gcb Posted Friday at 04:35 PM Report Posted Friday at 04:35 PM (edited) Hello KK Family Here's my Labor Day cook!! I took a 14lb Snake River Farms Gold label wagyu brisket and made it into pastrami!! I started this journey by making a brining solution. The brine consisted of 1 cup pickling spice, 3/4 cup salt, 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cinnamon stick. I put the pickling spices in a cast iron pan to slightly warm to release all the fragrant aromas. I then put the pickling spices into a mortar pestle and lightly crush to release more of the aromas and flavor . I then added the pickling spice to 1 quart of water (I will need a total of 2 gallons of water including the quart used) on my stove and brought to a simmer. I added the sugar, brown sugar, salt, Cinnamon stick and pink curing salt! Heated till all the sugars & salt were completely dissolved. The amount of curing salt is determined my the total weight of the brisket and the 2 gallons of water. Then multiply the total weight by 454grams . Why 454? Because there are 454g in a LB. When you have that number multiply by .25% and that's the amount of pink curing salt you add in grams. I then placed the brine in the fridge over night to get cold. The next morning I trimmed the brisket . Added the brisket to my brine bucket then added the brine. I did need to add about 1/2 gallon more of water to make sure it was completely covered. It won't affect your brine solution . I placed in my fridge for 11 days. I only turned it once but I did on occasion shake the bucket a bit. On Saturday Morning I removed the brisket from the brine and placed it in my meat tub and filled with cold water and soaked it for 1hr 30 minutes to remove any excess salt. I set the KK up for this cook. Now not being a master of dialing in my temps I was Nervous to use the KK since I Never did a long cook on it. And the brisket cost me $229.00. So I have a fireboard 2 drive and had been reaching out to fireboard for there fan but they don't have an adapter for the KK. So Dennis told me about Humpherys Bbq so I called and ordered the Fan for fireboard . I received it and I did a trial run using a half basket of B&B lump. I installed the fan and lit about a softball size of lump set the temp to 250 degrees and let it go. I started at 11 am and at Midnight it was still going strong but called it as I wanted to go to sleep!! It held temp with no problem. The next morning I checked my basket and had enough lump to go at least another 3 or 4 hrs.The only thing I was concerned about was the fan being not a tight fit and had way too much play in the port so I called and asked if they had a bigger O ring for the fan and they did send me the next 2 sizes. I replaced the O ring with the next size up and I now have a very tight fit and I'm not worried about it falling out and damaging the tiles on my pride and joy KK. So this past Saturday 9-5-26 I trimmed my brisket and seasoned it with a rub that consisted of (3/4 cup 16 mesh pepper, 2 tablespoons each of granulated garlic,Mustard seed slightly crushed , Smoked Paprika and granulated onion) mixed well and applied to brisket. I set my KK to 275 using jealous devil XL LUMP using a full basket I placed my Brisket along with a 11lb Duroc pork butt on the KK and let it go. My Pastrami was done in 10.5 hours I cooked it to 194 degrees. I then Wrapped it in butchers paper with foil over the paper as my wife does not like foil directly on the meat and placed in my warming oven @145 degrees for a 18 hour rest!! The pork butt took 9 hours and I wrapped the same!!. Both were tender and juicy !! I am now a big fan of the Fan!!! As a side note at the end of the cook my wife wanted steak. So I seasoned my Flat iron steak ask the KK for more heat .So I opened up the bottom vents all the way and in 10 minutes I was pushing 650 -700 degrees and did the steak!! A great experience and was a pleasure using the fan set up. It's the first time I ever used one during a cook. gcb! IMG_5490.mov Edited 21 hours ago by gcb 5
MacKenzie Posted Saturday at 12:22 PM Report Posted Saturday at 12:22 PM Wow, what a great cook and I'm sure verrrry tasty.
Cheesehead_Griller Posted 58 minutes ago Report Posted 58 minutes ago (edited) Looks like you have the process down. Final product looks good. Hopefully it tastes good too I used to use a Firebird and Pit Viper fan to run my KK. I liked it but it blew ash all over and was just "more" than I wanted to deal with when using my KK. I bought it over a pellet grill or offset due to its simplicity. I enjoy it that way. Sold all of my KK gadgets about a year or two ago and haven't looked back. I jab a RFX Wireless prove in the meat to monitor when I do overnight cooks. Other than that, I just use my Thermapen. No more fans, controllers, etc. Edited 56 minutes ago by Cheesehead_Griller
