Corned beef

[johnfb]

Re reading my above post I feel I might have been a bit abrupt. So too explain my reasoning.

The idea behind the rubbing on of the 250 g of salt for 12 hours in the recipe, is to draw out some of the liquid. After you wash the meat off you will probably be left with say 100 g of salt on the meat, plus 250 g of added salt in the next stage of the recipe, this makes 350 g of salt dissipated throughout the meat, which is for a 3 Kg piece of meat, approx 12% This is extremely salty, and would have been ok for the days before refrigeration.

Therefore my recommendation to reduce the salt level. On the other hand as long as you stick to the suggested 1 g of saltpetre per Kg of meat you can in safety follow the rest of the recipe exactly if you so desire.

I hope this helps

Thanks Oddley for all the help, I think I will go with the dry rub version as it seems to be the most straight forward and I will follow your instructions reagrding the salt and saltpetre.

You did not seem too abrupt at all...simply helpful. Your full explaination of the reasoning behind these things is most useful to me and I am sure anyone else reading these posts.
Cheers
Thanks again

John

[wallie]

Hi Oddley
I was wondering if your Corned Beef cure can be used for Bacon?
I generally use belly pork for this, so I do not think I would have to inject.
Incedently I just received my Injector from the UK BBQ shop it looks quite good for �9.

Thanks
wallie

[Oddley]

Hi wallie

I don't think the corned beef cure would suit bacon. I have designed a Traditional bacon recipe that I'm quite pleased with. I recently cured a shoulder of bacon as frying bacon with it.

Traditional bacon

This recipe for 1 Kg Of Meat

3.06 % -- --30.6 g Sea Salt
0.825 % --- 8.25 g White Sugar
0.025 % --- 0.25 g Ground Black Pepper
0.025 % --- 0.25 g Ground Coriander
0.2548 % - 2.55 g Cure #1
0.03 % - ---0.3 g Saltpetre

Usage weight = 42.2 g Per Kg of meat

Rub cure into meat 10% on skin side, the rest on the meat side. Make sure you get the cure into any cracks or creases. Put meat into a food grade bag, at the top of the fridge, for about 14 days. When finished, wash off in cold potable water, and allow to dry for a few days in the bottom of the fridge.

[wallie]

Thanks Oddley I will try that on my next batch.

wallie

[wallie]

Hi Oddley
One final questionon on using your bacon cure:
Apart from the weight does the thickness of the meat have any bearing on how long it should cure?
For example 1kilo of shoulder as opposed to 1kilo of belly pork.


Many thanks
wallie

[Oddley]

No not really. You will notice that there is saltpetre in the recipe, this gives the meat a darker colour and a deeper flavour. Unfortunately saltpetre takes time to work, that's why the 14 days, not the actual thickness of the meat.

EDIT: Oh forgot to say. Don't forget to take off 10% of the meat weight. This is about the weight of the rind which is more or less impermeable so will take up no cure.