The Jerky of Pastrami

Feast your eyes on my Pastrami Jerky. Yea I know the Post title is bizarre but I wanted to get your attention. This not your usual or common jerky that is coated with spices, sugar and maybe some salty liquid stuff then dehydrated. This is my Pastrami recipe that has been taken to the next level or what I like to describe as Jerky Nirvana. First of all in order to achieve Jerky Nirvana you need a great cut of meat. I chose the whole Loin or aka the New York Cut. Trimmed to perfection then coated with my Pastrami cure that includes Cure #1. I am planning on Cold Smoking so I need to use Cure #1. If you plan on dehydrating or smoking meat in the danger zone you need a proper cure so use caution. If you are curious about what the USDA says about food safety Click HERE. For some more light reading Click HERE,  HERE, HERE and HERE.

Here is the Loin in all her glory. See that big fat cap? I need to get rid of that. You don't want lots of fat in your jerky.

All trimmed up and stack. Ready for the cure. 

The Salt and cure #1 are added together and applied to every nook and cranny. 

This is the cure I use for my pastrami and corned beef. I'm not going to go into details here so if you want more look up some of my other posts that talk about Pastrami. All vacuumed sealed up and will be flipped every day for 21 days. At the end of the 21 day cure I will rinse off the now cured beef and slice in 1/4 inch slices, apply rub, and cold smoke for 24 hours. After the cold smoking process I will dry. 

All cured and rinsed off. 

The loin was cut into 1/4 inch slices then sliced in half. 

Mix rub thoroughly!! Sprinkle both sides of the jerky.  

Place Jerky in container and let sit for about 48 hours. 

The picture to the right is after 48 hours.

I placed the Jerky on my special jerky trivet. 

I cold smoked my jerky for 22 hours using the A-MAZE-N smoking product. Note: the reason I can cold smoke is because I used Cure # 1. Don't cold smoke if you do not use this cure. 

Drying the jerky in my propane smoker using a hot plate and some small fans.  

The jerky came out great. If you like a lot of spice this definitely falls into this category. If you like less spice use less pepper and increase sugar. I might have to tweak the rub a bit to bring out more of a pastrami taste. Overall I am very satisfied with my experiment.

 Note: Started out with 5520 grams and after trimming and cure ended up with 3742 grams and after drying exactly 2600 grams.

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