgman]

Wow, I'm thinking you must have worked here

I went to Katz's for the first time earlier this year and I still haven't found a better word to describe the place than "awesome". We ordered two sandwiches between three people and barely finished them. I think it's fair to say that their pastrami sandwich is the motivation for everything I'm doing here...

I was planning to practice on eye of round then switch to brisket but I may stay with eye of round for now. Apparently Katz's uses the navel cut, which I'd never heard of before and have no idea where I can buy one.

That said, I still need to visit Caplansky's in Toronto and Schwartz's in Montreal.

 

[John Bridgman]

OK, so I took another slightly smaller chunk and steamed it to ~190 taking about 60 minutes, possibly that was too fast. Definitely not better than the previous batch (steamed to 165) and I think it was a bit tougher... guessing maybe 20% tougher if I had an accurate tough-o-meter.

Will do the next chunk to 165 again and confirm previous results, but so far "smoke to 130, refrigerate, steam to 165, slice" is looking pretty good.

EDIT..... and just to confirm, I steamed the remaining chunk to ~170F (aiming for 165 but got distracted) and it was definitely more tender than the chunk I steamed to 190F. I think steaming to 165 is the way to go...

The next batch just finished curing so it's going on the smoker this afternoon.

 

[RCBaughn]

When you smoke it to only 130 how long does that take? I would hit that temp in just a few hours running the smoker at 225, way before it would hit that temperature wall around 150 where the meat starts breaking down all the connective tissue. I'm not questioning anything that you do, I think that everything you've done so far looks amazing and I wish I could get those results. I was just hoping to clarify and get some good tips that way mine doesn't turn out as jerky and have to be fed to the dogs.

 

[John Bridgman]

It was pretty fast - about 90 minutes if I remember correctly. What I gathered from reading a whole bunch of posts about cooking eye of round in general is that the cooking time *below* a certain temp (EDIT - apparently 122F, not 124...) is what helps it tenderize, and that above that temp it just gets tougher.

I don't know exactly how to reconcile that with accepted practice for brisket, butts etc... other than my first experiment with EOR cooking it low and slow like I would with a fattier roast, which wasn't particularly successful (big gnarly hunk of meat).

I'm hoping to learn that there are two different things making meat tough -- one being the big, obvious chunks of connective tissue which need low+slow to convert and which mostly convert during the 150-170F range and one being more finely distributed, maybe the muscle fibers themselves, but so far I have only found posts which hint at that rather than coming out and saying it. Will try to dig up a few of the posts I ran across and link them here. Some of them talked about starting with a smoker temp of 150-175 then raising that to 200-225 after an hour or two, to give a longer cook time without raising the internal temp too much.

I don't feel like I fully understand what's going on yet. Lean vs fatty chunks of meat definitely seem to call for different techniques but that's all I'm sure about so far. I should stress that a lot of what I'm posting here may be specific to cuts like eye of round -- the act of pastramification (??) itself just seems to involve "cure, spice, smoke" and the rest is specific to the cut of meat and personal preference.

 

[John Bridgman]

OK, just steaming and slicing the second batch now. Had a moment of panic when I cut off a few slices after smoking but before steaming -- very red colour and funny taste/texture. Realized later that I had never tasted at that point before, so hoped that steaming would help...

... and it did. Everything back to normal again. Steamed to ~165, let rest for a few minutes then sliced. First of 3 chunks stays in the fridge, other 2 chunks get sliced then into the freezer separated into small batches.

Steaming (second chunk):

... and sliced (first chunk):

For the second chunk I only let the meat rest for ~5 minutes before slicing, which obviously wasn't enough since a lot of juices ran out while slicing. Third chunk I'm going to let sit for at least 30 minutes before slicing, hope that will help to keep the juices in the meat (EDIT - yes, even a 20 minute rest made a big difference).

If you're wondering why you don't see pepper & coriander on the outside, it's because I had some leftover jerk paste so smeared that on the outside before smoking instead of the usual peppercorn/coriander mix. Makes it maybe a bit too salty but the heat is actually pretty tasty... although I guess that's why we have hot mustard.

Status :

1st chunk in fridge, ~1/3 eaten already, rest being guarded for Rueben Meatloaf tomorrow
2nd and 3rd chunks sliced, chilled in fridge then frozen in 2 portions each...

 

[Jim McKelvey]

Thanks for documenting your experiences Jon. This is a great help to all us new folk!