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So I put in a request at the start of the week to my butcher for four ham hocks and six double cut bone-in pork chops (German gepockelte) My idea is to cure the meat and cold smoke it after I pick it up later today. Now, I need some input (and I just woke up and can't seem to clearly think yet) ... if I was to brine cure everything together, how much meat can I add to the brine before I need to adjust the strength of it? Any suggestions on a good brine to use to accomplish the cure? Only reason I am thinking brine is I could just make one tub and bung all the meat in it together but I am open to other suggestions. I must admit to not being the most experienced with brines as when I do use them it is usually for one piece of meat. So ... any help team?

So a little thought has been put into it ... if I wanted to calculate the brine at 2:1 I would do something like this:

Weigh all the meat. For this purpose lets say it is 1000g to make it easy.

1000g Meat
420.5g Water
50g Kosher Salt
25g Demerara Sugar
4.25g Cure #1

Brine for 10 days. Does this sound right? Any tweaks to add other flavours?

Ok, my head hurts, I hate calculating brines. I think the percentages I calculated would be way too low in Cure #1. I would actually need something closer to 18 grams ... does that sound right?

Now I have started looking at equilibrium brining and my head is going to explode. Maybe I should try that as it seems to be the simplest one and makes sense to me. And sorry for so many posts talking to myself, I obviously have nothing better to do!

You can use the calculator on my black ham or cider ham as a calculator for the EQ brines. Just Input (say) the water where the cider should be etc.

HTH

Phil

I really liked the spicing used in the Pauline ham; it's subtle but comes through in the final product.

ComradeQ. If you have 1kg of meat, the cure that you propose will be great - do not use 18 gm cure #1, it's too much. NCPaul proved this by testing a few years back. To have the spicing of an injected cure, like Pauline's, in an immersion one, I suggest increasing the spices a lot - maybe 5 times?

Phil

Thanks guys! So I got the hocks, had to sit in the fridge for a day but doing up the cure now. The chops did not arrive so I told him to call me when they do. The butcher has called in a really good Mennonite supplier for the pork so I told him I could be patient (Red Tamworths). I also threw in an order for some belly as they are known as the definitive bacon pig. I'm hungry now.

One last question ... with the hocks in the brine (I ended up pumping to 10%) I have several days to decide to cold smoke or hot smoke. Most commercial hocks I buy are hot smoked but I'm leaning towards cold smoking. I'm looking to using these for soups, beans, etc to flavour them. Is there a benefit to hot smoking them?

I like to do a long warm smoke (160-180°f ) with hickory. Finish at 150°ish
I'd like to see a pic or two of the Tam's cuts. I hear it's an awesome breed.

I'm only 25 miles from the town where the Tamworth pig originated.

Phil

DanMcG wrote:I like to do a long warm smoke (160-180°f ) with hickory. Finish at 150°ish
I'd like to see a pic or two of the Tam's cuts. I hear it's an awesome breed.

The hocks are in the brine already and I didn't get a pic of those prior to that. I will get some of everything when they are done. The chops I got look great ...

I should have mentioned, I used Pauline's Ham cure for the hocks. Silly me, I steeped the mix and doubled the spices. Once cooled, I strained the spices, injected 10%, and put the rest in a vac bag. Of course, my stupidity I forgot two things ... 1) return the spices back into the brine before sealing the bag and; 2) account for the weight of the bone and subtract it from the cure amounts. I'm sure the spices should still be there since I had doubled the amount before steeping. As for the bone weight, I'm sure it won't kill me but need to remember for next time.

The chops I opted for a dry rub. For those I used another Wheels recipe and opted for the Favourite Bacon recipe. Rubbed and vac packed into the fridge. The chops and hock I will cold smoke together for the first day. That's all the smoke I will give the chops, plan to keep those only cold smoked and cook them when I use them. The hocks I will return to the smoker for a second day and this time I will warm smoke as per DanMcG.

Beautiful chops! Be careful cooking those babies.

I'm sure that you take your pigs bigger than we do. What weight is one of those beauties?

Phil