Smoked Corned Beef

On St. Patrick's day, March 17th, I co-hosted a dinner party for friends at my apartment in Jiyugaoka. I prepared both boiled and smoked corned beef. In Japan, supermarkets do not stock corned beef in their meat sections. In Japan, corned beef can be purchased in small cans (100 g) at the supermarket or online which is more like shredded corned beef.

Although I grew-up in Kansas City and ate corned beef many times, I had never actually prepared it. Expecting that it may take two tries to prepare a decent corned beef for dinner party guests, I purchased two one kg frozen briskets from whole meat online. I also purchased a 800 gram uncooked frozen corned beef brisket from meat guy online.

I basically followed this receipe for the preparing the brine and added a little sodium nitrate (prague powder). I soaked the brisket in brine for two days although most receipes state 5-10 days is idea. I reduced the spices since they made the meat taste more like pastrami. In addition, i reduced the amount of salt to 95 gram on 6 cups of water. I followed this receipe for cooking/smoking the corned beef after a applying a rub. I grilled at 250 F for 3.5 hours as shown in the temperature profile.

Below are photos of the brisket after triming it, with the rub, in the weber grill, after smoking and in a beef buillon tray which was covered with aluminum foil. (I worked at a meat packing plant in Emporia, Kansas during the several summers when I was in college as a beef brisket quality control inspector. So I knew what a quality trimmed brisket should look like for export. The meat guy and whole meats briskets, would not be accepted for sale/export where I worked. )

The smoked corned beef was delicious according to the many guests who ate it and tasted much better than the boiled corned beef, that was purchased from meat guy. I cooked it in near boiling water for 3 hours according to the receipe on their website.

I learned that soaking the brisket for two days in brine in the refrigerator was not enough based upon the color of the sliced meat. The sodium nitrate had not fully penetrated the brisket based upon the the slice color profile. Four days of soaking in the brine would have been enough given the thickness of my brisket. Looking at the temperature of the grill below, I should expect the temperature to vary even when set at 250 F. The temperature outside was about 50 F or 10C when I cooked/smoked the meat.

temperature profile while grilling