First stab at curing

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First stab at curing

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Talbot

Joined: 22 Feb 2007
Posts: 29

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 07 5:25 pm Post subject: First stab at curing
I'm a big fan of Hugh FW and can't wait to try making his parma ham from a whole leg but before i commit to an enterprise of this scale i would like to try a smaller joint/cut of pork. Could someone suggest something suitable? Thanks T

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45723
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 07 5:33 pm Post subject:
Welcome on board, I'm sure someone will be along shortly to answer your query

Talbot

Joined: 22 Feb 2007
Posts: 29

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 07 5:35 pm Post subject:
thanks tahir. looking forward to all the things i'm gonna learn

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22790
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 07 5:38 pm Post subject:
Hi Talbot and welcome to the site. As a first step in curing, I would recommend dry curing a piece of belly pork. It's not expensive to buy, there's very little to go wrong and it's great stuff for cooking. Alison's article on the subject here would be a great place to start.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 07 6:29 pm Post subject:

Hi Talbot and welcome to Downsizer.

Dry curing (strictly "air curing") hams, especially in the Parma style (without any nitrate or nitrite) is indeed a significant enterprise.

Its rather different from "dry curing" (ie no added water) curing of bacon.
Although, I must say that bacon-curing, and brine-curing ham, are themselves well worthwhile.

There are two general approaches - one is to dive straight in, and the other (which I'm following) is to try and do things step by step, learning as much as possible along the way.
HFW's tv programmes certainly encourage the 'dive straight in' approach - however tv and real life tend to be a bit different!
Just as a BTW, beware that HFW's curing recipes are in general very salty - in at least one case requiring more salt to be dissolved into a brine than the water can physically dissolve!

Regarding progress towards air cured ham, I'd suggest that Salami and Bresaola-type dried meats would be useful stepping stones.
Whether or not you choose to investigate brining and bacon-making (let alone the use of smoke) along the way is up to you.
One thing that you are likely to discover is that temperature and humidity control (of some sort or other) is kinda important.
I've recently acquired an old fridge which I am going to modify to maintain a temperature of about 60F instead of 40F (and then hopefully a humidity of about 65%).
Colder isn't a problem (it just slows things down) but warmer is a big problem.
Seal up a box with a set amount of moisture in it and change the temperature - and lo and behold the humidity varies! Hence a steady-ish temperature makes humidity control much more practicable.
Damp salt is one means of buffering humidity.
You need quite a high humidity so that the thing dries out evenly - rather than just the surface crusting. And that is where I feel that Salami and Bresaola (which need similar conditions) come into it.
That's what I'll be trying my modified fridge with first of all.
But a whole leg of pork takes many *months* to air cure. Thin salami perhaps only a few weeks.
I'd suggest (though others may differ) that its a bit late to think of starting a ham this season unless you have controlled conditions.

During those long months, you have to nanny it, because it is not yet preserved. There are particular problems with curing bone-in... "bone sour" is the term applied to rot starting around the bone.

I've read of one chap (moslem convert actually) air curing a leg of lamb in a sort of Parma-style, to avoid the pig-meat issue while recalling a previously favourite delicacy. That might be a stepping stone, and being rather smaller, should be much quicker. (I'll try and find the reference.)

I've heard it said that nothing shows up the difference between ordinary and special pork quite as dramatically as air curing. Hence all the fuss about the Parma pigs' diet of whey from the cheesemaking, and the spanish insistence upon pigs fed on acorns...

Good books: Charcuterie by Jane Grigson (bit old-fashioned in its imprecision and heaviness on the saltpetre) but well worth seeing, and Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn (bit american, but they do use metric measures) - which gives an excellent 'flow' explaining how the different techniques build on one another.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 07 12:15 am Post subject:

dougal wrote:

... I've read of one chap (moslem convert actually) air curing a leg of lamb in a sort of Parma-style, to avoid the pig-meat issue while recalling a previously favourite delicacy. That might be a stepping stone, and being rather smaller, should be much quicker. (I'll try and find the reference.)

Found it!
But my memory was slightly off. The others followed Jason's method which is explained here
https://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=79195&view=findpost&p=1167664
though actually, if I've got this right, that one was was 45 days in the drying chamber for a 42% weight loss. https://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=79195&view=findpost&p=1186795 42% weight loss from a bone *in* leg of lamb. That's *dried*.

Here's one of the replicas https://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=79195&view=findpost&p=1222060

Lamb prosciutto looks interestingly worthwhile in its own right.

And yeah, that is three links into the same thread. Its now at 78 pages...

footprints

Joined: 26 May 2005
Posts: 234
Location: North Wales

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 07 6:37 am Post subject:

judith wrote:

Hi Talbot and welcome to the site.

As a first step in curing, I would recommend dry curing a piece of belly pork. It's not expensive to buy, there's very little to go wrong and it's great stuff for cooking. Alison's article on the subject here would be a great place to start.

I would not read Alisons article and thereby avoid future homecured bacon addition

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 07 8:59 am Post subject:

Ha ha.

I just cured another pigs worth yesterday, along with a whole leg of pork to hang up all year.

I have been doing a lot of bacon recently as my freezer holding 3 pigs worth of sausages and bacon, that I had only just finished, stopped working, and all was wasted (due to not using the freezer for a few weeks

) Therefore, the next 3 pigs I had earmarked to sell had to be made into more of the same.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 07 9:05 am Post subject:
Ali, would it be worth buying a freezer alarm for the freezers you don't visit often? They cost about £10-£20 and go off if the freezer rises above a certain temp.

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 07 10:49 am Post subject:
What a good idea, I didn't even know they existed. I'll have to try and find some now! Any suggestions where?

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 07 1:09 pm Post subject:
Might be worth a new topic to see if anyone has one. Our little freezer has one built in and when I googled for 'freezer alarm' quite a few were found but I have no idea how good or bad they are.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 07 1:46 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

Dry curing (strictly "air curing") hams, especially in the Parma style (without any nitrate or nitrite) is indeed a significant enterprise.

I found it easier/more sucessful than curing bacon

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 07 2:24 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

dougal wrote:

Dry curing (strictly "air curing") hams, especially in the Parma style (without any nitrate or nitrite) is indeed a significant enterprise.

I found it easier/more sucessful than curing bacon

Some folk must just be lucky, or naturally highly skilled!

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 07 3:09 pm Post subject:
No skill involved, just loads of salt, plenty of time & a very secure double wrap of muslin. I even did it in the heat of July Did loose one on the bone to maggots though, but that was only because some idiot left a fly-sized gap.

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