Dry cured bacon

[saucisson]

I just realised I never posted that recipe:

Note this recipe uses cure #1, Also known as Prague powder number 1, curing salt, tinted curing mixture, pink curing salt, modern cure or insta-cure 1. Not to be confused with pure nitite/nitrate or saltpetre.

For each kilo of meat:

2.5g cure #1
18g salt
10g sugar

Dave

[harterz]

OOI I would like to make some back bacon and so am looking to buy a piece of loin. I notice that the supermarkets tend to sell loin as a "joint" - around 800 - 1000g. I am guessing I need a piece of around 2kg to have a decent bash at bacon. Is there any special cut, or such like, I should use to ask the butcher for?

harterz

[jpj]

for streaky ask for belly, in a whole piece, for standard bacon ask for loin/back. in both cases ask for the ribs to be removed

[harterz]

Thanks jpj. I bought some belly from my butcher to make streaky a few weeks ago, forgot to ask him to bone it. I was pleased I did. I took the ribs out myself as a whole rack and threw them on the barbie.

A touch of Reggae Reggae sauce - ribs better than anything I have had before.

My butcher is pretty tame so I guess I will take his advice re suitable piece/size etc.

harterz

[jpj]

the thing is, though, bones weigh a bit and if in can hike the price up a bit

the neck end is meatier but can be a bit harder to slice.

i'd say get as much as you can cram into your curing place

and i'd say, if you have room for it, buy a half/whole pig as the price plummets for what you get

[georgebaker]

Hi
I think I have posted this before but the bone end is DEARER in wholesale Chinese suppliers here in Manchester

Last time I wanted some belly for sausages I had to convince the butcher to sell me meat the fattier belly. Until I told him I wanted to make my own sausage he selected me the leanest he could find. That's what I call service selecting me the best value rather than trying to off load a fatty cut.

George

[saucisson]

I'm stuck with what I can get from the supermarket George check your PM box

[Vernon Smith]

Only Just picked up this thread. Lance, you live in a similar climate to mine but you have much better utilities in Malaysia than I do here in the Sol.Is. where refrigeration to 4 deg cannot be guaranteed so I work at 12 deg as being a more realistic average allowing for daily powercuts. I ran out of KNO3 some months ago so I made my last two batches of bacon with salt and sugar and no nitrate. No problem at all and I'm still alive to prove it. Frankly my friends, there is a lot of unnecessary hype on the subject. Take heart Buster. No Rocket Science required to make excellent bacon under even the most adverse conditions. I've proven this with ham too - see my recent postings on Cordon Bleu Ham. I fillet out both back and belly and dry dure with 30g/kg of meat. My cure is 60% salt and 40% brown sugar. Absolutely no need to put in zip-loc bags and evacuate all the air. When your bacon has been well rubbed with cure put it into a suitable lidded plastic or stainless container. Botulism is anaerobic so don't exclude the air. Don't bother with measuring the thickness of your bacon just leave it 7 days in the cure but turn the pieces over if you have more than one piece in container. My last batch of 10kg had 6 pieces all stacked. This took 6 days to rotate them all daily. Top going to the bottom and bottom moving up to the top, then 1 day more. The magic word is "Patience". The dry cure will draw out a lot of water. Don't pour it off! leave it with the bacon in the container. Towards the end of the curing time it will become a gelatious slime. Absolutely perfect! Remove the bacon from the cure, Wash off the slime (gelatinous protein) on the 8th day and hang your bacon to dry. Smoke if you wish or slice and enjoy unsmoked (green). I hope this helps. Anyone with any queries or suggestions please add your post to this topic. Dave has kindly sent me some KNO3 so I will use it sooner or later in some Salami or other dried sausage. BTW Dave it still hasn't arrived but don't worry. The snail mail service to the Solomon's might get it here in time for my enbalming.
LoL
Vernon

[Vernon Smith]

Just had a thought concerning nitrates & nitrites in bacon cure. It has been known for a long time that nitrites convert at high cooking temperatures into nitrosamines. The nitrite combines with amine radicals derived from proteins. Nitrosamines are generally held to be carcinogenic. Has any one any idea what the acceptable level of nitrosamine would be according to current EU or US legislation? I have used nitrate/nitrite in curing for a long time and I'm still alive, a condition that I wish to perpetuate. I am sure the danger level is much higher than we use in our home curing but it would be interesting to see what any food scientists amongst us have to say on the subject.
All the best,
Vernon

[saucisson]

I think the answer is that no-one knows what a safe dose of nitrosamines is. See here if you haven't read it already:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distributi ... J0974.html

Current US thinking seems to be to use nitrite and ascorbate or erythorbic acid for bacon and reserve nitrates and saltpetre for meats that won't be grilled or fried. I now use cure #1 for bacon and cure #2 or saltpetre for air dried hams/sausages.

