bacon curing

Air dried cured Meat Techniques

bacon curing

Postby TobyB » Wed Jan 12, 2005 1:02 pm

I just tried curing some bacon. As it was an experiment I used some fairly small bits of belly (both about 1lb).

I cured the one piece in a ziplock bag using a commercially bought cure.

I cured the other piece in natural sea-salt mixed with mollassas sugar. I cured both pieces for 3 days and both are now drying in the fridge.

The piece in the bought cure still looks like raw pork (albeit that it is slightly harder (from water loss I assume) whereas the piece in the homemade cure looks like bacon and has a much firmer texture. Obviously the mollasas will have dyed the meat to some extent but should bacon which has been cured using a commercial cure be so "raw" looking and textured?
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Postby aris » Wed Jan 12, 2005 1:59 pm

What commercial cure did you use?

Presumably it had nitrates in it which keeps the meat pink - so yes, this is normal.
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Postby TobyB » Wed Jan 12, 2005 3:18 pm

Not sure I'm afraid as my wife had bought it for me of the web. It was labelled "Bacon dry cure" though. May have been from Franco but I'm afraid she can't remember.

The query from me really was that the piece cured in traditional salt looks and feels like a bit of cured meat whereas the bit cured using the bought cure looks and feels exactly the same as it did before I started. The home made cure stuff is much much firmer and evidently has a great deal less water in it.

I'm really just a bit confused. What should my commercially cured bit look/feel like? At the moment I'm concerned that all I've got is a pretty ordinary bit of belly hanging to dry in my fridge and that when I slice and cook it it will taste like pork not bacon. Conversely I'm certain that the other bit will be nothing of the sort (it'll probably be unbearably salty but if you don't try.....)
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Postby aris » Wed Jan 12, 2005 3:32 pm

More than likely Franco's mix - I don't think anyone else sells it online.

What you made was bacon - and that traditionally has a pink colour due to the nitrates. So what you made is correct. Believe me, it will taste like Bacon, and yes, the other bacon will probably be salty. As you say, try it and see.

Personally, I add black treacle on the bacon while curing which gives a nice flavour, and a pleasing dark colour.

I think what you're actually after is something like pancetta, or a dry cured ham which is often much darker. Now this takes alot longer than 3 days to make - and requires other preparation and curing ingredients. Smoking can also add to the colour and flavour.

Have a look at Len Poli's site for more information on cured meats:

http://home.pacbell.net/lpoli/
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Postby TobyB » Wed Jan 12, 2005 3:41 pm

Thanks aris. I'll look at that site and go from there.

I'm finding the whole nitrate/nitrite and cures business quite bizarre. I was hoping to be able to stick to using natural sea salt and relying on the naturally occuring nitrate/nitrites (as with parma ham) but fear this may cause more problems for me.

Interestingly are all the comments relating to the same on this site merely from the professionals (such as Parson) who obviously have to comply with health and safety requirements? It seems strange that people have been curing using nothing but pure sea salt for hundreds of years and yet the general consensus on here seems to be that doing so is tempting a sudden death from botulism.

I'm trying to seperate the fact from the fiction and the health authorities advice (which will necessarily be as close to the "no risk whatsoever" approach as possible) from the pragmatic approach from someone who is using the best ingredients and doing this for personal consumption only
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Postby aris » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:03 pm

The chance of your cured meats containing botulism bugs is unlikely - but in the event you do hit that 'hole-in-one' and then go on to ingest some, you are highly likely to die. It is a neurotoxin.
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Postby TobyB » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:11 pm

But as I understand things a good quality, unrefined sea salt is likely to kill the botulism bug (or in any event as likely to kill it as a commercial cure).

Supposing I strike the hole in one and have the bug in my meat how likely is it that a natural sea salt cure will be any less effective than the nitrite/nitrate added to commercial cure?
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Postby aris » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:52 pm

I think the argument posed on this bulletin board before is that yes, salt does work - but to be as effective as nitrates, you would have to use so much, that it would make the meat unpalatable.

Using nitrates isn't a modern invention - they have been used for centuries in the form of Saltpetre also known as Potassium Nitrate. It used to be mined in places like Chile.
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Postby TobyB » Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:42 pm

Thanks for the info although I thought the argument was that unrefined sea salt contained sufficient nitrates (ie it din't need to be unpalatably salty). Is this not true?

I just don't like buying packets of white powder off the internet with no real knowledge of what they contain and then rubbing them all over stuff I'm planning to eat.

As I understand, Franco buys the cures pre-mixed from a commercial supplier. Whilst he is doubtless doing us all a huge favour by meaning that we don't have to buy the cure ourselves in 25kilo sacks (or whatever ridiculous size the minimum commercial order is) it further increses the remoteness. What's actually in the cure? I'm not talking about the salt (although I'd like to know where that's from as it happens) and the nitrate/nitrite but the anticoagulants and whatever else might be in it. The simple answer is I don't know and it's not on the packet of cure I've got. I appreciate I'm a bit weird about this whole subject of food additives but my take on the whole process is that if you are going to the bother of making it yourself you should be able to answer these questions. If you can't why not just go and buy the stuff ready made in the shops complete with the chemicals they put into them (parma evidently excepted)?
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Bacon Questions/answers

Postby Parson Snows » Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:45 pm

TobyB wrote
The piece in the bought cure still looks like raw pork (albeit that it is slightly harder (from water loss I assume) whereas the piece in the homemade cure looks like bacon and has a much firmer texture.

The home made cure stuff is much much firmer and evidently has a great deal less water in it.


