food-bev DIY Corned Beef!

it's been a few years and time to Bump this ghost thread!

Just in time to get some meat in the brine!!!!

In looking for this thread, I saw the first meats posted were 2.99/lb... wow, not sure what to contribute current prices to, but today, an untrimmed brisket was $4.49/lb.

Pics coming as soon as I can figure out the DumbPhone.....

or, more likely, operator error....

We will be splitting this with....

[(don't know what to call him anymore...) He's not a Kid anymore, Not really Junior....Not salsakid....]

Evan and his Lovely. That's what I'm going with. They just bought a house in town, will be moving in thru March, so i'm thinking around the time the brine is ready around Mar 17th, this might work for a work party dinner.

Will keep y'all posted!

We got ours started just a few days ago too. It's so much better than the pre-made store bought.
The whole brisket is too much for one meal (actually half is too much too but leftovers...), so I'm splitting it and smoking half of it (pastrami)

Hubby wants a corned beef pie later so I will have to save some aside. We will be catering their moving party with the corned beef dinner. Will be fun!


I am off to trim up the brisket and get it in the brine.

Meat on the left, fat on the right

Only 2 mishaps...
While moving the cryvac bag to the bin, a corner slipped and dumped the "meat juice" on the floor. Grrrrr

Then, when pouring the brine over the meat in a couple 2 gallon zipbags...the bag sloughed over and dumped a couple cups of brine all over the counter and behind the stove. Aaagh! Time for a re-wine.

Well after all the hype, I better get something posted! OK, Here's the story... (I forgot to take pictures as I was stressing because the meal wasn't cooking like it was supposed to.)

I used the OP brine recipe, set in 2 gal zip bags for 8 days. The day of the dinner was moving day for the 'kid. He had peeps helping and I was to bring the food.

Day Of (saturday), I got things in the oven at 9am, 350F. I ended up using a 6" hotel pan for all the meat plus 2 pounds red potatoes, 1 pound carrots and 1 medium cabbage cut into 8ths.

ticktockticktock...this thing was NOT getting cooked! After 4 hours, we had to go as people were starving.

It was edible, but not good. The meat was still tough, larger potatoes not cooked. (WTH???) After we got home with most of the 6" hotel pan of food, I plopped it into a large stock pot and set it on the hob...for another 3 hours!!!! FINALLY it got tender after 7 hours of cooking.

First lesson learned- if there is a set serving time, cook the stuff the day ahead! This dinner re-heats very well.

OK, moving on-
After putting a large portion in the freezer, it was time to make the corned beef pie I promised hubby.

Digging thru the cold container of left-overs, I separated out each item so they could be pulsed in the food processor to different size pieces. The original dish didn't have onions, so I minced a small half onion and microwaved it to cook the onions. Everything else was cooked, basically only needed to be heated in the bake. I did keep one dish of the original CB&C for Hubby.

Homemade butter pastry crust- Blind Bake, Fill with the CB mix, Top Crust and make some cinnamon sugar treats with the leftover pie crust scraps.

Verdict from the 'dude... "delicious!"

PS- Second lesson learned...my oven thermostat is NOT accurate! Figured that out today when it took about 40 minutes to blind bake a crust that should of taken 15 minutes.

Fully cooking to where you want it , then just steaming it to reheat before slicing and serving its a great way to do this. It is how they do Montreal smoked meat and the restaurants in Montreal but it works just as well for pastrami or corned beef.

That pie looks crazy good btw.

I was intending to do some h\m montreal smoked meat but sub beef cheeks for the brisket but that will be on hold for awhile.

Had a recent wild ride with emergency surgery so all the fun stuff is gonna have to wait.

Ashen said:

Fully cooking to where you want it , then just steaming it to reheat before slicing and serving its a great way to do this. It is how they do Montreal smoked meat and the restaurants in Montreal but it works just as well for pastrami or corned beef.

That pie looks crazy good btw.

I was intending to do some h\m montreal smoked meat but sub beef cheeks for the brisket but that will be on hold for awhile.

Had a recent wild ride with emergency surgery so all the fun stuff is gonna have to wait.

Click to expand...

hope you get healed up fast and back in the cooking saddle.

Thanks for the comment. The whole thing got eaten by just the 2 of us, over the course of about 3 days.

I googled the stove and found out the oven temp can be adjusted up or down by 35 degrees. Mine must of been set at least 35F low. I have an oven thermometer now, we'll see how off it is.

salsalady said:

hope you get healed up fast and back in the cooking saddle.

Thanks for the comment. The whole thing got eaten by just the 2 of us, over the course of about 3 days.

I googled the stove and found out the oven temp can be adjusted up or down by 35 degrees. Mine must of been set at least 35F low. I have an oven thermometer now, we'll see how off it is.

Click to expand...

We bought a new stove recently. The first thing I did was stick a oven thermometer in there .

surprisingly it ended up being very accurate,but still an adjustment from the old one that had developed some quirks.

the biggest challenge was getting used to the large round /small round layout being opposite to the old stovetop.

it still irritates me not having a large round for the front right burner

after tweaking the oven controls, yesterday's bake showed pretty accurate for 350F and then down to 250F for some butter chicken. After having the WORST stove ever! with only 2 working burners for 10+ years, i made sure to get an LPG stove with high output burners. Now, I cant get it to go low enough for a very low simmer! thinking of getting some heat diffuser plates. So far, we've been just dealing with it, not a big deal.

It does do a nice popcorn in the heavy sauce pan on the medium size burner. Mmmmm!