Dry cured bacon

[Vernon Smith]

Tks Phil,
I am still in touch with Terry Waldron (Paul Kribs) and he has kindly sent me Oddley's. Works very well. Do you want a copy? I will email it to you if you do.
Vernon

[Richierich]

Good point Spuddy regarding the excess of Nitrites. If it's all converted to gaseous oxides there should not be a problem, especially with a touch of ascorbic acid if I can find out exactly how much to add.

Unfortunately Oddley seems to have dropped out of the loop. He put together an XL brine calculator that worked well but I lost it when my HDD went down last year. Has any one got it? The site where you could down load it no longer seems to work. I have tried it a couple of times recently to no avail. I am sure the bacon and ham cure that I use at 30g/kg is well within the margins of safety but for academic reasons I would like to put the figures through Oddley's calculator. I would be most grateful if anyone could email it to me.
BR2U2

I don't have the file, but have you tried searching for the website on www.archive.org , just type in the URL and it offers archives of websites, I found a couple of files that I knew I had seen on websites that had long since been reomved.

[Vernon Smith]

Tks for the URL information. I suspect your posting overlapped with mine because Paul Kribs kindly sent Oddley's calculator to me. It works perfectly. I will email a copy to anyone who wants it just give me your address.

[saucisson]

Vernon, Oddley's recipe for dry cure uses 0.55g Sodium Ascorbate and 0.5g Saltpetre per kg meat, along with 20g salt and 10g sugar.

Dave

[wheels]

Vernon

I would appreciate a copy of Oddley's calculator.
I will PM you with my email address
Thanks
Phil

[Nafe]

I just realised I never posted that recipe:

Note this recipe uses cure #1, Also known as Prague powder number 1, curing salt, tinted curing mixture, pink curing salt, modern cure or insta-cure 1. Not to be confused with pure nitite/nitrate or saltpetre.

For each kilo of meat:

2.5g cure #1
18g salt
10g sugar

Dave

Sorry to barge in but sausagemaking is going well and i got a bargain on some pork belly so i thought id give bacon a go.

I have all of the ingredients above but no smoke liquid or cabinet so I take it the above recipie is basicly unsmoked bacon? Any other stuff I can add (from my now extensive) herb/spice libary?

Ta

Nafe

[Vernon Smith]

Yes it would be for unsmoked bacon. I suggest you don't add any more flavourings, just sugar, salt & prague #1. I smoke because it's easy here but sometimes I don't bother. Unsmoked bacon is just as good as smoked, just different. Try smoking if you wish. I've recently posted some hints on the shortcuts I now use and get perfect results. An old chest freezer and a bucket of sawdust is all you need.
All the best,
Vernon

[Vernon Smith]

The pig I slaughtered yesterday gave me a dressed weight of 140kg including the head. Just what I wanted for a serious curing session. I processed one loin and one shoulder joint and spent most of the day making 10kg Gloucester Sausage followed by 10kg bacon into dry cure and 10kg picnic ham into my composite injected and dry 4/5 day ham cure. Thanks to Saucisson sending me some, I added KNO3 this time calculated at ~200ppm. 10kg of bones too simmereing for stock as I write this posting. I will know by the end of the week whether I have any significant difference between the Nitrated cure and the Un-nitrated that I have been using since I ran out of KNO3 earlier this year.

By rights I should have chilled the carcass for another 24 hours to get the pH down a bit more but I couldn't afford the time during the working-week. This shouldn't cause a problem though. The pH will continue to fall overnight enabling the Nirate to kick in tomorrow.

In case anyone wonders why I opt for KNO3 instead of KNO2, it's because of the higher refrigeration temperature that I have to work with here. KNO3 doesn't work well below 6 deg because the appropriate bacteria cease converting the "ate" to "ite" at this point. I can only reliably refrigerate at 8 to 10 deg, occasionally rising to 12 deg during the ramdon daily power cuts that last beetween 1 and 3 hours. I will post the results with pics as soon at the bacon is out of the smoke-house. I will also post the results of the picnic ham with pics under "Cordon Bleu".
Cheers all,
Vernon

[Vernon Smith]

The bacon came out of the smoke house yesterday and cooled down in the fridge overnight. Pic below of a 2kg piece of back. Without blowing my own trumpet (too much) it's as good as you can get anywhere. In spite of the inadequate refrigeration that I have to suffer here it's turned out perfectly - as expected.





I recommend the dry cure I use to anyone. The only difference between
this batch and the last is the deeper pink colour induced by the Nitrate. Flavour and texture just the same, SUPERLATIVE !

All the best,
Vernon

[saucisson]

Nice looking bacon Vernon,

Dave

[Richierich]

How long was it in the smoke house for?? Looks great by the way, plenty of fat on that piggy. When you say 2kg, did you only smoke a part of it, doesn't look a lot there for 2kg.

I have struggled locally to find pork with such a good layer of fat. The nicer pork I can get hold of that makes the best bacon is always skin off, and very little fat. The not quite so nice pork that makes a little lower quality product is skin on.

Although I think I might talk to the butcher nicely next time and see what they can do for me. Especially when I went in yesterday and the Manageress of the Butchery bit greeted me as Mr Bacon, the chap next to me said it was great that they know my name, she laughed and said she hasn't got a clue what my name is, but I make Bacon with her pork. And its always good to get a discount! Is �7/kilo a good price for a boneless loin? Would be interesting to gauge opinion. I ended up buying far more than I wanted.

[wheels]

Richierich
Might be worth considering buying one of the older breeds of pig to get the fat you want.
Locally I have no difficulty in getting Gloucs Old Spot which has a good fat covering. I get it direct from the farm at �1 per pound for half a pig.
Maybe worth ringing around a few local farm-shops? You may even find someone rearing your local 'oxford' pigs - I mean, if we don't eat them they won't be a rare breed!

Phil

[Vernon Smith]

Richie,
4 hours in the smoke-house. Yes, the bacon was ~2kg although a few rashers had beed sliced from it, maybe 400g, by the time I took the photo. I think it must be lack of a scale reference point that makes it look smaller in the pic. FYI the rashers are 15" (375mm) long. I raise very large pigs. I think Phil's ideas might help. Ask a few pals if they would like to share a large hog. Buy one on the hoof, have it slaughtered and share out the joints, assuming you all have adequate freezer space. You get all the offal too. I say "large hog" because you need the size and the fat for good bacon and small pigs raised for retail butchery joints have neither.

I used to buy lamb, beef and pork this way when I lived near Maldon in Essex but I didn't make bacon or sausages in those days. We all saved a fortune. Phil seems to have it well sussed out buying from a farm at �2 per kg. I frankly think �7 per kg is expensive. I wouldn't use skinless pork for bacon unless absolutely necessary. Try the above options. I am sure you will find a friendly source cheaper than the one you have at present.

All the best,
Vernon

[wheels]

I just found this online. Hidden valley pigs will rear a pig for you! What a great idea!
See http://www.hiddenvalleypigs.co.uk/ownpig.htm

Now if you could get one the size of Vernon's mmm... think of the possibilities.

Phil

[harterz]

I have heard of this type of venture before and thought it a good idea. I have just sent an inquiry to the site to see what the costs would be.

harterz