On my birthday weekend we got inspiration from Guy Fieri and the ‘Finger Lickin’ Food‘ Season 23, Episode 9 of Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives, where he featured a segment on and Atlanta, GA Wrecking Bar Brew Pub Restaurant. I was impressed with how they made their own in-house pastrami using beef brisket and brining/marinating it for several days. This got me hankering for a pastrami melt sandwich and since I’ve never made my own pastrami I was inspired to find a recipe for getting my own.
This lead me to a search for a smoked pastrami recipe and I found one in Steven Raichlen’s book ‘Project Smoke‘, on page 72. He has an online version of the recipe ‘Home-Smoked Pastrami‘, from his Barbecue Bible series. The recipes differ a bit, I’m using the one from the book that calls for 12-days of brining in a solution of water, kosher salt, pink curing salt, a halved onion, and whole garlic cloves. The image was taken about mid-way through the brining process, I’m scheduled to smoke the meat on Sunday, 11/28. Not sure what wood I’ll use, but the recipes calls for 14 hours in the meat smoker.
