How to “Corn” your own beef.

A couple facts about Corned Beef, because what is a recipe blog without the author droning on for hours about a bunch of unnecessary crap before getting to the recipe:

1. No Corn is used in this process. “Corned” likely came from an Olde English word for Salt. At its core, corned beef is cured/pickled beef.
2. Corned Beef is decidedly NOT an Irish staple, historically.
3. These Corned Beef curing instructions came directly from Michael Ruhlman + Brian Polcyn in their amazing book: Charcuterie: The Craft of Smoking, Salting, and Curing

What you will need: 

For Brine:

1 gallon or so of water

2 cups/450g Kosher Salt

1/2 cup/100g sugar

1 oz/25g/4tsp Pink Curing Salt

3 cloves of minced garlic

2 tablespoons/20g Pickling Spice – WE LOVE the pickling spice from Savory Spice Shop, its perfect.

The Biznass: 

5 pound Grass Fed Brisket (you can use any size less than 5 lbs, the brine recipe above will be plenty of brine for up to 5 pounds, above 5 pounds, adjust accordingly with more brine)

2 tablespoons/20g Pickling Spice

Large sealable container, preferably glass, large ziplock works great.

The Curing Process:

1. Combine all Brine ingredients in large pot and heat until sugar/salt dissolve.
2. Chill brine. Do NOT put your brisket in hot brine.
3. Rinse all blood from brisket, put brine and brisket into sealable container, a big ziplock is my favorite. You want as little air as possible in there. If you use a ziplock, put the brine filled ziplock in a large plastic container incase it springs a leak.
4. Refrigerate for 5-7 days. Turn over every day or 2. Larger, thicker briskets will need the whole 7 days. Thinner, smaller ones are usually cured in a few days.
5. Cook it. (instructions on how we did it below)

My favorite way to cook corned beef: 

1. Rinse your Freshly Corned Beef. Dump brine down the drain.
2. Place Corned Beef, remaining 20g/2 tablespoons pickling spice and enough water/guiness to almost cover in a slow cooker or large cast iron dutch oven.
3. Cook covered at 325F or so for 2-3 hours size dependent. Add more water as needed.
4. Add some quartered green cabbages, large pieces of carrots, quartered onions, whole garlic cloves, and, of course, large pieces of potatoes. Continue to cook until veggies are soft and delicious.
5. If the meat is not fork tender, keep cooking. You can take out the veggies if you want so you don’t overcook them.
6. Enjoy with some stone ground mustard and some people you love.