captain wassname wrote:Sorry Robert I have been out of touch for a bit so you think if I add chocolate which is bitter then a bit more sweetener would be favourable.Since Im adding 0.3% chocolate Ill add the same amount of sugar.
Depending on the 'sweetness' of the beer that you will be using (and your spice combination) I would be tempted to add a tad more sugar as you have suggested
Out of interest do you cure your ham and bacon sweeter than I because you are smoking yours.
To be totally honest I do it to combat the salt ~~one Ayrshire bacon spice (out of Glasgow University) I use uses 500 gm of salt to 50 gm of sugar plus spices. I leave it down for more than 5 days the bacon will be salty the Irish I do is a 50/50 mix of salt and sugar, I can leave this (Iris bacon)down for 2 weeks with no apparent problems with being too salty.
Smoking only in my opinion adds another depth/layer of flavour the same as aging/maturing bacon or ham smoked or unsmoked
Make pea (or any other) soup and by accident add too much salt, the taste can be rectified (most of the time) by adding sugar to combat the saltiness of the soup.
It's the same as spices knowing what will complement/work with each other ~~ sweetness, spicy, tart, or aromatic. I was surprised to see on one sausage forum where the discussion of the differences of nutmeg and mace in a sausage mix. It seems that the consensus was that they was the same (taste) even tough one was seed and the other was shell and because one could not get mace it was safe (taste wise) to double up on the nutmeg ~~ problem there is that nutmeg is sweet and mace is/has some heat
Sorry about that, probably gone on more than I should again