Bought a trimmed flat with a piece of the point at HEB. Separated them into two pieces where the flat weighted 739 gm and the piece of the point weighted 728 gm. This cure/smoke is my first dry brining the beef to make the corned beef. It turned out good although more black-pepper buzz than before and seemed drier and denser.

The Curing Calculator provided the following weights for the cure/sugar/salt that was prepared and shaken on separately.

Flat
Meat 739 gm
Cure #1 1.84 grams
Salt 13.05 grams
Sugar 7.39 grams
Total 761.29 grams

Point
Cure #1 1.82 grams
Salt 12.86 grams
Sugar 7.28 grams
Total 749.95 grams

Rubbed the meat with Foamhart’s seasoning at 2x the recipe below where about half was put on both pieces as they are so close to the same size. Note the substitutions in strikeout and italics.

1.5 T Granulated garlic rounded
~1/6 t Ground Cloves
1.5 pieces Bay Leaf 1/2 t ground
1/2 t rounded whole ground Coriander seeds
1/2 t rounded Brown yellow Mustard Seeds
1 t Thyme
1-1/2 T cracked black pepper.

Put them into separate one-gallon zip lock bags and into the wine cooler to cure. for two weeks; i.e. Sunday, Nov. 5th.

Began to worry if this method and my first dry brining corn beef were reasonable. At the Smoking Meat Forum found this post by an experienced smoker that is almost exactly what I am doing. He ground the seeds and I used pre-ground seasoning. The volume measures above are only eye-balled amounts. I should go back and weigh each to see how close I was.

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11/05/2017

Prepare and rubbed on the Pastrami Rub made of:
2T rough ground black peppercorns
1T Coriander Seed
1 tsp Allspice Berries
1 tsp Yellow Mustard Seed

Put the seed part of the rub (above) into a hot skillet and roasted while stirring until very fragrant. Then, with the seeds in a heavy glass 2 cup measuring cup, pounded them with the handle of the metal meat tenderizing mallet until all Allspice Berries were broken. Then into a heavy glass measuring cup and added:

1 tsp heaping dry Thyme Leaves
1 tsp heaping of ground Bay Leaves
1 tsp Juniper Berries, (Mary counted 22 berries) and chopped. This was the first time to try chopping.
1T dry minced Onion
1T dry minced Garlic

Mixed will then sprinkled on all sides of the two pieces of corned beef. Let rubbed meat sit out for 30-45 minutes until MES was ready. Note – Did not rinse off the rub/cure and added this rub on top of the rub/cure mixture.

1:30 PM – Put it into the MES that was preheated to 250. Smoke was ChefMaster Pecan pellets in the Amazen tray. Each outside slot was loaded and lite to provide more smoke for the shorter smoke time anticipate for the meat.

3:30 – The two slots filled with pellets burned out. Started a slot and another half and put it into the MES.

6:30 – IT in one is ~165 and the other is ~170. Pulled and wrapped to cool.

11/12/2017 – Both pieces have been wrapped in foil in the refer. Today we sliced it thin with the new slicer and had Reubens made with the point. The point was cold so that likely contributed to it seeming dry and overdone. But, it was dry and overcooked. It tasted good and was spicy hot that tasted of black pepper. Not too much but distinctive.

The full pepper hit likely was due to having a lot of the second rub plus the chucks were thin thereby having a higher ratio of seasoned surface to interior meat.

11/19/2017 – What we sliced above has been in a ziplock in the refer. Made ruebens and the meat is still very firm but a good flavor.