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I've been inspired by this thread to dive into charcuterie. I've been smoking food for a while now with a Bradley digital smoker, so this seems like the next logical step. Homemade bacon must happen and The Book is on order from amazon as we speak. I live on the top floor of my apartment so I am limited in places to cure my meat (unless I hang it in my storage locker). I've been able to source out a wine fridge for use as a curing chamber, as well as get a Temp./Humidity sensor to stick in it. I plan on spending a bit of time dicking around with the setup to ensure I can get the proper environment inside the chamber. I'll start off using wet salt and see if that works to maintain humidity. I saw at least one person using a wine fridge for a setup, any other advice on how to set mine up? Apologies if I've missed this in the thread already: Does anyone know of a supplier for Prague Powder in Vancouver BC that isn't Stuffers Supply Company? I want to pick some up but would prefer to avoid the trip out to Langley.
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Mar 29, 2013 00:45
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dms666 posted:That was most likely me. All I have really done so far is use the tray of wet salt and check it once or twice a day and open the door if I need to if it's too humid. I would eventually like to get a fan installed into the side of the fridge to run when the humidity gets too high. Yea, I would imagine if the wine fridge is chilled using a cooling plate than cutting a hole in the side of the fridge for airflow wouldn't hit anything vital to the functionality of the fridge. All the reviews on the model of wine fridge I'm getting state that the door is faulty and leaves a bit of a gap between the seal and the chamber. I'm hoping if that's the case it'll work in my favour by allowing a bit of air flow between the times I open the door to check on it. I'm trying to get as close as possible to the design here: http://mattikaarts.com/blog/charcuterie/meat-curing-at-home-the-setup/ ..except I don't have room for anything remotely approaching the size of a frost free fridge. I figure the worst case scenario is I wind up cutting some holes in the side of my $50 craigslist wine fridge and bolt on a computer fan attached to a hydrostat.
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Mar 29, 2013 03:46
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I'll be cold smoking then cooking my first batch of bacon today. I bought 2.2 kg (4.8 lbs) of pork belly from the local butcher (3Ps in North Vancouver for any lower mainland goons) and put them into a basic cure + chili powder, pepper and ground cumin on the 14th. No liquid has seeped out of the meat after the first week of curing, and the bacon didn't seem to be getting as firm as I would've liked it, so after a week I put another 25 g of cure into the mix and let it sit for another 5 days. I had a bit of liquid come out and the meat seemed to have firmed up a bit so hopefully I have a decent distribution of cure through the meat. I pulled it out of the fridge this morning to rinse it off and I'm letting it surface dry in the fridge right now to try and get a bit of a pelicle to form before putting it in the smoker. The plan is to cold smoke for about 3 hours, let it sit, then hot smoke at temperature until it is cooked. I'll post pictures this afternoon as it happen sinburger fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 28, 2013 16:48
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Alright, so after a busy day of sitting on my deck watching the smoker run I've decided that store bought bacon is for the birds. Here's the two slabs of belly after the cure and a bit of drying in the fridge:  They were cured with some chili powder in the dry cure which gave them the redness on the outside. By the time they went in the smoker they were a bit tacky to the touch. Slapped onto the hooks...:  ...and loaded into the smoke box:  Three hours of cold smoke later"  And then 2.5 hours at 200°F with the smoke running:  Direct into the pan:  And then plated and served for mastication with friends:  My better half also fried up the skins in strips with the bacon fat and we crunched on that. It was so good, like a slutty potato chip that wanted to give up the flavor but you had to soften her up a bit (with chewing!) first. All in all, first pass at bacon was a great success.
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Apr 29, 2013 05:11
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I just picked up the rest of the pork belly my butcher had in stock (I'm pretty sure he froze the remainder of the order I didn't buy for my first batch). I now have 3.8 kg (8.3 lbs) of pork belly thawing out in my fridge. I'm torn as to whether I should make a boatload of bacon to freeze, or if I should attempt a pancetta.
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May 3, 2013 17:39
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Crazyeyes posted:"And Solomon said 'we shall split the belly in half...'" Thus it was spoken, thus it was done. I have a 3.2 lbs savory bacon curing (basic cure with red chilies, paprika, pepper, coriander and cumin), a 2.3 lbs sweet bacon (basic cure with brown sugar, nutmeg and cardamon) and 2.2 lbs piece to go as pancetta. I had some scraps leftover from trimming the edges, so I threw them in a bag with some pepper, bit of salt and sugar, and a chopped up onion and let it sit in my fridge overnight. I figure I'll toss it in the oven for tonight and see it something palatable comes out. I'm using Rulhman's recipe for the pancetta, but I screwed up and put the whole 40 g of pepper in the cure before reading the directions where it said to reserve half. I pulled some of the pepper out before I mixed it in, but it's still very heavy on the pepper. Will this affect the cure at all since I've effectively "diluted" the mix? Or will it not matter because I still have the required amount of salt mixed in?
