1st Time Bacon

[Lance Yeoh]

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.
2nd batch was cured for 6 days and I added 1tablespoon of brown sugar. The result was fantastic and not as salty (just nice) and there is no golden metallic sheen on the meat. Any idea why?

[Lance Yeoh]

Here are some pics of the bacon mentioned.

[Henham]

Reading all this with my mouth watering.......where do i find Paul's tutorial?

[Paul Kribs]

Henham

Just click the WWW link at the bottom of this post and go to the sausagemaking section.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[Oddley]

Hi Lance
Like Paul I like my bacon plain. I use the traditional bacon cure sometimes, and have had no problems with it. 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.

There is an instruction .pdf for the cures, that can be downloaded. Please download it and give it a read. It should answer your questions.

http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/dryCure.pdf

Like the look of the bacon well done!

[bigappetite]

Does anyone have a recipe for the bacon cure used above?

[Lance Yeoh]

Thanks Oddley, guess it's time to throw my cheapo kitchen scale out the window and get one of those digital ones.
But just one question, is it save to eat? Didn't suffer any adverse effects the first time but I've still got about 1kg of it in the freezer.

Bigappetite,
I got the bacon cure from this site. Look under curing products and you'll find it. I had it flown half way round the world to me in Malaysia (South East Asia) but it's well worth it.

[Oddley]

As long as it smells ok, when you defrost it, and tastes ok when you have cooked it, it should be fine.

But ultimately the decision is yours, as I don't know how much more cure than recommended you put on

[dougal]

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.

...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.html

I 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...

[Ma]

Hi all! Well having successfully brine cured my first ham I thought I'd have a go at dry curing some streaky bacon. I'm on day 5 now and about to rinse off the cure. I used HFWs recipe and have drained liquid and rubbed fresh cure in every day, all done in a wine fermenting bucket. As with the ham I've not used any salt petre as I don't like the sound of it. What effect will this have on the storage time and conditions of this please?

[dougal]

... I used HFWs recipe and have drained liquid and rubbed fresh cure in every day, all done in a wine fermenting bucket. As with the ham I've not used any salt petre as I don't like the sound of it. What effect will this have on the storage time and conditions of this please?

Purely judging by the responses on HFW's RC forum, the 'bacon' will likely be very salty indeed.
As such, that'll help to preserve it.

Remember, anything more than just 6g of salt *total* per person per day is officially considered unhealthy...
http://www.nutrition.org.uk/home.asp?si ... 99&which=1

[Ma]

Yep you're right Dougal, Very salty indeed!!! So would soaking it prior to use be ok? Like before boiling a ham? We are very aware of salt content in our house - not adding salt to much at all, maybe that's why the bacon tasted painfully salty to us! I've used a little like pancetta and added vast quantities of homegrown tomatoes, aubergines and courgettes to make a pasta sauce, even still a little has gone a long way! Economical I suppose!

[dougal]

... would soaking it prior to use be ok? Like before boiling a ham?

Well salted, it should keep for '"ages" (I'll let an expert be more specific).
So, if you are wanting to keep it, leave the salt IN for storage.

Before slicing and use, you can soak out the salt, and if liked, allow it to dry somewhat.
You can soak slices (quite quickly, an hour or so?) but redrying isn't so good.
A piece of bacon, in "plenty" cold water, in the fridge, occasional stir, fresh water every 12 hours, and fry a scrap for taste every day. (2 or 3 days expected.) The difficulty is just in getting a representative scrap! (If you think you are there, cut the chunk in half and test the middle.) If you dry it (hang sideways from a fridge shelf with a drip tray - for a day or two) you will be concentrating the remaining salt - so you should soak it until slightly *under*salted.

[Ma]

Thanks Dougal, very helpful!