Vac seal or not?

Air dried cured Meat Techniques

Vac seal or not?

Postby Shalloy46 » Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:09 am

The wife and I made salami and pancetta for the first time on the weekend. The recipe I followed for the pancetta said to vac seal the bag once the spices were rubbed in. But other information I've read and a few friends have also said you should just seal the bag without vacuuming the air out first.

I figured vac sealing would hold the spices against the meat which can only be a good thing and would be similar to massaging them into the meat on a constant basis.

So what's the general consensus? Do you guys vac seal the bag first or just seal it?
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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby crustyo44 » Wed Jul 15, 2015 8:57 pm

I always part vacuum seal anything I am curing. No mess whatsoever and massaging the spice/salt mixture
in is easy. I found that zipper bags can and do leak.
How long are you curing for, what recipe?
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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby wheels » Wed Jul 15, 2015 9:35 pm

I too vac-pac, but don't apply a full seal. It's said that a full seal inhibits the movement of cure into the meat; to be honest, when I have used a full seal, I've not noticed any detrimental effect.

HTH

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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby Shalloy46 » Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:40 am

The recipe for 650 grams of pork belly was

15.6 grams salt
1.69 grams cure 2
12 grams black pepper
7 grams brown sugar
28 grams juniper berries
12 grams nutmeg
.45 grams bay leaves
7.8 grams thyme

Looking at it there seems to be too much coating and I had a mate say the same thing. But that's what the recipe was. The recipe says to leave in fridge for seven days but I'm going to leave it for 14 days.

How do you not apply a full seal? My vac seal keeps going until it can't suck anymore air out then starts to seal.
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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby wheels » Thu Jul 16, 2015 10:52 am

Mine's manual, but there's usually some method of doing it with auto ones.

Hopefully, someone can advise.

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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby RodinBangkok » Thu Jul 16, 2015 12:38 pm

IMHO home vacuum sealing is way over rated as a technique. Most commercial operations use a vacuum tumbler to speed up the penetration of cures into large primal or sub primal cuts. The recent explosion in using vacuum tumbling is to artificially add water to meats including almost all varieties, chicken included. This allows the seller to basically sell water at the going rate for the cut of meat.

If you do vacuum pack then its probably best to tumble also as its about he only way to massage enough to get more into the muscle, beyond what normal equilibrium brining will do.

So if you don't own a vacuum packer don't necessarily go out and buy one just to marinade, if you already have one use it but its not necessarily a required step.
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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby Shalloy46 » Thu Jul 16, 2015 11:23 pm

The pork belly has been in the bag since Sunday. Should I be seeing liquid coming out by now because its still quite dry. Even though I followed a recipe that had percentages so I could adjust for my meat weight it seems like I have a lot of cure on them.
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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby NCPaul » Fri Jul 17, 2015 10:42 am

Give us your weights and the cure concentration and we will check your numbers.
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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby wheels » Fri Jul 17, 2015 11:55 am

If the cure's the one above, you've the correct amount of basic ingredients, but massive amounts of herbs/spices. 28gm of juniper on 650gm meat, I wonder if a decimal point was misplaced?

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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby wheels » Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:04 pm

I've just recognised the recipe, it's Jason's. I think that you've misplaced a decimal point in the juniper, nutmeg and thyme.

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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby Shalloy46 » Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:34 am

I got it from a youtube clip. A dutch guy I think. He posted the recipe as percentages so I made up a spreadsheet.

4.3% juniper. So 650 * .043=27.95 grams
1.9% nutmeg 650 * .019 = 12.35 grams
1.2% thyme 650 * .012 = 7.8 grams thyme
.07% bay leaves 650 * .0007 = .455 bay leaves

Even a mate of mine said it looks like a lot of spice for the size of meat. But I cant work out why when I just followed is percentages. Its been in the bag 6 days now. Should I wash the spice off and hang it in the chamber with my salami?
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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby wheels » Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:15 am

The original recipe's here:

http://curedmeats.blogspot.co.uk/2008/0 ... f-all.html

As you can see, it's been transcribed incorrectly in the video that you watched.

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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby Shalloy46 » Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:42 am

Hmmm yes it most certainly is. So what are my options now? Should I rinse it all off now? Or just wait for 10 days and don't bother with the second coating of spices when I hang it to dry?
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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby wheels » Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:48 pm

If you rinse it, there's a major risk that it won't cure properly. I think that you've just got to follow it through.

I'd probably not bother with all of the second lot of spices, maybe just a light dusting.

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Re: Vac seal or not?

Postby Shalloy46 » Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:09 pm

Ok I'll leave it then and when it's time to take it out of the bag will just give it a light covering of the secondary spices.

Thanks heaps for the advice Phil.
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