How to Corn Beef

This article is all about making corned beef from scratch. Starting with raw ingredients, it takes almost 2 weeks. If you have a corned beef you want to cook, read How to Cook Corned Beef. I never thought of making my own corned beef until recently. And the only reason I considered doing it was because I realized that I could. Also, I thought it would be fun to try something that is not commonly done at home. I realized with the help of research that corned beef is simply brined brisket.

The mixture of spices are what gives it its signature flavor, and a simple food preservative gives it its pink color. The preservative is potassium nitrate, more commonly known as saltpeter. It fixes, or preserves, the color of the raw meat, which is why it is still pink when it is cooked. Much like smoke does to smoked meats. Finding a consistent recipe for corned beef brine was nearly impossible. But fortunately I was able to find a recipe that is used by a well-known maker of corned beef. This recipe was also very similar to most of the ones I ran across. Of course I changed it a little because I believe in making things your own. So the following is my recipe for corned beef.

Steps to Corning Beef

1. Trim the beef brisket into manageable pieces. If you get a whole beef or packer cut brisket, you will want to trim it into two pieces. The packer brisket is about 13 pounds and requires a lot of trimming. The traditional trimming usually leaves you with a flat piece and a pointy piece, conveniently referred to as points and flats. The trimming of a beef brisket deserves its own article because it is tricky. So, for this article, I recommend you buy a pre-trimmed brisket flat and skip the hassle. That is what I did. You will notice that I still cut it in half to a manageable size and to fit it in the bag.
2. Mix up the brine. Dissolve the saltpeter in the warm water, mix in the sugar and salt, and stir to dissolve. Put the rest of the ingredients into a medium bowl, and pour the liquid in. Stir it and make sure everything is well mixed. Put the 2 gallon zipper-style bag into the large bowl. And put your brisket in the bag once the bag is in the bowl.
3. Pour the brine over the meat. Carefully pour the brine over the meat, making sure to get everything in the bag. Zip the bag until it's almost shut, and using your hands, work out any air bubbles stuck near the meat. Once you have most of the air out, zip the bag shut and put it back in the bowl.
4. Put the brisket into the fridge. Put the bowl with the brisket on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator. The brining process will take from 10-14 days to complete. I hope you were planning ahead. Every other day move the meat around in the bag, flipping it over and what not. Other than that all you can do is wait.

Tips for Buying Saltpeter

I had a hell of a time finding saltpeter. I stopped at every grocery store, pharmacy, hardware store, and butcher in my part of town. None of them had it. And they all looked at my funny, like I was a terrorist or something. Out of desperation, I went to a Chinese market up the way where I found a little baggy for 80 cents labeled nitre granules. It sounded right to me, and it was cheap, so I brought it home and looked up nitre on Google. Turns out nitre is another name for saltpeter. So, if you are having trouble finding it, try that. Also, saltpeter preserves the meat and gives it its color, but if you plan on cooking it right away and don't care about the color, you don't need it. The salt is enough to keep it from spoiling in the brine.

Variations on Corning Beef

Another popular way to mix up the brine is to rub all ingredients on the meat except for the saltpeter and water. Then dissolve the saltpeter in water and pour it over the meat. Not exactly sure if it matters which way you do it. But in case you wanted to try doing it another way, I thought I would tell you about this.