Avedano’s Pastrami Print Recipe Back to Website

This recipe makes 10 liters of brine, enough for 4 briskets. Brine the briskets 8 days before cooking.

Ingredients
Brine: 
  • Salt 430g
  • Sugar (half brown/half white) 285 g
  • Cure #1 (pink salt) 90g
  • Spice Blend 70 g
Spice Blend: 
  • Black Peppercorns 20g
  • Yellow Mustard Seed 20g
  • Coriander Seed 20g
  • Red Pepper Flakes 12g
  • Allspice Berries 14g
  • Ground Mace 8g
  • 2 Cinnamon sticks broken up 
  • Dried Bay Leaves 24 crumbled leaves
  • Whole Clove 6g 
  • Ground Ginger 8g
Instructions
Brining:
  1. Warm the brine ingredients in 1 L of water over the stove until the sugar and salt dissolve. Add this concentrated brine to 9 liters of cold water and mix well to combine.
  2. Lightly crack the pepper, mustard and coriander, and then combine all of the spices with the brine in a large bowl and mix well. 
  3. Use a brine syringe to inject each brisket about 6 times with brine, you want to see a 10% weight gain. If you are using the deckle (the thick part of the brisket) you want to inject a few more times for good measure. Place the briskets in the brine, fully submerged for 8 days. 
Cooking the briskets:
  1. Remove the briskets from the brine and coat them in equal parts coarsely ground black pepper and coriander.
  2. Smoke the briskets in a 200F smoker for 4 hours and then transfer to a steamer to bring to an internal temperature of 200-210F.
  3. If you have time, you can cook them entirely in the smoker, this can take up to 8 hours.
  4. Allow them to cool fully before slicing thinly against the grain on a meat slicer. Enjoy!