bacon curing

[TobyB]

As requested feedback on the two bits of bacon.

The bit cured with the commercial cure is less salty but has charactersitics similar to supermarket bacon (texture and taste although obviously without all the horrible watery residue) .

The bit cured with natural sea salt and mollases is saltier but is more like the flavour I was looking for (and nothing like supermarket style bacon). I used it in a tomato sauce for pasta last night and was very pleased with the flavour (although I ate about half of it out of the pan before adding the tomato as it was so delicious).

Clearly using high quality coarse sea salt and mollases is much more expensive than using the commercial cure but that, as they say, is life.


Out of interest, would it be possible to dry out the excess salt and molasses and re-use it? I'm concerned about food hygeine if I did so but it would make this a more affordable option as this last attempt ended with me having to throw away about a kilo of salt/sugar mix. To confirm, the method used was to bury the pork belly in the mixture in a box with the fluid draining off via holes in a plate on which the pork and cure was placed.

Belated editing: Both pieces had a very good "pink" colour presumably in the case of the home cured bit because of the nitrates in the sea salt. With the colour of the molasses as well the second bit was (when cut) the same sort of colour as parma ham

[aris]

Did you use molases with the commercial cure too? When I use cure, I always add extras like demerara sugar, and/or black treacle, and other spices.

[TobyB]

No I used the commercial cure neat as I wanted to see what it was like in the raw so to speak. Next batch I'll try mixing it with some sugar as well. Thanks for the tip.

[Fatman]

TobyB

Remember you can if you so wish grind the sea salt down to a consistency you like and then add other ingredients, again only if you wish then add no more than 50 grams of your own mix per kilo of meat place in a bag wait a week and eh presto.

This is no means a definitive way to cure but a very nice experiment all the same, I do hope you will try this method and post your results.

Regards

Fatman

[TobyB]

Thanks I will. I just need to eat my way through the bacon I have made so far. looking forward to a good fry up on sat and sunday!

I'm also trying to get a definitive answer from a few of the better natural sea-salt manufacturers (including maldon) about the levels of other chemicals (and specifically nitrates) in their salt. I'll post as soon as / when I get the results as, from my research so far, I think they might make fairly interesting reading.

[Parson Snows]

Sea salt

check out these links
http://www.curezone.com/foods/salt/

The one below covers Maldon Salts
http://www.saltworks.us/shop/product.asp?idProduct=37

kind regards

Parson Snows

[TobyB]

Regrettably Maldon would not be drawn on nitrate/nitrite levels simply confirming that there was a "trace" only.

Fatman, I have now made new bacon using Franco's cure with mollases sugar as well. It's looking good but not yet ready to eat so I'm still waiting to report back.

[TobyB]

Ok ate the first of my new batch of bacon last night. Made using 30g /kilo of Franco's cure together with about 20g/kilo of molasses sugar.

Belly pork used about 1" thick. cured for 1 week in ziplock bag draining excess fluid half way through and using half the cure initially and half post draining. (Sorry I don't have access to photo uploading (work pc) so can't show a photo but it looked pretty much the same as aris's bacon on the other post.) rinsed and dried at end of curing and then hung in fridge for two days to dry out.

Taste was great but I think I'll cure the next batch for longer as I prefer a slightly saltier/more cured taste. As soon as I finish building my smoker I'm going to try smoking some too although I notice from my copy of the Maynard book that he recommends wet cure for smoked bacon as apparently dry cured bacon goes very chewy when smoked.... anyone have any feedback on this latter point?

[aris]

I don't know about the dry-sure/chewy business - but I too am interested in building a cold smoker. What sort of design were you thinking of?

[TobyB]

I've got one of the commercially available incinerator dustbins... those with the holes in the sides and a chimney made of galvanised metal like a dustbin. I'm situating that on the lower level in the garden (I have a terrace about six feet high between levels).

I will run a flexible flue from the top of the incinerator up the terrace and then along for about a metre with a wooden smoke box attached to the other end (approx 1m square). This will give me a total flue length of about 3m which I hope will be enought to cool the smoke sufficiently (will have to test this). The smoke box will be plywood with a chimney made of a leftover bit of guttering downpipe to encourage throughflow.

The idea for the incinerator is to put a metal plate into it suspended on two bars punched through the sides about eight inches from the bottom. I will light a charcoal fire in the bottom and put damped down sawdust onto the plate to smoulder. That's about it really.

[sausagemaker]

TonyB

I had a similar idea & found the web site below
http://www.cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/elecsmoker.html

It may be worth a look

regards
sausagemaker

[aris]

That looks interesting, though his plans are for a hot smoker - though i'm sure it could be adapted to cold smoking. Also - I have read that there may be health issues with heating galvanised steel to high temperatures.

[sausagemaker]

Sorry never gave the galvanised thing a thought
I have plans for making a smoker out of an old refrigerator if that is of use.

regards
sausagemaker

[Franco]

Aris ,
do you not think that your biltong box could be adapted for cold smoke? If you raised it and had a seperate smoke source away from the box it should work. I think that any residual smoke flavour would add to the flavour of the biltong and having only one box would benefit users with little spare space in the garden


Franco

[Deer Man]

Hi everybody, here is a link which shows how to make a hot smoker. You can also cold smoke with it. http://www.thesmokering.com/pits/metalp ... efault.jsp

This is a very affective smoker which is big enough for a suckling pig!