The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Food processing => Topic started by: oinky on July 09, 2010, 10:25:49 am
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Have just finished making bacon for the first time from 4 slabs of belly pork (free-range middle white) using the Hugh F-W recipe. This includes brown sugar, sea-salt, black pepper, chopped bay leaves and a couple of teaspoons of saltpetre. It all went rather well using a clean coolbox to stack the pieces, draining the fluids and re-salting every 24 hours. I stopped after 5 days (altho it's possible to continue up to a week or even 10 days). I washed and dried the pieces then cut off a few slices to sample. The meat colour had darkened but still had a reddish flush. There was plenty of fat which melted after a few minutes in the pan and the end result was a nicely textured and flavoured rasher. On the downside it was too salty. I guess I was too genrerous and vigorous during the re-salting. However, I've soaked the pieces in cold water for 2 hours and now it's a very superior product.
So, I'd recommend the Hugh F-W recipe but would suggest (as he does) rub the cure on lightly.
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There is something I can and would argue with HFW about What is the point of drawing out the water/moisture from the pork to put it back in by washing it.All ways brush the salt off and lay off the Potassium Nitrate on thin slices of meat like belly. It will make it very dry.The old fashioned way was to only rub Potassium Nitrate on the knuckle bone and the hock bone also push down the thick vein along side the hambone.If you are interested look in Recipes and processing on here :farmer:
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The HFW curing process takes at least 4-5 days. The final washing takes about 10 seconds with the aim of getting rid of any salt/herb residues on the surface and does not 're-install' moisture.
My idea of soaking the bacon in cold water for a couple of hours was merely to remove some excessive saltiness by, I presume, osmosis. Much in the same way as when one soaks salt beef (aka corned beef) before boiling it. The premise with curing/drying is really to make a food last as long as possible before it is cooked so it surely is a commonplace practice to re-moist? Lentils, beans, salt cod, etc, etc...
Apropos saltpetre I believe this is primarily used (in small quantities) to maintain some colour to the meat?
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and mine 4 to 5 weeks mine will keep a couple of years Hugh's 3/6 months if you are lucky.Water on the bacon DOES REENTER the meat and hinders the cure and keeping processes You can see this has happened when the meat turns green should you keep it long enough.Why do you think there is such a short life span on the packs BBE you buy in the supermarkets most of it is wet green and in my opinion worth nothing its tasteless and leaves a layer of snot in the pan more than a layer of nice grease to fry a round of bread in My experience spans some 70years You may prove me wrong but I will still do it my way. ??? :o :farmer:
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oinky (love the name btw) I found HFW recipes too salty as well. There is probably quite a lot of leeway in his recipes. ;)
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Hello H M You are supposed to soak it in water over night to remove most of the salt you know :'( ???
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I dont need to soak mine Wiz cos I use a lower salt dry cure recipe. :D
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Yes H M and I know what it tastes like as well! ;D :farmer:
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I think it's a general criticism of the HFW cure that I have read before on this forum - that it's too salty.
Would halving the quantity of salt in the recipe make a difference?
Susanna
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Yes Susannah it does. Perhaps leave it sealed for about 5 - 7 days depending on if its belly or a thicker loin. Its mostly a matter of taste.
Thinking back I remember when Hugh tried his first ham comments were made that it was a little on the salty side.
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Yes H M and I know what it tastes like as well! ;D :farmer:
And of course you are right its absolutely delicious
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Is that what you call it I call it bloody crap ??? :farmer:
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Possibly because you have never tasted my bacon, 200 customers cant all be wrong ...
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Not arguing this one but they may have never taster the real thing ;D :farmer:and I don't mean coke
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Hi, I would like to start curing bacon, but am having problems locating kosher or pickling salt.
Is this necessary, can you get away with normal salt? If not where do you get pickling/kosher salt without paying too much?
Any help much appreciated.
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Hi, I would like to start curing bacon, but am having problems locating kosher or pickling salt.
Is this necessary, can you get away with normal salt? If not where do you get pickling/kosher salt without paying too much?
