VunderWife wants me to make corned beef brisket for New Year’s Day. I’ve done them before by simmering them in a slow cooker, but both of us have had gastric surgery, and the last one was too chewy/stringy. I need a way to make one that is more tender than the traditional way. I also realize briskets are tough cuts by definition…
I’ve done many pork butts in the same slow cooker as roasts, and they fall apart. Can I do this with a brisket?
Anyone have a recommendation for making corned beef by a method other than simmering?
I find that consistancy of the meat is pretty variable. I always cook the same way, and get great to tough as shoe leather results. So, I guess my advice is buy the best cut you can get, cook it as usual and take your chances.
Some advice, huh? :rolleyes: Ask me some more. I’m full of stuff like this!
Brisket is a very tough piece of meat to cook and get great results from every time. Pork butts by comparison are as easy as can be.
The secret to cooking meat with a lot of connective tissue is low and slow. A simmer in a crock pot is not a bad way to go, but I suspect you need to simmer it for quite a bit longer time. As the temp inside the meat slowly rises, it gets to a point where the connective tissue breaks down and the meat starts to fall apart, like your pork butts do.
On a smoker at 200 degrees it might take 15 hours or more to do a brisket. Now your corned beef is a smaller cut, and will be simmering in a steam bath, so it should take less time, but longer than you have been doing it for.
Slicing it very thin across the grain will also help.
We love corned beef ,and when I make them all I do is put it in the crockpot and cook it on low all day long. I leave for work about 7 each day and get home at 6, and I’ve never had a corned beef turn out anything but tender and tasty. It’s one of my favorite easy cook ahead meals.
Going from scratch is a 10 day process. I know of that, but never done it myself…
So far, I think I’ll put it in the slow cooker on the rack, with some water in the bottom but not enough to touch. Put the packaged spices on top, and cover it in tenderizer for good measure.
I’ll plug it in when I go do my ambulance shift tomorrow night, and unplug it when I get home; a minimum 12 hour span. Should this work?
My best suggestion is to cook it long and make sure you cut against the grain. Relatively thin slices cut against teh grain should sever the strands of meat.
A a couple folks mentioned above, corned beef can be pretty variable. Of course, all chunks of meat have some randomness in them, but for something as highly processed as corned beef, it is a bit surprising.
Just by coincidence, we had a “New England boiled dinner” on NYE - basically corned beef and cabbage with a lot more vegetables. We used two smallish pieces, and after something like three or four hours of simmering on the stovetop, one of them needed to be cut with a knife, and the other was fall-apart tender - it was almost like a pile of reddish dental floss.
For the OP’s gastric concerns, I’d suggest cutting the briskets across the grain in very thin slices, which will result in the muscle fibers being no longer than the thickness of the cuts.
Beef brisket, for reasons unknown to me, is about the most variable cut of meat out there. Cooking a brisket on a BBQ is always a crap shoot. What worked perfectly one time, doesn’t work for shit the next time.
Why? I don’t know. What I do know is that a guy that can reliably turn out tender BBQ brisket is a true pit master.
Also don’t forget that the guys that pack corned beef briskets are not using prime or even choice meat for their packages. IMHO this would increase the the chance of getting a really tough cut.