Discussion
Since I need all the freezer space I can get next week when the pigs come back, I've finally got round to curing the loin of pork that I'd been saving from the last lot of pigs.
I wanted to do some dry cured back bacon and an air dried ham of some sort simply because I love Parma/Serrano etc. so I'd kept back a full loin on the bone from the previous batch of pigs with the intention of curing, but the last attempt I had was trying to make streaky bacon with a piece of belly and it wasn't very successful (not enough cure I think).
So, starting with a full loin with the bone in I had to attempt some butchery (not being Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, I have to do the butchery myself).
First I wanted to skin it, taking the rind off will hopefully help the cure to penetrate the fat, one thing I didn't do with the last lot I tried. My sister married into a butcher's family, and I spent an afternoon once with her father in law watching him cut up a pig, one thing I remembered is have a sharp knife and don't rush, so bit by bit I cut through the fat to take the skin off. You can see in the picture below where I got a bit close to the meat, but not too bad I thought for a first attempt.
With the skin off, I cut the joint in two (larger end for bacon, smaller end for the ham experiment) and began to cut the meat off the backbone and ribs, again, sharp knife and work slowly so most of the meat comes off the bones and becomes bacon.
This took about 20 minutes, but I was left with a joint of meat that looked suspiciously like back bacon and (in the background) a rack of baby ribs.
So, bacon joint into a plastic box and on with the dry cure, it's a basic cure of salt, sugar and a couple of preservatives and should take a week to 10 days to cure the meat.
Into the fridge with the bacon, then it was on to the rest of the loin, repeating the process of separating the meat from the backbone and 2 remaining ribs, leaving me with a piece of meat for curing, the ribs and a small mini-loin (plus the scraps for the dog).
So, fat side down onto a piece of cling film liberally sprinkled with Parma style cure (salt, sugar, black pepper, juniper berries).
Then rubbed liberally with the cure on the meat side.
The meat is then wrapped tightly in cling film and put in the fridge for 15 days.
So from the full joint I've got a bacon joint, a small dried ham, some ribs and dinner for the dog.
As you can see in the picture below, I also did the mini-loin in the parma cure and took the ribs off the backbone for dinner tonight (they have a dry rub of muscovado, smoked paprika, cumin and salt).
I'll hopefully update the thread with progress as the two joints either cure or rot.....
I wanted to do some dry cured back bacon and an air dried ham of some sort simply because I love Parma/Serrano etc. so I'd kept back a full loin on the bone from the previous batch of pigs with the intention of curing, but the last attempt I had was trying to make streaky bacon with a piece of belly and it wasn't very successful (not enough cure I think).
So, starting with a full loin with the bone in I had to attempt some butchery (not being Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, I have to do the butchery myself).
First I wanted to skin it, taking the rind off will hopefully help the cure to penetrate the fat, one thing I didn't do with the last lot I tried. My sister married into a butcher's family, and I spent an afternoon once with her father in law watching him cut up a pig, one thing I remembered is have a sharp knife and don't rush, so bit by bit I cut through the fat to take the skin off. You can see in the picture below where I got a bit close to the meat, but not too bad I thought for a first attempt.
With the skin off, I cut the joint in two (larger end for bacon, smaller end for the ham experiment) and began to cut the meat off the backbone and ribs, again, sharp knife and work slowly so most of the meat comes off the bones and becomes bacon.
This took about 20 minutes, but I was left with a joint of meat that looked suspiciously like back bacon and (in the background) a rack of baby ribs.
So, bacon joint into a plastic box and on with the dry cure, it's a basic cure of salt, sugar and a couple of preservatives and should take a week to 10 days to cure the meat.
Into the fridge with the bacon, then it was on to the rest of the loin, repeating the process of separating the meat from the backbone and 2 remaining ribs, leaving me with a piece of meat for curing, the ribs and a small mini-loin (plus the scraps for the dog).
So, fat side down onto a piece of cling film liberally sprinkled with Parma style cure (salt, sugar, black pepper, juniper berries).
Then rubbed liberally with the cure on the meat side.
The meat is then wrapped tightly in cling film and put in the fridge for 15 days.
So from the full joint I've got a bacon joint, a small dried ham, some ribs and dinner for the dog.
As you can see in the picture below, I also did the mini-loin in the parma cure and took the ribs off the backbone for dinner tonight (they have a dry rub of muscovado, smoked paprika, cumin and salt).
I'll hopefully update the thread with progress as the two joints either cure or rot.....
