Scott - When making pastrami, I’ve only corned/cured it myself. I’ve never been all that happy with commercially prepared corned beef anyway, but the main reason is I wanted to start as cheap as possible (but also with at least choice grade meat) so I just bought the packer, broke it down into flat/point, and proceeded to corn from there and then re-spice after corning for the pastrami step. I and one daughter are big fans of the point - although I do remove a bunch of the fat, it’s got so much marbling that it’s really my favorite. My son and another daughter prefer the less fatty flat and I only leave a scant 1/4 inch of the cap on it. The first time I made it, I made the kids pastrami Ruben sandwiches with homemade kraut on a marbled rye and they were like “why haven’t you made this before!??”
Also @shrinkrap - I’ve dry brined beef steaks and roasts but for corning I’ve only done it wet. I’m not sure how well the pickling spice mixture would get into it during the cure if I tried to do it as a dry brine.
Poultry I always wet brine, and also pork loins and pork chops (although now that I’m typing this I’m wondering why it is that I dry brine steaks, but wet brine the pork - seems a bit inconsistent… oh well, hobgoblins and all that!).
Edit regarding price. When I first started several years ago I could get a 16 pound packer at $7/lb that would net out about 12.5 pounds after trimming. I kept track of weight through the first time I processed it (lot of water loss in cooking) and I’m pretty fuzzy on it by now, but if I recall correctly I netted out about $11/lb. Now brisket is $12/lb here so it’d be closer to $19/lb.
Edit2 - I ran into this recipe from Tori Avey to do the pastrami without needing to smoke it. But her recipe has changed. A few years ago there was some controversy in the comments regarding amount of Prague1, where she was wrong and the commenter was right, based on my own calculations. I’m glad I read comments first and made it otherwise per instructions and it was really quite good (don’t tell my Texan friends).
Turns out she had gotten the recipe 2nd hand and checked back with the originator, who assured her it was right. But it wasn’t, as she eventually learned after consulting a foodie professor. But beside changing the amount or Prague #1 they’ve made other alterations. I haven’t followed her exact recipe since it was changed.
I got the original pickling spice recipe from Guga because Tori’s recipe just says “use pickling spice” and I didn’t have any on-hand, but had all the basic ingredients. I just needed to know how they went together.
Guga’s a bit of a goofball (tending toward extreme “experiments” like where he put a brisket in sous vide for a month) but I’ve learned quite a bit from him, too.
