EZ Corned and Pastramied Beef Brisket on the GM Daniel Boone

My first sandwich is made on toasted rye bread and then I added a generous amount of the pastramied beef brisket, three slices of baby Swiss cheese, and a big helping of horseradish sauce. This is probably my most favorite sandwich.

My local Kroger store had some Corned Beef Brisket Flats on sale so I purchased 4 of them for my treat. Got home and found out that they were the points which is about too fatty for good pastramied brisket. Took them back and they called another Kroger store in the next town and found me some flats. Wife picked them up and when I opened them up, I found whole briskets that had been cut in half diagonally. Man, I can’t win!

Anyway, I started with the 4 purchased corned beef brisket halves  and then trimmed them up of most of their fat.

The cuts of meat were not as good as I usually get but I will make them work. Had to cut off way too much fat with these lousy briskets.

Since the purchased corned beef brisket is bathing in salt water and brine, which will work great for something like corn beef and cabbage but not good for making into pastrami, I need to de-salt the meat somewhat for my treat. I do this in this container for about 24 hours changing the water 3-4 times during this period to remove the excess salt.

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This is the meat ready to go on the cooker. I piled on a rub consisting of large butcher cut black pepper, coriander, brown sugar, and a few other spices.

I loaded my meat into my Green Mountain Daniel Boone and set the cooker for maximum smoke and ran it that way for the first 3 hours and then turned it up to 290 degrees to finish my cook. 

I took the meat off of the cooker at an internal of about 185 degrees and it looked pretty good. 

Put all the meat thru my slicer.

The finished meat looked ok but the slices were not very wide.

We kept out enough meat for a couple of sandwiches and then vacuum packed the balance for the freezer.

Ready for the freezer.

Start of my sandwich on toasted rye bread. 

I added a small tomato salad and had a fine lunch.

Hot and Fast brisket on the Cobb Supreme

This is the last cook I have done on my new Cobb Supreme cooker and it came out quite well. 

Added a baked potato and some mac and cheese and a cottage cheese salad and had a fine meal.

The brisket flat weighed 8.99 pounds and after trimming, I had a net weight of 7.89 pounds. I sprinkled on a moderate amount of butcher cut black pepper and then added my favorite beef rub about 45 minutes before the fire.

I started with 20 all hardwood briquets and then added two fairly large hickory chunks for my smoke wood. After the cooker got on temperature, I added my temperature probe and started my cook. Since it was raining, I had to move my cook to my covered front porch.

Cooker started dropping temp about 90 minutes into the cook so I added 8 more all hardwood briquets. I also added more smoke wood.

At about 2 hours and 10 minutes into the cook, and with my internal temperature of the meat at about 178F degrees, I wrapped the meat in heavy duty foil with some liquid goodies as I will braise it for the last period.

The meat reached an internal of about 208-211F internal in about another hour and 10 minutes and I took it off the cooker as it was done.

The total time for this cook was a little under 3-1/2 hours. 

These higher temp shorter brisket and pork butt cooks do give up a little on the bark but this one still had enough bark to add the flavor I wanted. Had a nice smoke ring for a short cook.

That is a nice plate of meat.

Meat came out nice and juicy and very tender. I took it to about 206F to 211F internal as this is needed to get a hot and fast brisket done.

I kept the cooker temperature at about 265-285F measured at the top of the dome lid for the duration of this short cook.

Here are some later pictures of my brisket sandwich lunch.

I like to pile on at least two layers of meat, add some horseradish sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion on a good egg bun for my sandwich. Then I want it served with some chips and a good dessert.

Let's eat! 

Corned & Pastramied Beef Brisket Flat on the Davy Crockett

How about a Reuben sandwich? Take a couple of slices of fresh rye bread, and add a generous amount of corned and pastramied brisket flat slices, slap on about 4 slices of baby Swiss cheese, add a layer of homemade kraut, a big dollop of Thousand Island dressing, and just fry it up in a skillet,  and my friend, it’s about as good as it gets!

We use a lot of this meat and make it several times a year but always do it from scratch (corn our own beef) until this week. I decided to try it with corned beef brisket flats  purchased from our local Kroger store. 

