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AlternateAccount posted:So I don't know what the gently caress I got sold. It's proper bacon-y pork bellyish on one end mostly except for an entire quarter of it that is just fat, no lean on it whatsoever. The other end is a mess, where the belly ends is a very thick section of that sort of fluffy fat and then just straight lean pork. The whole thing is about 3 inches thick on one end and it tapers down to practically nothing at the other end. Skin still on it, too. There's no way to get more than about a half a pound of proper bacon out of this and I don't know wtf you would do with the rest of it. What a loving mess, I don't know what to do with this, I just chucked it back into the fridge in a fury. Dude. You won the jackpot. The fat is the best part of bacon anyway. Full steam ahead man.
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Jan 31, 2012 08:01
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| # ? May 5, 2024 05:18 |
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yeah, I mean the worst thing that can happen is it will be bacon that is 'worse for you' which is actually better for you, if you know what I mean...
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Jan 31, 2012 08:19
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Consider most of us in here would die for a piece of this: http://laquercia.us/cuts_specialties_guanciale_and_lardo_iberico_de_bellota_lardo
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Jan 31, 2012 08:22
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I gotta say, I have never really been wowed by the meat from any pig as much as the black iberian. I even pretty much did the blind taste test - I went to spain knowing absolutely nothing about their ham (or even that they did ham aside from serrano or whatever) - and saw this ridiculously priced poo poo at a tapas place and ordered it for the heck of it. but man, it really is something special. I'd sooner have 1 lb of jamon iberico than 10lbs of goose foie gras.
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Jan 31, 2012 09:16
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I've got some more pork to cure for bacon, but lack the charcoal needed for smoking it and nowhere is selling it since its winter. Do I need to do anything after I finish curing it? Also, I asked in the general thread but didn't receive an answer. I'm looking into buying a meat slicer, anything I should look for in particular? I was thinking of trying to find a used commercial slicer on ebay
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Jan 31, 2012 10:10
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Jose posted:I've got some more pork to cure for bacon, but lack the charcoal needed for smoking it and nowhere is selling it since its winter. Do I need to do anything after I finish curing it? you don't need charcoal to smoke, you just need the appropriate wood chips. if you want to cold smoke, you can just turn your oven into a smokebox with enough ingenuity. or hot smoking works in oven too - just catch a foil packet full of woodchips on fire on your hob, and then set it on the bottom of your oven - it'll smolder out and smoke. I guess you have to be OK with your house being completely smoked out, but I'm sure if you're making bacon you're not the type to shy away from delicious wood-smoke.
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Jan 31, 2012 10:17
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Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm also interested in the flavour difference between smoked and non-smoked bacon I make myself is
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Jan 31, 2012 13:10
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I've had the charcuterie book for about a year and after pounds upon pounds of sausage, I'm finally making the jump to bacon. Went to the local butcher shop that gets their meat from their farm outside of town and ordered a pork belly. I forgot to ask the price per pound so I was nervous it was going to be killer. Picked it up Friday for 1.99/lb. not bad for local never frozen pork. Split the 8 pounds in have and did half bacon half pancetta. Bacon will be ready just in time for the Super Bowl to make bacon wrapped jalapeños. Woot. I plan on using a basement closet to hang the pancetta, but I'm a little worried the humidity will be low. I'm putting a pan right under it anyway because it'll be over carpet and I'm conviced it will drip. Should I put an inch of water in the pan to up the humidity?
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Jan 31, 2012 16:14
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Last week I put 2 three pound blabs of belly in the fridge to cure into bacon. Last night, when overhauling them, I noticed that one had a lot of fluid in the bag, and was still pretty squishy. The other one was quite firm, but had almost no liquid in the bag. Tomorrow, Wed., is the 7 day mark. Is that something to be concerned about? Or does it just mean one slab didn't have as much water in it as the other?
