Table of Contents
- Keep It Cold
- Equipment
- Two Ways to Cook Your Sausage
- Corned Beef Sausage (Pastrami Sausage) Recipe
- More Pastrami Recipes
- Latest Recipes
There are several ways to prepare a corned beef brisket. One of my favorites is to grind it and stuff it into sausage casings to make corned beef (or pastrami) sausage.
To make juicy sausage, remember two key points:
- keep a proper meat-to-fat ratio
- handle the meat as little as possible so the fat doesn’t melt before cooking
I aim for roughly an 80/20 meat-to-fat balance. You can reach this by adding bacon (for fatty content) or by using trimmed fat from the brisket. If you use brisket fat, trim it off, discard any tough or silvery pieces that won’t render, and reserve about 20% of the total weight as fat.
Cube the meat and fat, weigh them, and flash-freeze the pieces together before grinding. Freezing helps keep the meat cold so it grinds cleanly and the mixture stays tacky rather than greasy.
Keep It Cold
Maintaining a cold temperature throughout the process is essential. If the meat warms up while you work it, the fat will start to smear and your sausage will be dry and crumbly.
One advantage of starting with corned beef brisket is that it’s already seasoned, so you generally don’t need to add more spices. After about an hour in the freezer, grind the chilled cubes. Once ground, gently mix in beer—use one ounce per pound of meat—then chill the mixture again for about 30 minutes before stuffing.
Equipment
I use a stand mixer with a meat grinder attachment to break the brisket into ground pieces. The grinder attachment includes parts to stuff sausage, but I prefer a manual LEM-style sausage stuffer for filling casings. With a large-capacity hand stuffer you can load all the meat at once and crank steadily, which keeps handling to a minimum and helps the meat stay cold.
Sausage casings typically come packed in salt; rinse them thoroughly under cold water before use and store extras in the fridge in a sealed bag until you need them.
Two Ways to Cook Your Sausage
After stuffing, sausages can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen for about a month; thaw them in the refrigerator before cooking. You can grill them over medium heat for a quicker cook, or smoke them low and slow for pastrami-style flavor. Grilled versions are essentially corned beef sausages, while smoked ones take on pastrami characteristics.
Grilled
Grill over medium heat, turning occasionally, until the internal temperature reaches 165°F. They’re terrific served on a hoagie roll with sauerkraut and spicy mustard.
Smoked
To make pastrami-style sausages, set your smoker to around 180°F and smoke until the internal temperature reaches 165°F. Cold spots in the 40–140°F range can allow bacteria to grow, so the low-and-slow method is safer when the meat has already been cured with nitrites—something corned beef brines typically include. If you’re concerned, smoke at 200–225°F for added safety. Smoked sausages are delicious served hot or cold.
Corned Beef Sausage (Pastrami Sausage)
Ingredients
- 5 lb corned beef brisket
- 1 lb brisket fat
- 6 oz Guinness Blonde beer (or similar)
- sausage casing
Instructions
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Rinse: Remove the brisket from its packaging and rinse under cold water. Pat dry with paper towels.
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Trim: Trim the fat from the brisket, separating good renderable fat from any tough or silvery pieces. Save about one pound of good fat.
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Cube: Cut the brisket and fat into roughly 2-inch cubes. Spread on a sheet pan and freeze for one hour.
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Grind: Pass the chilled meat and fat through a grinder using a coarse plate.
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Mix: Gently mix the ground meat with the beer (about 1 oz per pound), working as little as possible to avoid warming the mixture.
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Chill: Return the mixed meat to the freezer for 30 minutes so it firms up before stuffing.
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Prep Casings: Rinse four long casings under cold water, open one end and flush water through twice, then soak in a bowl of water while the meat chills.
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Knot: Slide one casing onto the stuffing tube. Load the meat into the stuffer and crank slowly until the meat reaches the tube end. Pull about 2 inches of casing off the end, tie a knot, and slide it back until the knot touches the tube.
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Case: Hold the casing and turn the stuffer handle. As the sausage fills, gently push the links toward the stuffer to avoid air pockets.
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Twist: Decide your desired link length, twist three times at that length, and continue, alternating twist direction each time. Finish by tying a knot at the end.
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Pierce: Use a toothpick to prick each link a few times to release trapped air. Return the sausages to the freezer for 30 minutes.
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Cut Links: Remove from the freezer and separate the links at each twist.
To Grill
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Grill over medium heat about 10 minutes per side, or until the internal temperature reaches 165°F.
To Smoke
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Set the smoker to about 180°F and smoke for 4–5 hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 165°F. Increase to 200–225°F if you prefer a faster, hotter cook.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated and should be used as an approximation.
Additional Info
More Pastrami Recipes
- Homemade Chuck Roast Pastrami Recipe
- Learn to Make Homemade Pastrami Using Any Kind of Meat
- Smoked Pastrami Chicken Wings
- Smoked Pastrami Beef Ribs
- Smoked Pastrami Meatballs
- Corned Beef Patty Melts