Hey everybody I'm Chef Tom
with All Things Barbecue and today we're making pastrami. (splashing and dripping) The first step in making
pastrami is building that brine and getting the brisket into the brine. So we're gonna travel back in
time about six days right now and I'm gonna show you
how to make the brine. Then we'll jump back
forward to present time and we'll get some smoke on
this thing and finish it out. [Dr. Emmett Brown] Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads. First thing we need to do is build our brine for our pastrami, but before we can build the brine, we first need to make the pickling spice. I'm gonna start by
toasting a tablespoon each of black peppercorns,
coriander and mustard seeds. Now this is just over a dry, hot skillet and we'll toast it until
it becomes fragrant. It's a good idea to keep
all those things moving. Move that skillet around so that it's not getting browned only on one side. As soon as these become aromatic
you want to get them out of the hot skillet so they
don't continue to brown. So now what I want to do with these is crack them open to
release those aromas. I'm gonna put these in a napkin here. By the way if you hear a
little extra noise today, there happens to be a block party going on right off the patio. Alright, so we're gonna
cover these with a napkin and then take our cast iron skillet and we just want to
break some of this stuff open a little bit. We could use a little more. Alright, that should do it. Now I'm gonna add the remaining
pickling spice ingredients to the cracked, toasted spices. You got a tablespoon
each of red chili flakes, allspice berries, whole cloves and a teaspoon each of ground ginger and ground mace. Also need a couple of bay leaves, I'm just gonna tear these up. And then last, just one stick of cinnamon that we've kinda broken down into pieces. Alright, that is our pickling spice. Now for the brine I've got
a pot with a gallon of water in it that we're gonna bring to a boil and add the other ingredients. So here, we have a cup
and a half of kosher salt, one cup of white sugar, four teaspoons of pink pickling salt. This is the curing salt from LEM Backwoods with the sodium nitrate in it. And then for our flavoring agents I've got ten cloves of crushed garlic and a quarter cup of that pickling spice. So like I said we just want
to bring this to a boil to dissolve all of that
salt, all of that sugar and awaken all of those flavors and really allow those to bloom. Alright everything's dissolved, so what we want to do now
is cool this mixture down so we can get the brisket into the brine. Now, I've got about eight
and a half pounds of ice which is equivalent to a gallon,
roughly, a gallon of water. So we're gonna put this
in our briner bucket and add the hot liquid to the ice. Now that the brine's
cooled down we can add our brisket to the brine and the brisket that we're
using is the brisket flat. I started out with a whole pack of brisket and trimmed this one out,
if you want to find out how to do that you can check out our Competition Brisket video. So this about seven and a
half pounds of brisket flat and we're gonna see if this is
enough liquid to submerge it. Yep, looks like it's gonna work out perfect here in our briner bucket. And I love using this briner bucket because it's got the plate that allows it to stay completely submerged, all the way underneath so
that nothing is exposed. Now if you're doing this without
one of these briner buckets you just need to make sure
that it stays completely submerged so you're gonna
want to weigh it down with some plates or something like that. Now we're going to put
this into the fridge for about six days, that
should be the perfect amount of time for that cure to penetrate all the way to the center of the meat. [Dr. Emmett Brown] We're
sending you back to the future! Our brisket's been in the
brine for six days now so I'm gonna pull it out
and get it seasoned up so we can get it on the smoker. Before I can get this seasoned up though, I need to run it under some
cold water to make sure we get all that excess salt off of the outside. Now what we have for rub, this is a fifty-fifty mixture of black pepper and
coriander that I've toasted and in order to get this rub to stick we're just gonna add a little
bit of mustard to the surface. Nice thin layer. So you'll notice there's
no salt in this rub today and that's because there's
plenty of salt in that brine. We're gonna get all the saltiness we need from the salt that the brine
has already put into the meat. So a quarter cup each of the black pepper and the coriander, perfect
amount for this nice big flat. We're smoking our pastrami today on the Yoder Smoker's Wichita,
this is an offset smoker. I'm gonna place of these pieces of wood to the front side of the cooker. So what's gonna happen here is that stick's gonna get really hot, so when I roll it over onto the coal bed it ignites instantly and you don't get any of that acrid smoke. If you want to see how we do
that from start to finish, check out our Tips and Techniques video, I'll put the link in the description. So I'm just gonna maintain
this heat at about 250 degrees and then I'll come back and check on it in about three hours, see
how the color's looking. Our pastrami's been on
for about five hours now and the color is right where I want it so at this point I want
to wrap it in foil. If you were to temp this right now, you'd find that it's about 155
degrees internal temperature and we're probably gonna go til about 205. So we've got a ways to go, but that's not really the important thing, what's important now is the color. That nice cherry color
from the cherry wood just adds a little bit of redness to it. It's not terribly dark but that's fine, that's where I want to stop it today. Alright, so two sheets of foil, in case we get a little tear. Gonna wrap this as tight as possible, that way we don't lose any of our bark. Man that pastrami smell,
just coming through, it smells so good. Now I'm gonna go straight
back onto the pit with it and increase the temperature
just a little bit. I'm looking to run the pit around 300 now that we've got this thing wrapped up. It's not taking on any more smoke, all it's doing is sitting in that foil braising and breaking down all of that connective tissue, all of that fat, and cooking it at slightly
higher temperature is going to help expedite that process so that we don't have to wait as long before we eat pastrami. Alright I've been keeping
an eye on this recently, we're about eight and a half hours in now and I feel like we're probably done. I'm testing for doneness by probing this. Temperature wise we're where
we need to be, 205 to 210 and there's not much resistance, which tells me that it's nice and tender. Even just picking this up in the package, you can see just how flexible that is. It's not quite as soft
as a finished brisket would be that was not cured, but because it's been cured it's gonna be a little bit tighter. I promise this thing's still gonna be plenty tender and plenty juicy. It smells amazing. Now you've got a couple
options at this point. If you're eating your pastrami
the day that you prepare it, you'll want to give it
at least 30 to 60 minutes before slicing into it. Let the juices redistribute
throughout that piece of meat. Alternatively, you could totally
cool this down all the way, put it in the fridge, let it get cold and then you can slice it
as thick or thin as you want while it's cold and it'll
hold it's shape better. I'm not gonna wait that
long, we're gonna slice into this thing tonight so we'll
be back in just a little bit. Now when you're slicing
this, what you want to do is find where those
muscle strands are running and they're all going this way, which means we're gonna cut this way. Nice, pink all the way
through to the center which tells us it's fully cured. Just a little tug and it
comes apart, that's perfect. Let's take a look at just how
much juice has been retained. Oh yeah it's coming
right out of the center, so we know it's nice and juicy. Even though this is cured
it's still super tender, check this out. That's the perfect hang on that. The perfect tenderness. And as for the flavor, pastrami perfect. God I love pastrami (laughing). So one more crucial
thing, whatever you do, do not throw out this juice. There is so much flavor in here and you can store these
slices in here for now and reheat it with the juice later. Now I have a feeling
that in the near future I'm gonna need to complete this journey and take you all the way through the end of one of my favorite
sandwiches, the Ruben, but that's another episode. Thanks so much for watching,
if you enjoyed the video please hit the subscribe button and if you have any questions or comments, whether there's anything
you'd like to see me cook, let me know in the
comment section down below and hey, let's be good to one another. For more recipes, tips and techniques, head over to thesauce.atbbq.com. Also, a good deal of the
products featured in these videos are available for purchase at atbbq.com. All Things Barbecue, where
barbecue legends are made.
Ellie Goulding - Lights