Corning your own beef brisket to make homemade corned beef is easier than you think! With just a few simple ingredients and some time, you can make the most flavorful and tender corned beef right in your own kitchen.
Why Corn Your Own Beef?
There are several great reasons to corn your own beef brisket rather than buying pre-brined corned beef from the grocery store:
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Better flavor – Homemade corned beef has a far superior flavor compared to store-bought You control the quality of ingredients and can customize the pickling spice blend
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Choose the cut – You can select a high-quality brisket from your local butcher or farmer Grocery store brisket varies in quality
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No preservatives – Pre-brined corned beef contains preservatives you won’t find in homemade.
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Cost savings – Depending on where you source the brisket, corning your own can cost less than buying pre-brined.
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Simple ingredients – All you need is brisket, salt, spices, and time. No complicated ingredients required.
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Fun project – It’s satisfying and rewarding to make your own corned beef from scratch.
How to Choose a Good Brisket
The starting point to exceptional homemade corned beef is selecting a high-quality brisket. Here are tips for picking the best brisket:
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Get the flat cut – Choose the flat cut of brisket, not the fattier point cut. The flat cut will slice neatly after cooking.
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Local butcher – The best place to source brisket is from a local butcher or farmer. Quality is better than grocery stores.
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Pick hefty brisket – Opt for a big, beautiful brisket that’s several pounds. At least 3-5 pounds.
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Fresh, not frozen – Make sure the brisket is fresh, not previously frozen. This helps ensure tenderness.
Once you’ve selected an excellent brisket, you’re ready to start the simple corning process.
How to Make a Brine for Corning Beef
The secret to corning beef is soaking it in a heavily salted brine spiked with pickling spices. Here’s how to make a brine:
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Choose spices – Pick your favorite spices like peppercorns, mustard seeds, allspice, etc. This personalizes the flavor.
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Boil spices – Toast the spices briefly then simmer in water to extract flavor. Strain out spices.
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Mix brine – In the hot spiced water, mix in salt, sugar, and curing salt if using. Cool completely.
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Submerge brisket – Place brisket in a container and cover fully with the chilled brine.
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Refrigerate 5-7 days – Keep brisket submerged in brine for 5-7 days, flipping occasionally.
And that’s it – the brine does the work! After a week, you’ll have a fully corned brisket ready for cooking.
Should You Use Curing Salt?
Curing salts, like pink salt #1, are traditionally used when corning meats. They serve 2 purposes:
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Adds flavor – The nitrites in curing salt enhance flavor in meats.
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Improves preservation – It inhibits bacteria growth and helps preserve the meat.
Curing salts also give corned beef its distinctive pink color. However, they are not 100% necessary to make corned beef. You can omit curing salt if desired. The meat will turn a gray color and the flavor will be slightly less intense.
Both versions still taste delicious! So use curing salt if you want authenticity or leave it out if you prefer to avoid nitrites.
How to Cook Homemade Corned Beef
After your brisket is done curing in the brine, it’s time to cook it. Follow these steps:
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Rinse brisket – Rinse off all brine and pat the brisket dry.
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Simmer in broth – Place brisket in a pot and cover with beef broth and spices.
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Cook 3-4 hours – Simmer brisket for 3-4 hours until extremely tender when poked.
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Rest before slicing – Let brisket rest at least 30 mins before thinly slicing against the grain.
The cooked corned beef keeps for a week refrigerated. Slice and use for sandwiches, hash, boiled dinners, and more!
Tips for Perfect Homemade Corned Beef
Follow these tips for the best possible homemade corned beef:
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Trim fat – Trim off excess hard fat before brining for most tender meat.
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Weigh down – If brisket floats in brine, weigh it down with a plate so it stays fully submerged.
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Rinse well – Rinse brisket thoroughly before cooking to remove excess salt.
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Simmer gently – Cook at a bare simmer to prevent overcooking and drying out.
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Slice thin – Cut cooked brisket across the grain into paper-thin slices for tenderness.
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Save spices – Reserve some pickling spice to add flavor when cooking the brisket.
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Rest before slicing – Let brisket rest for 30 mins after cooking for juices to absorb.
Brine Recipes for Homemade Corned Beef
Here are some excellent brine recipes for making your own corned beef at home:
Simple 5-day Corned Beef Brine
- 1 gallon water
- 1 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons pickling spice
- 5 tsp curing salt (optional)
Flavorful 7-day Corned Beef Brine
- 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 gallon water
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon curing salt
Easy Corned Beef Dry Rub
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1/3 cup kosher salt
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2 tablespoons brown sugar
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1 tablespoon pickling spice
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1 teaspoon curing salt
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1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
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1/2 teaspoon onion powder
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Rub mixture directly onto brisket. Refrigerate 5-7 days. Rinse brisket before cooking.
Enjoy Your Homemade Corned Beef
Now that you’re armed with all the information on how to corn your own beef brisket at home, it’s time to give it a try! In just a week’s time, you’ll have the most flavorful, tender, and preservative-free corned beef around. Luckily, this hearty ingredient goes well with so many meals. From corned beef hash to Reubens, boiled dinners, and sandwiches, you’ll get great use from your homemade corned beef. Happy corning!