The colour difference is because of the added molasses however, the texture/firmness is because the molasses version is �dry-cured�. As opposed to the one that has been sitting in a brine solution. When you cook it you�ll find that you lose very little extra weight. However, on the negative side it will probably take you a while to get the hang of not oversalting the meat. When you have finished the cure just leave it to soak over night in cool water and then allow it to dry off in the fridge. After a couple of hours taste the water, if it�s too salty then change it out.

TobyB wrote
I was hoping to be able to stick to using natural sea salt and relying on the naturally occuring nitrate/nitrites (as with parma ham)

The cost of Parma hams is what it is for several reasons, amongst these the long curing period (30 months +), the time and effort involved, the space involved and what a lot of people never realize - the amount of hams that are rejected due to bone sour. I don�t have the article at hand but it�s in the region of 6 to 7 % (if my memory serves me well) of the total hams cured.

TobyB wrote
It seems strange that people have been curing using nothing but pure sea salt for hundreds of years and yet the general consensus on here seems to be that doing so is tempting a sudden death from botulism.

It has been thousands of years and not hundreds and it wasn�t �pure salt� that�s why the meat turned "red". Though the amount of salt used is a major factor in the preservation it was, and still is the nitrate/nitrite impurities in the salt that impart the �cured meat� properties such as colour and flavour. If you are aware of a process that achieves the same results as another process, though is quicker and less prone to error, you�d be silly not to use it. It was only several hundred years ago that everyone in the UK drank beer, children included (weak beer), as the water supply couldn�t be trusted, whereas for beer making it had been boiled making it �sterile�.

TobyB wrote
I'm trying to seperate the fact from the fiction and the health authorities advice

Good luck.. no one including Governments and Scientists can agree on most of this subject. N-nitrosamines is one good example. I�ll admit I think that a lot of them react (maybe overreact) if something is at all likely to occur, as against being inundated with class actions law suits if they knew about it and did nothing.

TobyB wrote
as I understand things a good quality, unrefined sea salt is likely to kill the botulism bug (or in any event as likely to kill it as a commercial cure).

Neither �kills� the botulism bug. They both �inhibit the outgrowth�.. basically contain it from spreading.


hope that this is of some use to you

kind regards

Parson Snows
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And food enough for five... Amen
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Postby Oddley » Wed Jan 12, 2005 8:12 pm

TobyB I have been researching this subject quite some time now and have come up against a brick wall atm. The best I can recommend is use a tried and trusted recipe

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=403

With this cure remember it's seven days per inch height

I use Franco's cures with some success but he will sell you saltpetre if you ring him up. I have just had a gammon rasher made with his smoked bacon cure and it was good.
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Postby TobyB » Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:52 am

many thanks for the replies. I guess I'll have to continue my research (and possibly find a tame biochemist to assist)
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Postby Fatman » Fri Jan 14, 2005 12:46 pm

TobyB

I think YES is the answer to your questions, remember sugars counteract the nitrates , so if nitrates make your meat hard then sugar will help soften them or make them less hard .

Colour is down to length of time in cure and the fact you added Mollasses.

It sounds to me you have made two very good pieces of bacon Well Done ! Have You ?

Regards

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Meat Toughness

Postby Parson Snows » Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:01 am

Though nitrates/nitrites are more astringent than salt, the quantity of these added is very small when compared to the salt, and it is the amount of salt that does most of the �damage�. The sugar is typically added to counteract the �toughness� caused from the combined effect of these two ingredients.

Astringent
Any substance or agent that causes tissues to contract or that inhibits secretion of fluids such blood.


kind regards

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Misc. Response

Postby Parson Snows » Mon Jan 17, 2005 2:51 pm

Aris wrote
The chance of your cured meats containing botulism bugs is unlikely

Clostridium botulinum spores can be found in the soil in almost everywhere that is habitable in the world. The chances of the animal that your meat came from having C. botulinum spores present is in fact rather high.

Aris wrote
but in the event you do hit that 'hole-in-one' and then go on to ingest some, you are highly likely to die. It is a neurotoxin.

The chances of surviving are approximately 1 in 10, so you could be lucky. However, as Aris rightly points out it�s a neurotoxin (it attacks the nerves, nervous system etc.) so the chances that you will ever be the same again are highly unlikely and you�ll only know that after several months of rehabilitation.

Aris wrote
Using nitrates isn't a modern invention - they have been used for centuries in the form of Saltpetre also known as Potassium Nitrate. It used to be mined in places like Chile.

History states that the Romans were the first to work out and appreciate these properties from Sea Salt. If you look in the older cook books you�ll see the mention of Sal prunella (this is also mentioned in the �Book of Sausages�, though yet one more thing that they get wrong) this was probably the first/or one of the first �time released� capsules.
Sal Prunellae
A mixture of Potassium Nitrate and Potassium Sulfate (KNO3; K2SO4)

TobyB wrote
I just don't like buying packets of white powder off the internet with no real knowledge of what they contain and then rubbing them all over stuff I'm planning to eat.

I can sympathise with you, and most of the general public. The information that is out there is sketchy and somewhat disjointed. Though I must comment that the companies that deal with these products are tightly controlled (at least in the UK) as to purity/weights etc. and professionalism.

TobyB wrote
I appreciate I'm a bit weird about this whole subject of food additives but my take on the whole process is that if you are going to the bother of making it yourself you should be able to answer these questions. If you can't why not just go and buy the stuff ready made in the shops complete with the chemicals they put into them (parma evidently excepted)?

The reason that most; if not all of us; are here is that
1) we aren�t happy with the products available (quality and/or price)
2) we like the satisfaction of being self subsistent
3) we can�t get the products that we want where we live.

Kind regards

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Heavenly Father Bless us
And keep us all alive
There's ten around the table
And food enough for five... Amen
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