Purchased four of the corned beef flats that weighed around 3.40 pounds each at a price of $2.98 a pound from Kroger. My total was 13.51 pounds. 

First step was to de-brine them to get some of the salt out of the meat as we didn’t plan to cook this meat with a big pot of veggies or add the meat to a pot of cabbage where the salt would be needed. I soaked two of them at a time in the fridge for about 9 hours changing the water about 3 times to remove some of the salt. 

I made up my pastrami rub with the following spices. My recipe is for 6-7 pounds of meat. 

9 TBL Black peppercorns (coursely cracked)

3 TBL Coriander seed (coursely cracked)

3 TBL Turbinado sugar 

1 tsp Granulated garlic

1 tsp Paprika

1 tsp Montreal Steak Seasoning

I dried the meat after the de-brining process and added a heavy amount of rub to each piece and put the meat into freezer bags and then into the fridge for an overnight stay. 

The meat ready for the cooker.

Brought the Davy Crockett pellet cooker around to my cooking patio and fired it up and set it to a good smoking temperature of 165 degrees which will produce additional smoke for the first couple of hours. Later, I moved it up to 280 degrees to finish the cook. 

Got an early start and had the meat on the cooker before daylight. 

I just removed them from the cooker as they reached a finish temperature of 185 internal degrees and of course, they didn’t all come off at the same time. The cook took about  7-1/2 hours total.

You know, for a quicker method for this treat, this worked out nicely. While not quite as good as starting from scratch in my opinion, it is still very good. Sure be better if a fellow could purchase larger corned beef flats to start with. 

Brisket and Ribs on the Weber Ranch Kettle

A while back, I purchased a couple of those “prime” full packer cut briskets from Costco and hadn’t cooked one yet and I also had a couple of nice brisket flats to cook from and for a neighbor so a cook was born. And since I am always looking for an excuse to use the Ranch Kettle, I decided to just add a slab of ribs to kinda fill it up a little and give it a go. 

I trimmed the briskets and then injected them and added a rub and placed them into bags for an overnight stay in the fridge. 

Early the next morning at about 5:00am, I got the meat out of the bags, and then prepped a slab of St. Louis cut spares, and placed it all on the kettle.

Was a cold and rainy day for most of the cook and the Ranch Kettle did a fine job with this smaller load of meat. 

Wrapped the ribs at about 3-1/2 hours into the cook. I also wrapped the briskets with Rick’s Sinful Marinade as soon as they were ready and completed the cook in about 8-1/4 hours. 

The results of the cook and it did come out quite well. That cooker is a blast to run!!

Brisket on the Cobb Grill

Wanted to try a Brisket on the Cobb with it’s small 12” in diameter cooking grid and the wife found me a nice brisket flat that weighed just 5.24 pounds that looked pretty good. This piece of meat is still 4-5” wider than the cooking grid but I think it will work without cutting it into a couple of pieces with my beer can trick.

Trimmed it of some excess fat.

Wife injected it with some Cattleprod from BPS.

Rubbed with a heavy sprinkle of butcher cut black pepper and then a moderate sprinkle of SGH rub.

Bagged it and placed it into the fridge for an overnight stay. 

On cooking day, I placed the beer can in the center of that small round grid and then draped the brisket over it. As soon as my grill was on temp at about 300-325 degrees, I carried it out and placed it on the Cobb. I also added large foil packet of Jack Daniels white oak barrel chips to the fire at this time. 

Finally a cool morning at 54 degrees and I got the brisket started at about 5:30am.

About two hours into the cook as I added more charcoal and wood chips. 

At about three hours into the cook and with an internal temp of about 175 degrees, I wrapped the brisket with about 3oz some liquid goodies. 

Around five hours into the cook, I had a probe tender brisket at about 202-205 internal degrees so I pulled it off and let it rest about 45 minutes before I sliced it for the table. 

Sure had a nice smoke ring. 

I made up a “Texas BLT Sandwich” which consists of brisket, lettuce, and tomato but also added some Swiss cheese and horsey sauce. 

Sure made a nice lunch.