Smoked Pastrami from Corned Beef

Smoked pastrami made from a store-bought corned beef brisket is one of the great shortcuts in barbecue. Real pastrami starts with a 5 to 7 day cure in a spiced brine — but corned beef is already that exact cure, sold in a bag at every grocery store. Buy one, soak the salt out, crust it, smoke it, steam it, and you have deli pastrami for a fraction of the price and none of the week-long wait.

The technique is close to a brisket cook: 250°F, wrap at 165°F, finish at 203°F. What makes it pastrami is what happens on either end — the 24-hour desalting soak before and the steam after.

The Soak Is Not Optional

This is the step people skip, and it ruins more homemade pastrami than anything else. Corned beef is brined at a salt level calibrated for boiling in a pot of water, which pulls a lot of that salt back out. Barbecue does the opposite: eight hours of smoking concentrates the salt as moisture evaporates.

Soak the brisket in cold water for 24 hours, changing the water every 6 to 8 hours. Three or four changes is right. Discard the spice packet — you are building your own crust.

If you are short on time, 12 hours with more frequent changes gets you most of the way there. Under 8 hours and you will taste it.

To check whether the soak is done, slice off a thin piece, fry it in a pan, and taste. It should read like a well-seasoned steak, not a salt lick.

Building the Pastrami Crust

The signature pastrami crust is coarse black pepper and coriander in roughly equal parts. Everything else is a supporting player.

• 3 tablespoons coarse black pepper — 16 mesh if you can get it
• 3 tablespoons whole coriander seed, cracked — crack it in a mortar, a spice grinder on the coarsest pulse, or under a heavy pan. Pre-ground coriander is a shadow of the whole seed.
• 1 tablespoon granulated garlic
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 2 teaspoons mustard powder
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar — optional, and only a teaspoon; this is not a sweet rub

Add no salt. The meat is still cured, and even after a full soak it carries plenty. This is the one cook on the site where a standard SPG-style rub is the wrong tool.

Press the crust on heavily. Pastrami should look armored going onto the grill.

Setting Up the Grill

1. Fill the hopper with a strong hardwood. Oak is traditional for pastrami, and hickory pellets are the widely available equivalent — they hold up through a full 8-hour cook. Our wood pellet flavor guide covers the alternatives.
2. Set the grill to 250°F and preheat 15 minutes with the lid closed.
3. Start with a full hopper — this is a long cook, and a mid-cook flame-out means a stalled brisket.

Stage One: Smoke to 165°F (About 4 Hours)

Brisket goes on fat side up. Close the lid and leave it alone for the first two hours while the crust sets.

After hour two, spritz lightly with beef broth or water once an hour. The goal is to keep the crust from drying out too fast, not to soak it.

You are looking for two things at the end of this stage: an internal temperature of 165°F, and a crust that is dark and firm and does not smear when you touch it. If the temperature gets there but the crust is still tacky, give it another 30 minutes before wrapping.

Because a pastrami cook runs the better part of a day, a leave-in probe like the MEATER Plus is worth setting before the lid closes. You want to know the moment the brisket approaches 165°F without opening the grill four times to find out — every lid opening on a 250°F cook costs several minutes of recovery.

Stage Two: Wrap and Finish to 203°F

Wrap choice changes the result:

• Pink butcher paper — breathable, so the crust stays firm and the bark keeps its texture. This is the better choice for pastrami, where the peppery crust is half the point.
• Foil — faster and more forgiving, but it steams the crust soft. Fine if you are short on time, since the pastrami gets steamed anyway.

Wrap tightly, return to the grill, and cook to 203°F. That will take another 3 to 4 hours depending on the thickness of the flat.

As with any brisket-style cook, the number is a guide and the feel is the answer. A probe should slide into the thickest section with no resistance. Check a few spots with a fast instant-read like the ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE — a corned beef flat is usually thicker at one end, and you want the stubborn end probing tender, not the thin one.

Stage Three: The Steam (What Makes It Pastrami)

This is the step that separates pastrami from very good smoked corned beef, and it takes an hour.

1. Set a rack inside a large pot or a deep foil pan over about 1 inch of simmering water.
2. Place the wrapped brisket on the rack, cover tightly, and steam over low heat for 45 to 60 minutes.
3. It is ready when it is fork tender and visibly jiggly — the meat should give completely when you press it.

The steam relaxes the muscle fibers further, adds back moisture lost over eight hours, and softens the crust just enough that it slices instead of shattering.

Slicing (and the Overnight Trick)

Rest at least 1 hour before slicing. Slice thin, against the grain — pastrami should be considerably thinner than brisket slices.

The deli trick: let the pastrami cool completely and refrigerate it overnight, then slice it cold on a slicer or with a long sharp knife and steam the slices back to temperature to serve. Cold meat slices far more cleanly, and steaming the slices takes three minutes. If you want thin, uniform, deli-counter slices, this is how you get them.

Serve on rye with yellow mustard, and nothing else. A Reuben is the obvious second act.

Gear for This Recipe

The four things this cook actually leans on:

Troubleshooting

Too salty. Not enough soaking. Next time go a full 24 hours with four water changes, and fry-test a slice before you commit. A finished pastrami that is too salty can be salvaged by serving it thinner on more bread.

Crust fell off during slicing. Usually a foil wrap plus a hot slice. Steam it, chill it, and slice it cold.

Tough at 203°F. Same rule as brisket: temperature is a signpost, tenderness is the destination. Keep going and check every 30 minutes.

Dry. Either the flat was very lean or the grill ran hotter than its display claimed. The steam step recovers a surprising amount of this.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you make pastrami from store-bought corned beef?

Yes — corned beef is already cured, so you skip the 5 to 7 day cure entirely. The one mandatory step is the 24-hour desalting soak with several water changes.

What is the difference between corned beef and pastrami?

Same cured brisket. Corned beef is boiled and served. Pastrami is desalted, crusted with coriander and black pepper, smoked, and steamed.

How long do you smoke pastrami?

About 8 hours at 250°F for a 4 to 5 pound flat — roughly 4 hours to 165°F unwrapped, then 3 to 4 hours wrapped to 203°F, plus a 45 to 60 minute steam.

Do you have to steam pastrami after smoking it?

It is optional but strongly recommended. Without it you have excellent smoked corned beef; with it you have deli pastrami.

Should you use a flat or point cut for pastrami?

The flat is traditional and slices neatly. The point is fattier and richer but less tidy. Both work with this method.

What to Cook Next

• Traeger® Brisket Recipe — the uncured original, start to finish.
• How Long to Smoke a Brisket — timing tables and stall management that apply directly to this cook.
• Smoked Beef Ribs on a Pellet Grill — another all-day beef cook that finishes on feel, not on a number.
• Smoked Chuck Roast Recipe — the shorter weekend version of a long beef cook.

Explore more: Complete Pellet Grill Smoking Guide | Wood Pellet Flavor Guide | All Recipes