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BWV posted:After reading online I saw you can soak it in 7-up or sprite for a bit to fix this. That sounded gross though so I just put it in some water for a few hours and it made it much better. BWV posted:That sounded gross. Was this also from a source that says you can use a Mt. Dew as a spermicide? Water was the correct choice, and should always serve you well.
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Nov 28, 2015 21:39
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As a native Virginian who has since moved to a completely different continent. For the first time in my entire life, I won't be cutting into a salty dry-cured Virginia ham every morning in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's too late for this holiday season, but the odds are pretty good that I won't be going back to the Old Dominion for the next couple of Christmas seasons. I was poking around the internet and found this 'recipe': https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/458/458-223/458-223.html I don't have a smoker (yet) so I would be going with the unsmoked recipe. Does this look at all reasonable? Sorry if this has been covered, but I haven't been able to go through all 40 pages.Any input would be appreciated.
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Dec 8, 2015 21:39
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Personally, I've cured and smoked a pretty wide range of cuts of meat, different animals, sausages, all that stuff. But I still won't touch something as big as a ham. Big cuts of meat are by a wide margin the hardest thing to cure; they are definitely the realm of professionals. You will need to read everything you can get your hands on to make sure it goes well. In addition to that, you will need to make sure your drying/curing conditions are spot on. When you have a smaller piece like some sausage or a duck breast, its decently flexible, as both the minimum and maximum time to complete are still well under the spoilage limit, But when moisture and salt have to travel several inches in any given direction, a few temperature degrees, a few humidity percents, or a few bits of salt can make for huge differences. And not just spoilage, but ultimate flavor profile. Similar thing with beer making: if you have the perfect recipe and water type to make, say, a Pilsner Urquell, but you let it ferment for just a few degrees warmer than called for, you may end up with something potentially very different than what you set out for. Doesn't mean it would be bad, just not what you wanted. Charcuterie is the realm of alchemy: success isn't just judged on it simply not going rancid. Ultimately, you are always encouraged to try it, but just be aware of it's difficulty and don't poison yourself or your friends. It wasn't many pages ago where someone was asking about their cured ham if it was OK to just cut around the maggots at the bone...
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Dec 8, 2015 22:58
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  So bacon came out great. But the thinner bellies came out of the smoker partially cooked but I don't have a problem with that.
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Dec 9, 2015 23:17
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holttho posted:Personally, I've cured and smoked a pretty wide range of cuts of meat, different animals, sausages, all that stuff. But I still won't touch something as big as a ham. Oh lordy. Okay I'll keep this in mind. I might start practicing before next year. I may also see what the local ham laws are.
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Dec 9, 2015 23:54
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I'm curing some pancetta in my wine fridge with cure#2, they've been in there for about a month now but I'm not sure about how "done" the inside is with regard to moisture loss. The first 1/2cm of darker meat definitely has that solid cured meat quality to it, but the center, pinker ribbon of meat doesn't quite seem done enough. Is this a problem brought on by case hardening? Is there a suggested recovery method for this?
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Dec 10, 2015 21:52
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himajinga posted:I'm curing some pancetta in my wine fridge with cure#2, they've been in there for about a month now but I'm not sure about how "done" the inside is with regard to moisture loss. The first 1/2cm of darker meat definitely has that solid cured meat quality to it, but the center, pinker ribbon of meat doesn't quite seem done enough. Is this a problem brought on by case hardening? Is there a suggested recovery method for this? That sounds like it's probably done, it's not supposed to be edible raw or anything. Here's a pic of what my last batch looked like on the inside: 
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Dec 11, 2015 04:14
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Stringent posted:That sounds like it's probably done, it's not supposed to be edible raw or anything. Pancetta is very edible raw, especially if it has been dried.
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Dec 11, 2015 04:25
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:Pancetta is very edible raw, especially if it has been dried. Yeah I thought the point of most of this was to be able to eat it raw as the curing process cooks it. Have any of you made beef bacon? Is it even something you would want to do.
