Greetings all you cooks, I'm the cook in my house. I like to make and eat cured meats like jerky, smoked sausage, ham, smoked fish, etc. I've always really liked corned beef and finally decided to figure out how to make the stuff from scratch. All the recipes I could find were for "dry" cures where the curing agents and spices are rubbed into the meat surface. But the stores only carry corned beef that is floating in brine. So I did some experiments and came up with a brine cure. In my mind there are two major reasons for a brine cure. First, it's a lot faster, 1 day per inch of meat thickness. Dry cures take 5 days per inch. Second, it's a lot easier to mix the ingredients with water, pour into a bag, and throw the meat in. The recipe is below. CORNED BEEF BRINE
1 1/2 cups MORTON TENDER QUICK 2 Tbs. ground black pepper 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 Tbs paprika 1 Tbs minced garlic 1 1/2 Tsp ground allspice 2 Tsp whole coriander seeds 1 Doz whole bay leaves 6 cups water 7-8 lbs brisket or flank steakBrine in a plastic bag or in a non-reactive metal container ( Hey! that's metal!). After brining rinse the meat and either freeze or boil. If brined too long the meat will be very salty. This can be ameliorated to some extent by changing the boiling water after a bit with fresh water. Cheers, Eric R Snow