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Jan 31, 2012 19:47
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CaptainCrunch posted:Last week I put 2 three pound blabs of belly in the fridge to cure into bacon. Just a hunch, but is the one that lost a lot of liquid a cut that is primarily meat while the other one is mostly fat?
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Feb 1, 2012 00:26
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Just finished my first batch of bacon done Ruhlman style via From Belly to Bacon. Very forgiving--it tastes great even though I left it in the cure too long, smoked it way too long (got such a nice cold smoke going with the cold weather I couldnt resist) and sliced it unevenly. The next time I'm definitely going to have my butcher remove the rind, maybe dial back on the sugar and up the black pepper significantly. I have access to a deli slicer so that'll be in play next time as well. My question is, how long should this stay good? I have about a 1.5 lb unsliced block in the freezer I'm not worried about, but the remaining 2.5-3 lbs is sliced and bagged in the fridge. Also, if anyone in here is from Boston I can recommend The Meat House in Coolidge corner--the guys there were cool about ordering my belly and pretty interested in the project. A little pricy, so if anyone has recs for sourcing I'm all ears
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Feb 1, 2012 06:10
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AlternateAccount posted:So I don't know what the gently caress I got sold. It's proper bacon-y pork bellyish on one end mostly except for an entire quarter of it that is just fat, no lean on it whatsoever. The other end is a mess, where the belly ends is a very thick section of that sort of fluffy fat and then just straight lean pork. The whole thing is about 3 inches thick on one end and it tapers down to practically nothing at the other end. Skin still on it, too. There's no way to get more than about a half a pound of proper bacon out of this and I don't know wtf you would do with the rest of it. What a loving mess, I don't know what to do with this, I just chucked it back into the fridge in a fury. It sounds like you are describing a belly with the loin attached still. Is the lean end the thicker end? If so you've got American and Canadian bacon going on. In Australia that is how 95% of bacon is sold, with the lean and the streaky together. Edit: typos.
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Feb 1, 2012 09:35
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King Bahamut posted:Just finished my first batch of bacon done Ruhlman style via From Belly to Bacon. Very forgiving--it tastes great even though I left it in the cure too long, smoked it way too long (got such a nice cold smoke going with the cold weather I couldnt resist) and sliced it unevenly. The next time I'm definitely going to have my butcher remove the rind, maybe dial back on the sugar and up the black pepper significantly. I have access to a deli slicer so that'll be in play next time as well.
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Feb 2, 2012 05:29
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Psychobabble posted:Just a hunch, but is the one that lost a lot of liquid a cut that is primarily meat while the other one is mostly fat? Yeah, that seems to be the case. Makes sense! Thank you. Bacon turned out more salty than I care for. I will 1) use less salt next time 2) wash even more carefully after cure and 3) try blanching this batch before cooking as the good book reccomends. Other than the salt overpowering the subtle flavors, it was still drat good. Chewy.
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Feb 2, 2012 21:04
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Finished my first batch of bacon last night. I cut off a strip and threw it on my cast iron skillet, it was a little too salty but still pretty delicious. It also kinda tasted like sausage? Did I do something wrong or is that how the recipe in the OP is supposed to taste?
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Feb 3, 2012 16:23
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OP, you are a great man. Thanks for starting such educational thread. I've just fried up my first piece of home cured, hickory smoked bacon (delicious). I can't wait to eat it all so I can start again.
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Feb 4, 2012 09:08
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Mmmmm cured salmon. Second attempt at doing salmon. Bag blew up in the fridge so I had to add some more cure, water, and then double-bag it, but otherwise I'm quite pleased with how it came out. Tried lemon and dill as flavoring adjuncts this time, I think I'm going to go back to the fennel and caraway seeds for the next time around.
