Nitrate Free Home Brined Corned Beef

lily-da-vine (73)in #food • 6 years ago

Most of the time beef is not something I consider my favorite food or even favorite meat. I think pork or chicken wins that title but there is one exception in the form of my absolute favorite food even above pierogies, and that is Corned Beef. An irish classic I was raised on the stuff but I know for a fact my mom only purchased the store bought one and cooked it, she never cured it herself.

Finally I went through the bullshit and cured me some corned beef after two years of going without her in Southern Mexico. I will admit I was a bit intimidated to get it right, partially because its basically a brined/fermented meat product. Store bought corned beef (and apparently even a lot of home made) uses nitrates to help keep things sterile and keep bugs like botulism down. The problem is those nitrates, which also happen to be an ingredient in gunpowder, are pretty bad for us. So I opted out with a healthy level of paranoia.

I followed this recipe and honestly didn't change anything other than the fact that I had to omit juniper berries because I didn't have it.

~3 lbs beef brisket
2 quarts water
1 cup Kosher Salt
½ cup packed Brown Sugar
12 whole Juniper Berries
8 whole Cloves
8 whole Allspice Berries
3 Bay Leaves
1 Cinnamon Stick (broken up)
1 teaspoon Peppercorns
1 teaspoon Mustard Seeds

I made the brine, let it cool then chilled it until it was really cold. I submerged the big piece of beef in the brine and put that in the fridge for 5 days. Then I put it on the instant pot with some extra of each spices and chopped veggies for probably like 4 hours on high pressure.

It turned out amazing. I still have paranoia of getting sick despite the fact that corned beef brining doesn't encourage botulism the way curing a ham would or even canning food at home. I'll update you all if anything happens, but I figure the brine was more than enough to preserve the meat especially refrigerated.