I made pastrami in my mash tun! (sous vide, pic heavy)

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mack25

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Location
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I started with two corned beef points from the market.

After trimming some of the fat off, and soaking the corned beef for 2 days in water to remove
some of the salt (changing water 4x), I rubbed them with an equal mix of coriander and black
peppercorns, crushed coarsely.

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Then they went onto the smoker for 4 hrs to 135F over apple wood.

Then whipped up a batch of mustard with the honey blonde ale I have on tap, and
fed the sourdough starter.

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After 4 hrs, the briskets were ready to come off.

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It took a lot to not tear into them at this point, they smelled incredible. But
135F isn't quite done yet.

So I let them rest for about a half hour. Then sealed them up with the vacuseal, and into
the mash tun full of hot water.

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Set the RIMS PID for 168F for another 3 hrs.

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Sliced up after coming out of the sous vide.

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Sliced up the bread.

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The finished product on sourdough with the blonde ale mustard
and a little swiss cheese.

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Turned out very nice. If I were to do it again, I'd put keep them in the
sous vide for another couple of hours, just to make them "fall apart" tender.
But for only the second time I've used the RIMS rig for sous vide, I call
it a success.
 
That looks awesome! What else went into the mustard?

Thanks!

The mustard: soaked about a 1/2 cup of brown mustard seeds and a 1/2 cup of yellow seeds (we get them from a local wiccan apothecary - they carry all kinds of herbs n spices), overnight, in a pint of honey blonde ale. all of it into the blender with a tablespoon or so of cayenne, tumeric and maybe 2 tbsp of grated horseradish from the garden. blended, then waited a couple of mins (the mustard heat sets once you add the vinegar). pinch of smoked salt, a 1/2 cup or so of white vinegar, and maybe a 1/4 cup of store-bought yellow mustard for the emulsifiers. blended again till thick and creamy.
 
Looks and sounds great. I have been looking into adding sous vide duty to my mash tun but the mustard and bread really put this post over the top! Nice.

How about making that cheese from scratch too? :D
 
I just ordered a couple more ebay temp controllers, one of them for a sous vide setup I'm putting together. I'm gonna get it together, test it and post the plans on here if it works out.

You put an airlock on your sourdough starter? Never seen that before. I just ordered the "Carl Griffith's 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter" from the friends of Carl. Haven't had a starter since I was a teenager. Looking forward to it.
 
How about making that cheese from scratch too? :D

Ah, if I only had the room for a cheese cave...


You put an airlock on your sourdough starter? Never seen that before.

It's a San Francisco sourdough starter, and I live in Boston :) so I'm trying to keep local yeasts and whatnot out as much as possible. I read somewhere that any starter acquired in one location and moved to another will eventually lose it's original characteristics and take on new ones with local wild yeasts and bacteria - I figure I can minimize that with a lid and airlock.
 
When the meat is in the bags, then in 168F water for 3hs, that makes it cook more?

Yep. the idea with sous vide is that you are slow cooking at exactly your finish temp. So I smoked to rare-ish temp, to get a good crust and smoke flavor. Then the bags went in the water bath to finish cooking to 168. I would probably go longer and at a higher temp next time.
 
Oh, I should also post an update. When I bagged it up, I got 4 bags. The other three went into the freezer. We defrosted one last week, shaved it thin on a mandolin and steamed the slices up to make rubens. I have to say that the freeze/thin slice/steam made a world of difference. Pastrami was super tender, moist and made a killer ruben.
 
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