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Dec 11, 2015 07:18
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That's interesting, never had raw pancetta.
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Dec 11, 2015 07:23
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Stringent posted:That's interesting, never had raw pancetta. Isn't it just like bacon or prosciutto?
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Dec 11, 2015 07:28
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I've never had raw bacon either.
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Dec 11, 2015 07:28
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goodness posted:Yeah I thought the point of most of this was to be able to eat it raw as the curing process cooks it. I would also like to know about beef bacon. My brother in law can not eat pork (he's got a weird singular protein sensitivity, kinda like how dogs can get), but loves bacon and cured meats. I'd like to make him some cow based charcuterie.
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Dec 11, 2015 14:07
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Yeah I specifically used Cure #2 so that I could eat it uncooked thinly sliced like prosciutto or cook it up like bacon. I weighed them out and I think my water loss is only at around 20% thus far so I wrapped one in a damp paper towel in a ziplock bag in my fridge to even out the moisture and I'll throw it back in the wine fridge tomorrow to see if I can get it to dry further. The inside looks ok (it's not rolled, just flat) so I think I'm ok to let it go another week or two to get the inside nice and dried. I'll come back with my results closer to Christmastime.
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Dec 11, 2015 16:10
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You won't lose as much weight with pancetta because of the fat content. 20-25% loss is what I aim for at work.
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Dec 11, 2015 16:30
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goodness posted:Have any of you made beef bacon? Is it even something you would want to do. Suspect Bucket posted:I would also like to know about beef bacon. My brother in law can not eat pork (he's got a weird singular protein sensitivity, kinda like how dogs can get), but loves bacon and cured meats. I'd like to make him some cow based charcuterie. I've purchased commercial beef bacon. It's not bad, it's still not bacon, but its more bacon than turkey bacon is. However, duck bacon is the poo poo.
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Dec 11, 2015 17:23
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Farmers have been making farmers/country/rustic bacon out of pork shoulders forever, and I would be shocked if at least one of them didn't throw some beef into the excess cure while they were at it. Ideally, you'll want to use a cut that has similar attributes to the pork equivalent, so you'll be looking at briskets and possibly chuck roasts. Additionally, if you could get a short rib full slab, they would have wondrous amounts of fat/collagen for the smoker. Cows do have abdominal muscles, but they rarely ever make it to market. They either get snapped up by high end places (or places suburbanites fear to tread) for braised dishes, kept by the farmer, or usually just ground up into hamburger. If you have access to a good butcher who in turn has access to full cows, they will be your best bet to get your hands on some. Beef does have a bit different protein inventory than pork, so it may have some textural differences, and obviously there is a flavor difference, but beef takes to the smoke very well. http://frombellytobacon.com/2011/01/28/beef-bacon/ Bonus for myself is that the butcher cited in that article is a Chicago location and only a mile or so from my house. I may have to investigate further.
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Dec 11, 2015 17:31
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:You won't lose as much weight with pancetta because of the fat content. 20-25% loss is what I aim for at work. Ok cool, I'll give them another week in the wine fridge after the moisture evens out and call it good for vacuum packing.
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Dec 11, 2015 19:18
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Asking a question that's probably been asked several times, but for the holidays it wanted to make some bacon as gifts. Circumstances kept me from getting my usual belly but I can get some frozen belly, which I've never used. What kind of drop in quality can I expect, if any?
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Dec 11, 2015 22:21
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lifts cats over head posted:Asking a question that's probably been asked several times, but for the holidays it wanted to make some bacon as gifts. Circumstances kept me from getting my usual belly but I can get some frozen belly, which I've never used. What kind of drop in quality can I expect, if any? I doubt there would be much difference in the final product. I've never used frozen belly myself, but I just wouldn't expect it to affect the texture of bacon much, or the flavor at all.
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Dec 11, 2015 22:45
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Beginner question; I'm looking at making some duck breast prosciutto, most of the recipes seem to air dry the breast for between 10-15 days but looking at the ingredients they don't include curing salt #2. All of the reading i've done seems to indicate that you should use salt #2 if air drying and I'd like to understand why none of the recipes for duck breast prosciutto i've look at include this.