Bacon came out of the cure this weekend looking like bacon (and not smelling of rotten pork).
I tried a piece and it was quite salty, so I soaked it in cold water overnight and then left it to air dry, finally ending up with a slab of bacon;
Surprisingly, it tasted great, I'd never thought such a simple process could yield such great results, the only problem is having the willpower not to have bacon sandwiches for breakfast every morning. That and working out what the two of us can do with so much of the stuff....
Meanwhile, the Parma cure still sits in the fridge, it's due out for it's re-application of cure on Friday, so we'll see what that results in.....
I tried a piece and it was quite salty, so I soaked it in cold water overnight and then left it to air dry, finally ending up with a slab of bacon;
Surprisingly, it tasted great, I'd never thought such a simple process could yield such great results, the only problem is having the willpower not to have bacon sandwiches for breakfast every morning. That and working out what the two of us can do with so much of the stuff....
Meanwhile, the Parma cure still sits in the fridge, it's due out for it's re-application of cure on Friday, so we'll see what that results in.....
looks great.very nice, ive had a go at bacon a few times- always give a satisfactory result. do you have a meat slicer to cut it?
I would be interested to see how your parma ham comes out. what conditions are you planning to air dry it? i was thinking about doing some air dried ham myself but i'm conserned that the conditions wont be right and i'll have invested year(s) into a failure. Apparently you need quite tight humidity and temperature parameters. I was thinking about modifying a small fridge into a curing chamber. thats another project for another day.
I would be interested to see how your parma ham comes out. what conditions are you planning to air dry it? i was thinking about doing some air dried ham myself but i'm conserned that the conditions wont be right and i'll have invested year(s) into a failure. Apparently you need quite tight humidity and temperature parameters. I was thinking about modifying a small fridge into a curing chamber. thats another project for another day.
Pete Franklin said:
very nice, ive had a go at bacon a few times- always give a satisfactory result. do you have a meat slicer to cut it?
I would be interested to see how your parma ham comes out. what conditions are you planning to air dry it? i was thinking about doing some air dried ham myself but i'm conserned that the conditions wont be right and i'll have invested year(s) into a failure. Apparently you need quite tight humidity and temperature parameters. I was thinking about modifying a small fridge into a curing chamber. thats another project for another day.
Pretty much what I'm going to do. At the moment the meat is in a wine fridge I was given by a friend, the plan is to air dry it simply by switching the fridge off and hanging the wrapped meat in it. The outbuilding the fridge is in stays a fairly constant 15 or so degrees, down to maybe 10 in the winter and it was formerly a granny annexe (now stores my race car, so I get to lie on carpet when I work on it) so it's dry regardless of the weather.I would be interested to see how your parma ham comes out. what conditions are you planning to air dry it? i was thinking about doing some air dried ham myself but i'm conserned that the conditions wont be right and i'll have invested year(s) into a failure. Apparently you need quite tight humidity and temperature parameters. I was thinking about modifying a small fridge into a curing chamber. thats another project for another day.
I also have the added advantage of having plenty of pork to experiment with should it all go wrong...
And no, we don't have a slicer (yet, but I'm thinking about one).
sounds good- assuming the temp stays approximately like that. what about the humidity? i've heared that you can moderate humidity using a pan containing salt/ water solution where by the saturation level is in equalibrium if you get what i mean. I think having it in a closed fridge will have a too high humidity?
I'm sure you know what you are doing- i'm just interested as its something that I plan to do in the future.
I'm sure you know what you are doing- i'm just interested as its something that I plan to do in the future.
Pete Franklin said:
I'm sure you know what you are doing
Then you'd be quite wrong 
It's all a bit of a 'suck it and see' experiment at the moment, hence I'm using smaller cuts. Once (if) I get the hang of it and it's not too risky, I may go for larger cuts, but at the moment, I'm playing it very much by ear....
Mark Benson said:
Surprisingly, it tasted great, I'd never thought such a simple process could yield such great results, the only problem is having the willpower not to have bacon sandwiches for breakfast every morning. That and working out what the two of us can do with so much of the stuff....
You could always save some for 25/26th Sept 
Bacon sarnies are a great start to a raceday
I'll say nothing about weight saving
Well, the meat came out and is now hanging.