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Feb 8, 2012 17:15
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How can I make pastrami? Its not very common in England and usually expensive when it can be bought
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Feb 10, 2012 11:23
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I made some bacon using the OP recipe! It taste great, with a nice herby taste, however the slices are a little too thick and get chewy after cooking. Next time I will slice them a bit thinner, and probably adjust the seasonings a bit to make a more peppery bacon. I diced up the pork skin and used it for an amazing soup stock base. I bought 10 pounds of skin on pork belly, and cut it in half for easier handling  I tried to do one set of seasoning using brown sugar and the other with honey, but the honey mix didn’t work out and I ended up using brown sugar mix on both pieces.  Then bagged them in 2-gallon ziplocs and placed in the fridge  After a week of curing, with me flipping the bag over each morning, I rinsed the belly off  And baked it. Hopefully I will have a smoker before I make another batch. Once it reached the correct temperature  I pulled it and let it cool before removing the skin. I had a little trouble with this, cutting too deep into the fat, but that was just my inexperience with a knife.  Once that was done, it was time to slice it up. My slicer was too small and could not fit the entire length on the sliding tray so the slices did not come out perfect.   After slicing a mountain of bacon, I wrapped it up in Clingfilm for freezing and fried a few pieces up to try.  
Kid fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Feb 10, 2012 |
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Feb 10, 2012 14:57
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Kid posted:After slicing a mountain of bacon, I wrapped it up in Clingfilm for freezing and fried a few pieces up to try. AND???????????
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Feb 14, 2012 06:42
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mindphlux posted:AND??????????? Kid posted:I made some bacon using the OP recipe! It taste great, with a nice herby taste, however the slices are a little too thick and get chewy after cooking. Next time I will slice them a bit thinner, and probably adjust the seasonings a bit to make a more peppery bacon. I also don't know how to read. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 14, 2012 08:44
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Jose posted:How can I make pastrami? Its not very common in England and usually expensive when it can be bought PASTRAMI!! Buy a beef brisket (brisquet) it may be pricey in the UK, here in Texas its about 2 bucks a pound. Its the big slab of meat that comes from the lower breast of a cow and is very tough, but lots of fat on the top of it and throughout. You then corn this using Ruhlman's corned beef cure then smoke it after adding a metric fuckton of pepper. Here is Ruhlman's post on it http://ruhlman.com/2011/09/how-to-make-pastrami/
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Feb 14, 2012 16:43
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I get most of my meat from farmers at the market, but it typically comes frozen. I'm guessing meat that's been frozen and then defrosted isn't ideal for curing though. Is that right? I've been interested in corning a beef tongue or a brisket for a while.
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Feb 14, 2012 23:22
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Dr. Video Games 0081 posted:I get most of my meat from farmers at the market, but it typically comes frozen. I'm guessing meat that's been frozen and then defrosted isn't ideal for curing though. Is that right? I've been interested in corning a beef tongue or a brisket for a while. It doesn't really matter if it's been frozen.
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Feb 15, 2012 01:54
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That's good to know, and basically the only thing that's been stopping me from trying some charcuterie, so I'll have to get going now.
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Feb 15, 2012 05:44
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Does any one know a good place to order pink salt in canada? I tried butcher-packer.com but those fuckers just took my money and never sent me anything.  On a related note, don't loving buy anything from butcher-packer.com Edit: Reading the thread, good and good for you! Poop Delicatessen posted:For anyone having trouble finding pink salt or who doesn't want to wait for it to ship: Bass Pro Shops sells it as Lem Cure in 4oz packets for ~$2, so if you have one nearby it's a cinch to get it. Demon_Corsair fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 22:06
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Demon_Corsair posted:Does any one know a good place to order pink salt in canada? Glad I could help! I didn't even know they had Bass Pro Shops in Canada.
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Feb 18, 2012 00:13
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Demon_Corsair posted:Does any one know a good place to order pink salt in canada? Weird, I've ordered from them with no problem multiple times. I'm in the states, though.
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Feb 18, 2012 03:07
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Here (Australia) I've found it easier to order a small quantity of the nitrite/whatever itself and mix up my own. Then the bag I ordered from the states finally showed up and now I have a serious shitload of pink salt.