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Dec 12, 2015 15:54
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Strumpy posted:Beginner question; I'm looking at making some duck breast prosciutto, most of the recipes seem to air dry the breast for between 10-15 days but looking at the ingredients they don't include curing salt #2. All of the reading i've done seems to indicate that you should use salt #2 if air drying and I'd like to understand why none of the recipes for duck breast prosciutto i've look at include this. You do not need curing salt #2 for duck prosciutto. For a whole muscle it is not necessary to add curing salts when air drying, and typically it's used for air dried sausages where there is risk of botulism.
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Dec 12, 2015 17:23
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So I'm doing to cures at the moment, a brown sugar and pepper with some herbs, and I noticed something when they're side by side. The brown sugar one has a significant amount more liquid in the container. My guess is the pepper and herbs absorb moisture better than the brown sugar but I figure'd I check here to see if anyone has encountered also and if so if it could indicate anything. My only guess would be adjust the amount of curing salt, but I'm still inclined to think it's no big deal.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:11
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Remember that belly is an agricultural product, so they might just be different. Sciencely speaking, sugar is very hygroscopic, so it likes to pull on as much water as it can, so that may also be a cause here. Changing the salt won't do much in terms of how much liquid you have. Some bellies are just juicy.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:18
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Good enough for me, thanks!
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Dec 15, 2015 17:27
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Merry Christmas Charcoot goons. I spent the better part of today making about 150 pounds of polish kielbasa with my girlfriend's father and uncle. I apologize for not taking pictures of the process, but it pretty much consisted of cutting up pork shoulders and grinding them. We did the meat with a 3/8ths die and the fat at the smallest possible die so we wound't get any gnarly tough chunks in the finished product. It was my first time doing this with them (they're all off the boat from Poland) and the best I could get for a recipe was: Garlic, water, sugar, and pepper. Here's the links being smoked:  and the finished product:  
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Dec 20, 2015 02:41
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Ckwiesr posted:Merry Christmas Charcoot goons. This is amazing. Get more pictures next time!
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Dec 20, 2015 04:25
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That looks really tasty. Seconding more photos next time!
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Dec 20, 2015 04:50
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Christmas bacon! poo poo, edited out the massive picture. lifts cats over head fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 03:11
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So lately I figure I've been talkin' too much in this thread and not doin' enough in this thread. It's also Christmas Time, and I need some some stocking stuffer gifts for the friends and family. What better way to solve both those problems than by making some sausages! There is a 'stocking stuffer/sausage stuffer' joke in here somewhere. Add it at your discretion. I figure I'm gonna make three types of sausages. The first is Andouille (my favorite smokable), a roast garlic/red pepper chicken, and as I am a good Scandinavian boy, potato sausage. The first two recipes are from Ruhlman, though the chicken one is a bit adapted from the original. And the potato is from Rytek Kutas' Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing, but only as the base. I am making roughly 5lbs of each, and I will be smoking all three types. Potato sausage will recieve only half of the smoking, so I'll take it off after about 1 hour, rather than 2 hours the others will recieve. I only slightly apologize for switching between various measuring systems. It's just scoops and scales for me. Andouille I take this one pretty much straight from the book, though I do put a bit of beef in it to keep it a little coarser. Not much, though. ~4lbs pork butt ~1lb beef chuck roast 1 jumbo stinky onion diced finely (something mild or sweet like a Vidalia would be overwhelmed by the end) 40g K.salt 6g P.salt 1t thyme 2t cayenne (I didn't have cayenne, so I subbed in Arbol half again, which has a similar flavor, but has a little less heat.) 1T colemans mustard 1t powdered garlic (I prefer garlic powder in this application over actual cloves; better dispersion, less likely to bite a big hunk of it) There ain't much to this one other than grind it up, mix it up, and stuff it.  