Firstly, using the weather station, I looked for a spot that would stay cool but not freeze, with a relative humidity around 70% - and found it straight away, the garage I keep the race car;
Taking the meat out of the cure and rinsing it, you can see it's shrunk a bit, and darkened in colour;
It needed soaking in tepid water for 3 hours, then wrapping in muslin and hanging. As you can see, it's accessible so I'll be able to check on it regularly, but the flies are pretty much non existant and the rodents are kept at bay with poison (we also keep our animal feed in the same building, so I make sure we're baited constantly).
So far the humidity has been between 65 and 73% when I've checked, and the temperature is 14-17deg. Almost ideal, the only downside is that indoors there isn't much of a draught, I'll have to see how that affects the drying, if it's going to be a problem I may have to relocate the meat closer to the doors or open a window slightly and hang them near it.
Oh, and yes, they're cable ties holding the muslin on.
Firstly, using the weather station, I looked for a spot that would stay cool but not freeze, with a relative humidity around 70% - and found it straight away, the garage I keep the race car;
Taking the meat out of the cure and rinsing it, you can see it's shrunk a bit, and darkened in colour;
It needed soaking in tepid water for 3 hours, then wrapping in muslin and hanging. As you can see, it's accessible so I'll be able to check on it regularly, but the flies are pretty much non existant and the rodents are kept at bay with poison (we also keep our animal feed in the same building, so I make sure we're baited constantly).
So far the humidity has been between 65 and 73% when I've checked, and the temperature is 14-17deg. Almost ideal, the only downside is that indoors there isn't much of a draught, I'll have to see how that affects the drying, if it's going to be a problem I may have to relocate the meat closer to the doors or open a window slightly and hang them near it.
Oh, and yes, they're cable ties holding the muslin on.
What was the cure you've used for the bacon? I've made it a few times before with a bought cure- which was OK but there didn't appear to be as much of the cure as you used.
With regards to what you do with the leftovers, try this:
http://www.adamperrylang.com/recipes/caramel-smoke...
that way you can have it with lunch/dinner as well as breakfast!
or there's always this:
http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explo...
With regards to what you do with the leftovers, try this:
http://www.adamperrylang.com/recipes/caramel-smoke...
that way you can have it with lunch/dinner as well as breakfast!
or there's always this:
http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explo...
Todzilla said:
What was the cure you've used for the bacon? I've made it a few times before with a bought cure- which was OK but there didn't appear to be as much of the cure as you used.
With regards to what you do with the leftovers, try this:
http://www.adamperrylang.com/recipes/caramel-smoke...
that way you can have it with lunch/dinner as well as breakfast!
or there's always this:
http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explo...
Surprisingly, we don't have any leftovers - We finished the last of it yesterday used like pancetta with some pasta With regards to what you do with the leftovers, try this:
http://www.adamperrylang.com/recipes/caramel-smoke...
that way you can have it with lunch/dinner as well as breakfast!
or there's always this:
http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explo...
It's surprised us how long it's stayed fresh (and how tempting a never ending supply of bacon in the fridge is....).
I used bought dry cure from http://www.sausagemaking.org/ but the last time I tried I used the amount they recommended and the meat hardly cured. So this time I used more cure (basically double the amount) and left it in for a bit longer. The result came out slightly too salty for our taste, but an overnight soak soon rectified that and it was cured perfectly.
In my case, as I said above it was a bit of an experiment but I found that more cure and/or longer in it cured better and a lot of the saltiness can be removed by soaking.
So I'd err on the side of caution and put plenty of cure on for the duration given in the instructions you're using and if it comes out too salty, just soak it for a while.
The meat 'tightens' in the cure and goes much more solid to the touch but it's not something I can easily describe, I really only knew for sure when I tried it.
So I'd err on the side of caution and put plenty of cure on for the duration given in the instructions you're using and if it comes out too salty, just soak it for a while.
The meat 'tightens' in the cure and goes much more solid to the touch but it's not something I can easily describe, I really only knew for sure when I tried it.
The farm shop where I used to shop had a load of commercial fridges in a barn. They used to do their own (for personal use) air dried hams by hanging them at the back of the fridge where the warm air was expelled. Seemed to get good results.
She did say though that a certain percentage went bad. Almost like some of the legs were doomed from the start.
She did say though that a certain percentage went bad. Almost like some of the legs were doomed from the start.
Well the first ham is sorted. I did a wet cure with 1 cup of salt and 1 tsp saltpetre in 2 litres of water. A 3.4kg ham soaked for 4 days and then left to dry. This was then smoked in a charcoal BBQ with hickory chips for about 4 hours until 70C on the meat thermometer. Having tried a small piece it may be a bit over smoked but so muh better than Aussie supermarket ham.
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