Making the Brine
Ive included a recipe above for easy use, but will explain the steps here too. This recipe was adapted from, Kevin is Cooking, which Ill link below!
To make your brine, youll start with a large stock pot and add all of your brine ingredients. Youll bring this to a boil and whisk to dissolve the sugar and salt. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and stir until dissolved. Then simply cool the brine and youre ready to brine the brisket!
Start with a High-Quality Beef Brisket
One of the most important steps in this whole process is choosing a great piece of meat to start with. Traditional corned beef is made from beef brisket. While you may be able to find brisket in a grocery store, the quality and flavor wont be near as good as if you sourced your brisket from a local farmer. Reach out to your local farm and ask them if they have brisket available.
We keep brisket in stock here at the farm store ALL year round. Perfect for corning or smoking, youll blow your taste buds away either way 😉 Once you have your brisket, you are ready to get started with the rest of the process.
One nice thing about making homemade corned beef is you dont need a long list of fancy ingredients. In fact, you may only have to buy a few things you dont have on hand already. For making my brisket, I had to buy pickling spice, course kosher salt, and pink curing salt. Note: pink Himalayan salt is not the same as pink curing salt and cannot be supplemented here.
While the kosher salt was readily available at my local grocery store, I had to order the pickling spice and curing salt online. Youll also need brown sugar and garlic cloves. Then youre ready to get started!
Homemade Corned Beef Recipe – Corn your own beef!
FAQ
How to corn beef at home?
- Make a salty curing brine with pickling spices like mustard seed, allspice berries, coriander seeds, and peppercorns.
- Marinate a beef brisket in the brine, for 5 to 7 days.
- Simmer the brined and drained brisket in water with more pickling spices for several hours until tender.
What cut of beef is used for corned beef?
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The Wellness Bloghttps://discover.grasslandbeef.comThe Best Cut of Corned Beef — Flat vs Point – The Wellness BlogFeb 9, 2021 — The best cut of beef for corned beef When it comes to making corned beef, there’s really only one choice: the brisket — and the flat cut, specificall…
How do they corn the beef?
Corned beef is most often made from beef brisket (a relatively inexpensive, tough cut of beef) that’s been cured in a salt brine with a mix of spices, like bay leaf, peppercorns, mustard seed, juniper berries, coriander seed, and whole cloves.
What is the secret to tender corned beef?
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Brisket as a Tough Cut:Corned beef is typically made from a tougher cut like brisket, which requires long cooking to become tender.Â
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Long Simmering:A low, gentle simmer for several hours, or even overnight in a slow cooker, is crucial for breaking down the connective tissue.Â
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Moist Heat:Cooking in a liquid, such as water, beer, or even a mixture of water and beer, helps to keep the meat moist and tenderize it.Â
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Optional Braising:Some recipes suggest adding beer to the braising liquid, as it contains acids and tannins that can help break down the meat further.Â
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Slicing Against the Grain:Once the corned beef is cooked, be sure to slice it against the grain for the best tenderness.Â
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Removing Excess Salt:The Spruce Eats recommends boiling corned beef in water with spices as a way to remove excess salt, says while still ensuring the meat becomes tender.Â
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Temperature Control:The USDA recommends that corned beef is safe to eat when the internal temperature reaches at least 145°F (63°C) for 3 minutes, but continuing to cook it longer will make it even more tender.Â
Can You Make your own corned beef?
Healthy – making your own corned beef means you know exactly what’s in the meat and the brine, which is a much healthier alternative to the junk in the grocery store. You can make corned beef out of a brisket, or a roast. The brisket will have a more distinct grain which is typical of a corned beef, but the roast turns out almost the same.
Can you make corned beef from scratch?
Fall apart tender corned beef is easy to make from scratch and will produce better flavor than store bought! Just make sure to allow the meat to brine for 7-10 days before Saint Patrick’s Day. Combine all the spices in a bowl. Reserve.
How do you eat corned beef?
Take the corned beef out of the pot and when serving slice across the grain of the meat for the most tender slices. Corned beef is perfect either hot or cold and great in sandwiches with sauerkraut and mustard.
How do I choose the best corned beef?
One of the most important steps in this whole process is choosing a great piece of meat to start with. Traditional corned beef is made from beef brisket. While you may be able to find brisket in a grocery store, the quality and flavor won’t be near as good as if you sourced your brisket from a local farmer.
How do you cure corned beef?
To cure our beef, whether it is brisket or another cut we use a basic salt brine along with sodium nitrite in the form of Prague Powder #1. The sodium nitrite in this corned beef has a couple of roles. It is not strictly necessary to make corned beef but I prefer mine with this small addition. It is a preservative.
How do you know if corned beef is good?
Probe the corned beef in the thickest part of the meat. Look for a corned beef internal temperature between 180° to 195°F. The lower temperatures result in firmer slices. We prefer a more tender, flaky corned beef that’s closer to 195°. Beef brisket: A 4- to 5-pound brisket is usually plenty big enough for corned beef.