Chicken This one is a little more experimental, but I want people to come to terms with the fact that non-pork/beef sausages can be excellent. It's just the lousy mega-mart 'fat free' chicken sausages that are terrible that I need to break them away from. ~3lbs chicken thighs ~1.5lbs pork butt 40g K.salt 6g P.salt 2 red bell peppers, fully charred and peeled. 1 large bulb garlic, oven roasted for about an 75min @325 1T black pepper, fresh grind 1t mace ~4oz rendered chicken fat from the skin off the thighs ~1 egg yolk I used my little food processor to completely puree the red pepper and garlic into the fat with the yolk. That way, it is a (relatively) stable emulsion so it disperses extremely finely and uniformly in the sausage. I did reserve a little of the red pepper just so there would be a few little chunks in there. Just to mix it up a bit.   Potato I had to adapt this recipe a bit to make it work for my purposes. First, I added a bit of pink salt, as I want the flavors and colors that come with it. Also, potato sausages are normally made with raw potatoes because they just boil the poo poo out of them and that cooks it through. But I am going to be smoking mine, which won't hit the high enough temperatures to fully soften the spuds. I will par-cook my potatoes just so that they soften. Potato sausage is also usually a crumbly mess, so precooking the potatoes to release a little starch into the mix will help them cling together. But I have a secret weapon to really make them really maintain integrity... ~1.5lbs pork butt ~1.5lbs chuck roast 6 big ole baking russet potatoes; about 3-4lbs. Pick ones with no visible eyes, scrub them well, and then cut up without peeling. Tons of potato flavor in the skins. 40g K.salt 6g P.salt 1c half&half 1/4c dry milk powder 1t allspice 1t mace ...wait, is that it? The entire spice list is two things? Scandiwegian? More like Blandiwegian. Too bad I got the cure for the Blandi-blues!  Cheese and jalapenos! Normally, eating potato sausage is like those scenes in The Martian where Matt Damon just douses his potatoes in ketchup. That's all you can do with them. But smoke, hot pepper, and some extra sharp cheddar will finally bring these babies clawing into the 19th century. 2 jalapenos. seed and vein at your pleasure ~8oz shredded extra sharp cheddar Now for my secret weapon for binding this thing together. Though potato starch has pretty high thickening/binding power, it is rather heat-time-unstable. The longer you heat it for, the weaker it gets; moreso than other starches. And spending time in the smoker will definitely count as long time in the heat. But I've got something to glue the meats together, something I don't get enough chance to use as it is:  Meat glue! I used 10g of this stuff. For those of you who don't know what this stuff is, it is an enzyme that basically cuts up meat proteins and then sticks them back together. You use it to literally glue meats together; as the bond is just about as strong as the actual meat tissue. If you've ever had deli counter chicken breast sliced for sandwiches and wonder how they get one that big but it still has muscle grain to it, this is your answer. They just dust them all and compress them into one big block. It's cool stuff. The purpose of it here is to vastly strengthen any bonds where the meats touch each other in the sausage. In a regular sausage, this is accomplished with myosin development (what you try avoid by not overworking hamburger patties or meatloaf), but as potato sausage is more than 50% potato, these bonds and simply more rarefied and as a result can't get very strong. This Activa will bolster those bonds.  Realize you soaked the casings in your favorite cocktail glass. Must change tactics!   I have yet to wipe them down, so they're a little messy right here. Finally, due to lack of time in the day (it was about 11:30 by the time I finished will all the various grinding and stuffing), I set them lightly covered in the fridge until I have time to devote the time to smoke them. This is also a good thing, as the time will allow everything in them to relax, a pellicle to form, and give the Activa time to form its bonds. I am aware the ones on the inside of the pile will not pellicle.   Ready for the smoker! Because I am awesome, I forgot to take a picture of all the sausages together after the smoker but before getting packaged up. But, these ones are how they all are. Additionally, after the smoker, I put them all in the oven on low for an hour or so to make sure they all hit a nice 165 internally. My smoker is not reliable enough for temperature control over such short time periods.   Top to bottom: chicken, potato, Andouille Afterthoughts- Andouille came out as good as it always does, but the other two, I wish I had cranked up the seasonings. I can taste that there is roast red pepper in the chicken, but I suspect that is simply because I know it is in there; I doubt others will be able to tell. Next time I will double or triple the amount to really hit it home. Potato sausage was the same- I wish I had put more jalapenos in it. I can definitely taste the fresh, green, somewhat fruity flavors of the peppers, but very little of the heat. Both the Andouille and the chicken are fantastic sliced cold, the potato definitely needs to be fried, otherwise it is like eating cold mashed potatoes. More research is needed.