Dave

[Vernon Smith]

David,
Sorry, I don't think the Nitrate/Nitrite interpretation holds water. Bacteria convert KNO3 to KNO2 and then to gaseous Oxides of Nitrogen. The oxides preserve the meat. Therefore whether you start off with KNO3 or KNO2 the end is always the same, the KNO2 just gets there quicker. Not knit picking, just academic qualification of my understanding of the process. The important point is that we keep within the accecptable levels of nitrosamines. Thanks for the thread on the subject. I have proved to my satisfaction that curing bacon and ham without Nitrates works perfectly. The Nitrate might give the ham a deeper pink colouration so I will try next time round and post a pic. I will leave the KNO3 & 2 for Salami. I will add a trace to my next batch of fresh sausage too, just to keep the pink colour.

BTW I haven't tried ascorbic acid in ham or bacon cure. As you know it is an excellent anti-oxidant. Have you any leads on this?
All the best,
Vernon

[wheels]

Vernon,

I also have difficulty in understanding the sole use of Nitrite in the USA.
However I think that this paragraph in the link posted by Dave may be one of the reasons:

Effective June 15, 1978, the USDA changed the curing procedures of "pumped" bacon as follows: the use of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate is prohibited; the level of ingoing sodium nitrite shall be 120 ppm (or 148 ppm potassium nitrite); the level of ingoing sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) or sodium erythorbate (isoascorbate) shall be 550 ppm. According to USDA surveys, these changes have resulted in bacon that does not form nitrosamines when cooked at 340 degrees F for 3 minutes on each side. These three changes apply only to pumped bacon and do not apply to dry cured bacon.

The US science guys have obviously tested the products cured in this way and found them OK, therefore the rule?

Regarding your reply to Lance re Curing without Nitrite/Nitrate you, rightly, say that botulism is anerobic and go on to say that the bacon can be smoked - wouldn't the be conditions be anerobic whilst being smoked?

Congratulations on what you are doing with the products available to you. I was amazed by the colour of your ham given no nitrite/nitrate.

Personally, as it is available to me, I will use Nitrite in 'short' cures and a combination of nitrite/nitrate in 'longer' cures and smoked/dried products because of the added protection they provide. I choose to cure within both the European and American levels as they are the only scientifically researched standards I can access.
There seems to be no reason for you not to use nitrite/nitrate in your hams, when you can get hold of some, because as far as I can tell, Nitrosamines are only a problem with high temperature cooking such as with fried bacon.

Regards

Phil

[Spuddy]

This is quite simple...

Nitrosamines will ONLY develop in large amounts when there are significant amounts of nitrates/nitrites remaining during cooking.
It is important therefore that TRUSTED and properly calculated recipes (plus also timings) are adhered to. An accurately calculated cure will assure that the residual KN02/3 is minimal and therefore the risks from nitrosamine generation is low.

BR

[Vernon Smith]

Good point Spuddy regarding the excess of Nitrites. If it's all converted to gaseous oxides there should not be a problem, especially with a touch of ascorbic acid if I can find out exactly how much to add.

Unfortunately Oddley seems to have dropped out of the loop. He put together an XL brine calculator that worked well but I lost it when my HDD went down last year. Has any one got it? The site where you could down load it no longer seems to work. I have tried it a couple of times recently to no avail. I am sure the bacon and ham cure that I use at 30g/kg is well within the margins of safety but for academic reasons I would like to put the figures through Oddley's calculator. I would be most grateful if anyone could email it to me.
BR2U2

[wheels]

Vernon
Unfortunately I don't have a copy of Oddley's calculator.
I have an excell 97 spreadsheet that I use to check cures - however, although it works accurately, it is not in a form that I would like to put online.
If you are unable to obtain a copy of Oddley's I will be happy to 'run' your cure through it to calculate PPM Nitrate/Nitrite, PPM Ascorbic Acid (or equivalent) and percentages of salt and sugar.
Either PM me or post the cure.
Hope this is of use.

Phil