Homemade Sausage Making

Hi, Im making pastrami with cure 1 at the moment BUT not smoking it. Will this have a big effect on its shelf life or not? Im not sure really.

Any advice out there

Thanks

Andrej

Andrej
Funny that you ask, I just made a batch of bigguys mossestrami, came out pretty darn good.
If you have a recipe and use cure #1 in the brine, in my opinion smoking the pastrami is an option. Here is a brine table http://www.wedlinydomowe....peklowania4.htm that Siara posted. As for shelf life, I always plan on good packaging with all my products I make, if not consumed within a few days. Sometime we will put things in the fridge and forget about it, this is when good packaging makes sense.
Brined cured meats have a good shelf life, but all depends on the environment it is kept in.
Hope this helps.
Wally
Chow..

That looks like a great recipe. Im in two minds. I realise that in the states there seems to be two distinct types of pastrami. One, is the kind i would know here in Europe.namely narrow, rectangular strips, thicker and served cold. 2) amercian served hot, maybe thinner etc. Im gonna stick with 1), cos thats what i know and prefer. However, the wafer thin stuff looks great too. Ive just bought a vacuum packer today, so that prob will be sloved, on yr good advice.

I have had good success with my pastrami after 3 runs. I hve tinkered with texture/salt levels etc and will be eventually perfect. My biggest concern was getting the 'rub'/coating correct. In my opinion, i have that perfect, so im very pleased. Because im not smoking i have to cook the meat ofcourse,entirely on stove or in oven. Ive tried diff things and my opinion so far is that boiling/simmering is ok but might take away some good flavour. I tried oven cooking slowly in wrapped foil parcel. That was great but took all the coating off. Then i tried putting same meat on a grill/grate and covering with foil in oven. I kept the coating but lost some moisture and the flavour from the juices the meat was cooking in the previous time. Next time im going back to the foil with a light rub, then cool it, rub with yoghurt(for adhesion), rub properly and then put in oven at low for 1/2 hour or bit less to concrete it to the meat.....so kinda best of both worlds i hope.....we will see. Fingers crossed.

cheers

If you don't smoke it you have corned beef not pastrami, good either way

well technically i guess you are right but i think of pastrami more in terms of the outside crust/rub rather than the smoking aspect.......though it may differ btween here and the US. Pastrami is salt beef but with the added spice rub. Im not sure where and when the smoking came in but the original jewish thing was, ofcourse, salt beef..then pastrami. Would be interested to know that history really cos these days its more amaerican than anything else, but ofcourse uis jewish. Maybe the jewish folk started pastrami when they got to the staes, im not sure.

Hi again,

I was wondering if anyone knew the shelf life of pastrami if vacuum packed...approximate. I am not smoking my pastrami, only curing and cooking/spice rubbing. Its quite an important issue for me and im really not sure what to think.

Since it isn't dried the water needed for spoilage is present. Since you haven't cooked it, the bacteria needed for spoilage are present. There is probably enough oxygen present to support life at the microscopic level. Vacuum packing removes air from the packaging so the you don't get freezer burn but it isn't a hard enough vacuum to remove the total oxygen.
Shelf life in the freezer will of course be longer than in just a refrigerator but even in the freezer the fat will eventually turn.

Thanks for reply. It is cooked, after cure, for 4 hours, but not smoked, as you say. Im just trying to estimate how long its safe to eat on that basis. Its an interesting thing

I would eat it from the fridge cold for a week, after that I would heat it above 165 degrees F. before I put my teeth into it. Most meat get rather slimey after about a week. I just scrub that away and cook it.

Hi Andrew,
Last year I read a report by Cook's Illustrated. They tested all sorts of plastic bags and vacuum plastics too. They weren't impressed with them and neither was I. (I use a FoodVac). They recommended storing food for only about 3 months maximum for best results. After that, even though the food remained safe for some time, it began to lose flavor. The truth be known, we still have much to learn about preserving food in plastics. Good luck Andrew.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Hi, thanks for that, very interesting. I would be delighted to get 8 weeks ..let alone 12. I realise the vac pac thing isnt perfect, especially without gas, as per supermarkets etc. Im surprised it lasts that long actually. I was hoping for a month in chilled conditions, because id like to start a small biz out of it. I need to be sure i can make pastrami, fail to sell it for 2 weeks but it be ok to sell in the 3rd week after production etc. (with a best before of 1 week after that). Otherwise i might produce stuff and itll perish/be unsafe. I dont have the money to have it scientifically calculated, but obviously dont want to make anyone ill. Its hard really.