www.sausagemaking.org

wheels wrote:The details listed here are interesting:

http://www.bresaolavaltellina.it/en/pro ... egulations

The website gives the full spec for Bresaola della Valtellina IGP (PGI) as well as details of the production process.

Where it says: "sodium chloride up to 5%", I'm reading this as salt up to 5% and assume that it's referring to the level in the finished product after drying. If that's not the case, the I'm befuddled as 5% sodium Chloride would be about 12½% salt.

See what you make of it.

Phil

My guess is that it means as a percentage of the internal brine....not as a whole...in the same way that salt content is measured in country hams made without the addition of nitrite/nitrate.

"(4) When no sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, sodium nitrite, potassium nitrite or a combination thereof is used, the application of salt shall be in sufficient quantity to insure that the finished product has a brine concentration of not less than 10 percent or a water activity of not more than 0.92."

Source: http://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage ... ns-sausage

Anyway...I missed this thread until now...that sure is some beautiful Bresaola, Phil!!!!!!


~Martin

Thanks Martin.

That would make sense, but is it actually possible to test the 'free' water that's in the meat for salt content?

Phil

Not really for the casual enthusiast, I suppose.

FSIW, I've seen "salt concentration has to be 10% or higher" mentioned several times in my studies and that's calculated as such:
Internal brine concentration is calculated as 100 times the salt concentration divided by the sum of the salt and water concentrations.
PERCENT BRINE = 100 × [SALT] / ([SALT] + [WATER])

HTH

~Martin

Ah, I get it now, thanks.

Phil

My Christmas project at 44 % weight loss:



Very fine texture with no edge dryness



I dried this without washing off the curing spices, so I expect it has more pepper taste than Phil's recipe intended.



I will never look at an eye of round with disdain again.

Nice

This is the site for the dried hog sheets, does not look like they ship to the uk at the moment but there is a recipe page with a decent us to metric chart on it, I presume we would have to alter the cure amounts in the uk due to the different percentages in uk cures 1 & 2, maybe someone with more knowledge could enlighten me?

http://www.stuffers.com/Recipes-s/2075.htm

Regards
Gary

You would have to increase the cure amounts slightly from recipes on that site I believe. I used the recipe calculator on Wheels' blog because it has a calculator for both US and European cures.

Whilst it's nice to get things exactly right, the differences in most cases are negligible.

Phil

I better get mine out and slice it

That infers that it's been there a long time?

I look forward to seeing it Dave.

Phil

I have 4 sitting since the 1st November ... as of the other day they was sitting at only 24% weight loss ... still a way to go until the reach 40%

Need to put more down as these are already sold sight unseen