10 Day Brisket Corning Brine
If you love Corned Beef, learn how to corn your own brisket! It’s super-simple and largely unattended during the 10 day cure time.- Prep Time 15 minutes
- Cook Time 10 Days
Ingredients
For the Beef:
1 Brisket, Your Choice
You will also need: Mortar & Pestle, large deep bucket or roasting pan deep enough to hold your brisket and allow it to submerge in the brine. 15 gal plastic bags if using deep roasting pans.
Prepare Your Spice Blend:
5 T each: Mustard Seed and Black Peppercorns
1T each: Whole Cloves, Allspice Berries, Juniper Berries
3 pieces Bay Leaves
Gather all of your spices and toast over low flame in preferably a cast iron skillet for 3 minutes only until fragrant.
Put them into your mortar and crush them, dent them and put into a plastic container for now. You may need do to this in a few little batches, depending on the size of your mortar.
Prepare Your Brine:
3 Gallons of Water
5 Cups Kosher Salt
1.5 Cups Sugar
1/3 Cup Prague Powder #1
Directions:
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Heat your brine in a large stockpot until all ingredients are dissolved. Add ¾ of your spice blend, making sure you get a good combination of all those spices. Let simmer for 3 minutes.
Turn off the heat and when brine is cool, refrigerate it overnight.
Prepare Your Brisket:
- Cut your brisket into two pieces, the nose and the tail, to make it easier to handle.
In this case, I use two disposable very deep oval aluminum turkey roasters and put a deep garbage bag opened into each of them. Place one piece of brisket into each bag, add your brine (mix it well while spooning it) to cover brisket completely, and knot the bags shut after taking as much air as possible out of them. I put a heavy plate on the bag to ensure the brisket is completely submerged. - That’s the brisket’s home for the next 10 days. Every day, turn the pieces over without opening the bag to ensure every bit of the meat is in the brine.
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On Day 10, remove the brisket from the bags and rinse them thoroughly under cool water, making sure to wash all of the spice mix away.
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Put the brisket into a very large, deep stockpot. Add your remaining spice mix you had on the side, and add enough cool water to cover. Brisket floats, so you may need to use a very heavy plate to submerge them. I use a metal bowl that fits the top of my stockpot and put my granite mortar in the center of the bowl. Does the job.
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Start the brisket on medium and boil it on low for 5 hours. Once you can easily run a long fork through the center of the pieces, it’s ready. Carefully remove it from the water and let rest on a rimmed dish.
- We cool it down so it doesn’t fragment when we slice it. Keep that cooking liquid in the fridge and by all means use it when heating the corned beef up, and it’s a fabulous stock for our Leftover Recipe of Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup.