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Dec 22, 2015 04:01
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Any recommendations on a good meat slicer that's ~$100?
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Dec 27, 2015 22:52
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Slimy Hog posted:Any recommendations on a good meat slicer that's ~$100? Second this, as much as I enjoy hand slicing my bacon, not so much when there's 6-8 pounds at a time. Also have a photo of my maple bacon for family Xmas. This was made from the porchetta cut which is some belly as well as the loin, sliced up into eyes and tails. 
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Dec 28, 2015 07:41
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I did just pick up a $55 meat grinder with sausage stuffer from eBay too which is a win, so I'll be beginning my sausage making journey shortly 
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Dec 28, 2015 07:43
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Slimy Hog posted:Any recommendations on a good meat slicer that's ~$100? I see people use these fairly often at home and in small food trucks. Seem to hold up well, just make sure you spend an extra 20bux and get the non-serrated blade.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:40
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Duck prosciutto question. When I made my current batch the fat layer had partially separated from the meat. After salting the meat I dusted under the fat flap with pepper and then tied the breast up and hung it. Would that area under the flap be enough of an oxygen free environment for botulism to be an issue? I've aged the breasts for about a week and a half so far and if my sample piece I tried today doesn't poison me I plan to bring the prosciutto to a new years party tonight.
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Dec 31, 2015 23:21
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sinburger posted:Duck prosciutto question. Probably not. If there was salt inside the flap chances are close to 0. I think you will be fine, and if you do kill Verne you have a story to tell!
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Jan 1, 2016 00:22
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Made some Ruhlman pancetta. Fingers crossed. Hanging in my basement shower with perfect temp and humidity.   
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Jan 6, 2016 02:03
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Going to try this whole bacon thing out. Have my supplies arriving tomorrow, but have a couple of questions on sourcing meats. I'm in Orange County and there are plenty of Asian supermarkets with pork belly around here. Is that sufficient, or are there better and more specialty sources that I should be seeking out? Same question for duck breasts. I also frequently travel to San Diego county, so I can source stuff from there as well. It won't matter for bacon, since I'll be curing it inside, but would now be a terrible time to try to do the duck breast prosciutto given that we're being hit by rainstorms right now and the humidity is high?
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Jan 7, 2016 00:00
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Anyone have some fun bacon cure recipes they have been using lately? In the past I've done Ruhlmans, a standard salt/pepper/sugar cure, I've used cinnamon, hops, peppers before. Now I'm looking for something new for my next couple cases of belly.
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Jan 7, 2016 17:33
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atothesquiz posted:Anyone have some fun bacon cure recipes they have been using lately? Every time we do bacon we try to go experimental with a few rubs. Here are some of the types that we have done recently. All of these start with the Ruhlmans and then have the other ingredients added. Brown Sugar + Cinnamon: This was a surprise hit. The sweet and savory really hit it off with this. Adding the brown sugar was key. Teriyaki + Hot Sauce: Globs of Kikkoman teriyaki glaze plus some homemade hot sauce. Think char siu. Rib rub: We use the same dry rib rub we always use when smoking ribs and it is killer. Black Pepper + Garlic: We've done this a few times with varying amounts of seasoning. This last time, we chopped tons of garlic and pretty much encased the slab in garlic and black pepper. Unbelievably good.
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Jan 7, 2016 22:20
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