I've always used sea salt, and it's been fine. Not sure about table salt, might be a bit fine?
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Ta Dan, I'll give it a go with the sea salt.
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Hello A and Dan One is supposed to use coarse granular salt NOT table salt it is to fine and has been Iosised When I was a boy it used to come in loafs and we had the job of grating it I asked British Salt if they would supply They will In lorry loads only :D :farmer:
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ta wiz, from what I have read on the Net, Kosher salt would seem to be best, but it's too expensive here in UK.
I will start with a smaller piece of pork and sea salt in case Mr Ballsup comes to town. :hshoe:
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Hi, I tried and cured a 3kg bit of pork belly I bought from Costco (I cut it in 2) which was cheap, in case I ruined it.
As it turned out the bacon came out OK, but a wee bit tasteless and although I had it in cure in the fridge for 5 days resalting every day it still ended up tasting a bit like pork rather than bacon. I left it in water for about an hour afterwards to get rid of the salt as it was almost inedible without doing so. I didn't use saltpetre as I'm not bothered about how it looks.
After another go to get the green bacon better I intend to start smoking (the bacon that is!)
Q1 - Where did I go wrong with the pork/tasteless thing? Not curing long enough?
Q2 - Would it make that much difference to get a more expensive piece of pork from a butcher?
Q3 - Does the saltpetre affect the taste?
Any help much appreciated.
- Good fun though - enjoyed it. :pig:
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hello oinky i think it said im david one of georges sons i no he used to talk on here alot but im very sorry to have to tell u and all who new him reading this that he passed away in his sleep very early this morning so if u wud be so kind to pass this around your little network of followers i wud be most greatfull and yes mothers doing fine considering thanks again david
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Hello David, I am so sorry to hear the sad news about George. He was well loved here :) there is a thread on the coffee chat area that you might like to see http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php/topic,9015.90/topicseen.html
lots of love and happy memories being bandied about on there
much love David to you and your mum and your family, your Dad truly inspired many of us and I for one will remember some of his jokes that he emailed me for a very long time ;D
Lisa xx
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I use fine sea salt for mine.
Let us know how you get on. :)
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Andy M it may be that you need to leave in the cure longer. Did you use just salt or did you make a cure with salt, sugar, pepper?
Buying an expensive piece of pork from the butcher will probably give you better texture if its free ranged, but I doubt it would make a huge difference to the flavour.
You could try buying a proprietary cure from someone like the sausagemaker. Once cured smoking does add the icing to the cake.
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Thanks, I will leave it in the cure for another 2 days next time. I used fine sea salt (not too fine) with some brown suger - about one eighth/tenth - plus a sprinkle of black pepper and few ground coriander seeds.
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I dont know why, and now of course I cant find the article, but I know I read somewhere not to use sea salt (or table salt with iodine in it) . Sorry that is probably not much help. Do they sell curing salts in chemists over there?
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I'll be on the hunt for Kosher salt again next week, I'll see what the quantities and prices are that I can get and let you know. It's supposed to be better at drawing blood out of meat than our salt. Fleur de sel is expensive, too. :(
Andy, the bacon really shouldn't be tasteless, that would have been the specific cut. You need a thick meaty, fatty one. We used Waitrose's best belly before having our own pigs and ours is (honestly!) much better.
We thought we had oversalted our bacon when we first made it, but if you google "bacon too salty" it seems normal for bacon to seem too salty - soaking it for an hour, tipping the water away and then soaking it again for another hour in clean water would sort it. Or, if you've already smoked it, blanch it for 45 seconds before frying. (Don't know why that isn't mentioned on those websites and in those newspaper articles that entice us into making our own bacon in the first place?)
Smoked home made bacon is great!!
Eve :wave:
Eve :wave:
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<snip>
We thought we had oversalted our bacon when we first made it, but if you google "bacon too salty" it seems normal for bacon to seem too salty -
Eve :wave:
Our first attempt at making bacon is normal ;D
It's salty.
I'm away to google ;)
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Hello Ohlala. Please just scroll back up this thread and read the last entry by Wizard.