creating my own local ham

Air dried cured meat and salami recipes

Postby wheels » Tue Feb 02, 2010 12:19 am

You're asking the wrong bloke, It's not my area of expertise.

Personally I'm not 100% sure, but unless somebody tells me otherwise, I'd want at least a 40% weight loss; bone or not. If you're weighing like with like I wouldn't worry about any adjustments - just so long as you don't remove the bone half way through I would think that you'll be OK.

What you're attempting to do is to get the Water Activity below 0.85AW to make a safe product.

Phil
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Postby bigJ » Tue Feb 02, 2010 10:17 pm

Fair enough.
I have noted that the commercial blokes (parma / speck/ blackforest) seem to have quoted less weight loss- in the 25-30% area, although i guess those guys can afford the AW meter, but thats a bit beyond my pocket.
Probably best to err on the safe side.
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Postby wheels » Tue Feb 02, 2010 11:02 pm

You may only get 30% ish - I don't know - perhaps I was a bit over the top with my estimate! :oops:
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Postby saucisson » Wed Feb 03, 2010 12:19 am

I need to think about the bone/no bone issue, but only from the theoretical side.

Dave
Curing is not an exact science... So it's not a sin to bin.

Great hams, from little acorns grow...
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Postby bigJ » Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:53 pm

I have now got two hams curing one on the bone in the previously discuss cure and the other i have tunnel boned and have had a stab at a speck style ham.

Thought it was interesting to note that the weight of the bone was closer to 10% of the weight of the leg not the 20% as i've seen advised elsewhere on the forum (the trimmed, bonein ham weighed 8.2 kg (knukle end of bone removed(179g)), the bone i removed from the other ham weighed 859g, which implies the bone left in the ham weighed 680g or 8.3%of the total weight). I know different size pigs will produce different ratios and this was a big pig (83kg dead weight if you wanted to know) but i thought this worthy of note especially if calculating brine amounts etc. as it could lead to too little cure. Hope that helps someone, or if i made a mistake somewhere i'm sure someone will let me know.

Just tried the first of the belly bacon, just a basic dry cure but excellent non the less, especially as i haven't had any for a while since i ran out of the last lot made from last years pigs.
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Postby wheels » Thu Feb 04, 2010 12:31 am

J

I've just looked at my post about weight loss. It isn't the clearest thing I've ever written!

To clarify:

If the recipe you used was for a bone-out ham and you have used a bone-out ham, then just use the weight loss figures they give.

If the recipe you used was for a bone-out ham and you have used a bone-in ham, then you may have to adjust use the figures.

...and vice-versa.

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