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May 7, 2013 00:57
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:Instinct says it will be peppery, keep that in mind when you get to the 2nd bit of his recipe, which I assume will be dusting your pancetta with the pepper. That's fine as long as I'm not diluting the cure too much for the prague powder to do its thing. I'll reduce the amount of cracked pepper I use, or sub out for another spice.
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May 9, 2013 16:04
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So I have three projects on the go right now it feels like: Wine Fridge Curing Chammber I've been having a hell of a time trying to keep the humidity up in my wine fridge. It seems like the moisture is condensing on the cooling plate in the back of the fridge and keeping the humidity around 50-60%. So far I've put a bowl of salt water and a dish of wet salt in the bottom of the fridge, as well as hung a wet towel. The only thing that really seems to bring the humidity up is when I open the door to get air flow and check my meats, the outside air brings up the humidity. The temperature control is a "White Wine / Red Wine" setting, and I've discovered that the white wine setting keeps an even 55°F (12°C) temperature despite the built-in thermostat claim of 46°F. I know I could probably raise the humidity by switching to the red wine setting so I cooling plate doesn't fire up as often, but I'm afraid that will allow the temperature to rise too high in my fridge. Pancetta I pulled out the pancetta from the fridge and rinsed it off. It had a dark, almost purple colour to it, I'm assuming from the overdose of pepper that is on it. It was firm in the center, although the meat along the edges was a bit squishy despite the cure being rubbed directly into the meat at those points. I opted not to roll it, and just strung it up in my curing chamber with some string. I'll keep a close eye on it for the next few days and hopefully it will not spoil on me. Because of my mistake with the cure rub. The morning after I placed the pancetta in the fridge it brought the humidity up to 67%, which is fine by me. Duck Breast Prosciutto I've also been drying out some duck breast prosciutto in my curing fridge that I strung up last saturday. They are feeling pretty firm to the touch so far, and despite issues with humidity, don't seem to be case hardening at all. I expect they will be a bit salty as I couldn't take them out of the salt after 24 hours and left them in for 48 instead. I'm hoping this won't ruin the flavour too much and just help with the drying process a bit more.
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May 15, 2013 19:40
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Oh hey look it's 20 lbs of pork belly. Whatever should I do with it...
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Nov 2, 2013 02:10
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Apparently the answer is 20 pounds of bacon.  With bonus duck breast prosciutto. 
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Nov 2, 2013 08:23
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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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So I bought a meat slicer from a local buy and sell group and did the Ruhlman duck breast prosciutto to test it out.  Results Meat slicer works well. Those peeps at the deli make slicing look a lot easier than it actually is. The spinning blade is scary as gently caress when trying to clean it. The prosciutto itself tastes a bit soapy though. I'm wondering if it's because I was using sea salt as opposed to a kosher salt or table salt...
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Mar 1, 2017 05:45
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Zombie Dachshund posted:Tell me you're not actually trying to clean the blade while it's spinning. Right? Absolutely not, I unplugged and disassembled all the parts before cleaning them. But the blade stays attached so I need to rotate it by hand to clean it off. sinburger fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 16:48
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toplitzin posted:Let's talk some bacon. I like to play around when I do bacon. I'll typically split the belly into two pieces and make a savory and a sweet cure. Both cures use the basic Ruhlman cure. For savory I've had good success with paprika, pepper, cayenne, and maybe some ground cumin and coriander. For the sweet cures I like mixing up syrup or brown sugar with cardamon.
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May 10, 2017 15:35
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My wine fridge was rife with moisture. It works really well for wine though.
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May 20, 2017 00:37
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Stringent posted:Wouldn't an Australian be too scared of food poisoning to try making their own bacon though? I'm going with Canadian. Don't sully the good name of Canada by associating us with fake bacon.
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Nov 10, 2017 02:58
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Stringent posted:I'm flattered you think I'm influential enough to have come up with the name Canadian bacon. It's called back bacon. No idea why it's associated with Canada down in the US. Regardless, fatty belly bacon is the standard.
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Nov 10, 2017 15:34
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