Lance Yeoh wrote:1st 2 batch of bacon done last week. But I have some questions, my 1st batch was cured for 5 days. I only used the cure without the added brown sugar. Result was a little salty to my taste and the bacon had a golden matellic sheen on it when I cooked it.
Oddley wrote:...The first lot you did sounds to me like you used to much cure, the green silver sheen is a sign of nitrite burn, and another sign is the bacon being to salty. Please check your usage rates. ...
Ummm.
Yes, if its too salty, check your arithmetic carefully.
And consider the effect of errors.
eg 2g �2g (on a scale with 2g 'clicks') means a possible 100% excess!
However 100g �2g is only �2% and likely undetectable.
Sugar is present in cures not just to sweeten as such, but actually to soften the impact of the salt.
If you are sure that your arithmetic and measurement are OK, feel free to add a bit of extra sugar to suit your taste peference - hey, thats why you are doing it youself, so it can be the way you want it!
Iridescent colour on the cut face of *raw* bacon or ham isn't normally anything to be bothered about. I don't think its a real sign of anything.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with this FDA page ascribing it to Oxidation.
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qa-fdb43.html Ferrous iron compounds are often green, but oxidising them to ferric typically results in a change *from* green to yellow or brown. So green being produced by oxidation of an iron compound seems, well, pretty unlikely to me.
Those vivid colours look much more like the result of interference effects produced by a thin (maybe only one molecule thick) film. Its an effect commonly seen with oil or petrol on a puddle.
So, I'd expect it to be due to a tiny amount of fat/oil on the surface of juices expressed from the meat. And the predominance of green in this rainbow sheen could simply be indicating the length of the carbon chain (the molecule size) of the specific oil/fat that is being characteristically expressed from the pigmeat.
And I'd expect more 'leakage' the more it had been pumped. And if it had been pumped more than was intended, it would indeed then have an excess of Nitrite, which may be the association with Oddley's explanation.
However, my understanding of actual "Nitrite Burn" is that it is a green (rather than pink) *pigmentation* of the meat itself, rather than a coloured sheen on the surface.
http://www.butcher-packer.com/pages-doc ... -salt.htmlI also understand that Lactobacillus viridescens can be responsible for "peroxide greening' of the meat - again the meat itself rather than a surface film.
http://www.splammo.net/foodapplmicro/applsausage.html Even after saying all that, the idea of an unusual *golden* sheen *after* frying the bacon does sound a bit strange.
But the bacon looks good...