Big Dude's Eclectic Ramblings: Home Made Corned Beef

We’ve been buying corned beef lately but I’m usually disappointed with the small size and the last one we cooked was about one third fat and the whole thing only made four Reubens. So, I decided to get back into making my own using the 13.64 lb. choice brisket I had in the freezer and that was bought on sale for $1.99/lb.

I gave it a hard trimming and separated the flat muscle from the deckle and I ended up with just 50% meat so I now know why it was such a good deal, but it was still much cheaper than the normal price.

My original plan was to corn the flat and smoke the deckle but with the flat being so small, I opted to corn it all. I used a corned beef recipe from Alton brown for this batch. For my amount of meat, I used two gallons of water so I doubled the ingredient amounts. I also gave the spices a quick spin it food processor to break them up some.

Corned Beef – Adapted from Alton Brown

Ingredients:

2 gal. water

2 cup kosher salt

1 cup brown sugar

4 tsp, pink curing salt

2 cinnamon stick, broken into several pieces

2 teaspoon mustard seeds

2 teaspoon black peppercorns

16 whole cloves

16 whole allspice berries

24 whole juniper berries

4 bay leaves, crumbled

1 teaspoon ground ginger

2 qt. ice

6 lb. trimmed beef brisket

Directions:

1. Place the water into a 2 qt. pot along with salt, sugar, saltpeter, cinnamon stick, mustard seeds, peppercorns, cloves, allspice, juniper berries, bay leaves and ginger. Cook over high heat until the salt and sugar have dissolved.

2. Remove from the heat, pour into a cold container and add the ice. Stir until the ice has melted. Add enough cold water to make 2 gallons and place the brine into the refrigerator until it reaches a temperature of 45 degrees F. I made the brine the day before.

3. Once it has cooled, place the brisket in a 5-gallon bucket and add the brine. Add a plate and weight on top to keep it submerged.

4. After 10-12 days, remove from the brine and rinse under cool water.

I froze the larger piece and cooked the smaller one for supper. To cook, I covered it with water and added two tablespoons of homemade pickling spices in a crockpot and cooked it on high until it was done just right (high for five hours).

I sliced it and topped mine with some homemade kraut and sided it with baked sweet potatoes.

The Verdict:

Everything was delicious and this corned beef was way better than store bought so I’ll use this recipe to keep making my own and buy briskets if they are ever on sale again. Also, I discovered I prefer the orange potato as it is not as dry as the purple one – Bev prefers the purple ones as they are a little healthier. I'm off to the store for rye bread to use the thicker end of the corned beef for Reubens.

And for breakfast the next morning - this was delicious even though I forgot the cheese.