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Feb 18, 2012 04:20
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I will be all over this if it comes to market: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/879538888/meat-curing-chamber
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Feb 29, 2012 17:46
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I finally grabbed a duck breast for a shot at duck prosciutto, but I've run into a bit of a problem. Ruhlman's recipe says to hang the breast, wrapped in cheesecloth, in a cool, humid place for 7 days. My apartment is a sauna: in the dead of a Canadian winter, most people have to strip down just to stand being in here for more than 20 minutes. Will this work if I hang it in the fridge, or is it too cool/dry in there for this to work?
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Mar 3, 2012 20:10
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I used my fridge when I made it. I put a tray of water in the fridge underneath it and it seemed to do the trick.
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Mar 4, 2012 00:12
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bombhand posted:I used my fridge when I made it. I put a tray of water in the fridge underneath it and it seemed to do the trick. Ahh, ok, good to know! Did you have to alter the hanging time, or did 7 days do fine?
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Mar 4, 2012 01:14
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I really don't recall, sorry! After a few days I started weighing it daily until it had lost the right amount of weight.
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Mar 4, 2012 05:33
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Whelp, it's coming up on 7 days of fridge-hanging time for the duck breast. I was a retard and forgot to weigh it before I hung it up. I really don't want to slice into this thing and find out I should've let it hang longer. What kind of texture should I be looking for in a probably dried duck breast? It feels somewhat hard, but it still gives a bit when I squeeze it, particularly in the thicker sections.
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Mar 12, 2012 01:56
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Leathery but not hard, but not squishy. it should be firm with a bit if give.
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Mar 12, 2012 02:00
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I made another 10 lbs or so of bacon. I love me some bacon. Fresh belly, basic cure with a handful of cracked peppercorns, Oven smoked, then sliced and packaged. Then of course the best use of bacon - BLT. Oven smoking was interesting. It was about 20°F outside so I figured it would be too much of a pain to tend my kettle grill. I took a handful of applewood chips the I soaked in water and put them in an aluminum foil lined bowl. I took a couple of charcoals and got them going on my stove burner and dropped them in the bowl with the applewood chips. Worked great, smoldered the chips nicely. I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a serious outside venting hood on your range/oven because the whole house could have smelled like bacon for awhile... of course 2 weeks later it is like 70°F out and now I want to make more just to compare. I'm getting a lot better at slicing consistently. I think squaring it off makes a difference, and that gives you the added bonus of the odds and ends to use for beans/soups/braises/etc.
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Mar 18, 2012 19:03
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I have a baconmergency! I am making another 10-lb of bacon, and I think I messed it up pretty badly. I cured it in the fridge for a week, then forgot to bake it and sliced it right away. Is there any way to fix this? Think i can just heat the slices in the stove now then pack them away? Or would it be better to freeze everything and defrost a few slices as needed? Errant Gin Monks posted:Wow... I don't know. It won't keep as long since it wasn't heat treated or smoked. I think I might freeze it and fry as needed. Kid fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Mar 18, 2012 |
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Mar 18, 2012 22:30
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Kid posted:I have a baconmergency! Wow... I don't know. It won't keep as long since it wasn't heat treated or smoked. I think I might freeze it and fry as needed.
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Mar 18, 2012 22:56
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Kid posted:I have a baconmergency! The bacon should be fine the fridge for a week or so or in the freezer for a lot longer. The sodium nitrate takes care of most of the harmful bacteria. instead of roasting my bacon in the oven I cold smoked it at around 60 degrees for 8 hours. I've been cooking sliced pieces from the freezer for the past few months to no ill effect. forgot to take pictures last night, but I made corned beef using Ruhlman's recipe and it turned out excellent. Tonight I'm going to smoke a few pounds of it to make pastrami.
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Mar 18, 2012 23:59
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