homemade bacon, parma ham etc...

[Gurgeh]

I've spent a few hours recently over at sausagemaking.org learning about curing meat.

I really can't fathom why it's not a widespread activity!

I bought a kilo of loin from the butcher, rubbed 30g salt & 20g dark brown sugar all over it and then put it in a sealed plastic bag in the bottom of the fridge.

36hrs later it has darkened, hardened, some 'pickle' is in the bag and it's making me drool just thinking about it.

The length of curing time appears to be 1 day per 1/2" thickness plus 2 days.

after which you rinse it, let it dry out for a while and then slice and cook.

Roll on Sunday!

Next up is Parma ham

i'm well excited!

[Totem]

You know of a good way to jerky meat, ive tried cutting beef thing and drying in the oven - gas mark 1 with the door open. It was ok just tasted a bit like raw meat

[Gurgeh]

have a look at the forum at that site - there's a jerky forum IIRC (blocked at work so can't double check)

[anomalous_result]

There were some plans on here for making your own jerky cupboard. You put a lamp at the bottom, hang the jerky from the top and have a few small holes to allow ventilation. Or you can get a food dehydrator.

That site makes me hungry.

[maxashton]

Ludlow Survivor's Group has loads of guides for preserving meat and other foods.

[Gill]

Know this is resurrecting an old thread (as the new girl in town, I'm having a good look around), but The River Cottage Meat Book by Huge Firmly-Whippingboy has some good curing instructions. We haven't tried to cure meat here yet as we're very low on space and time, but we have made our own sausages on occasion.

Definitely nice to know exactly what's in your brekkie sausages.

[Tequilla6]

Well, I'm glad you did resurrect an old thread. I have a whole pig coming my way soon and the thought of making my own Parma ham out of a leg of it is interesting.

I would like to thank Gurgeh for the link. Some very interesting reading will be on the cards in the very near future I believe...

Cheers

[JontyR]

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread here but home curing is a real love of mine and it's amazing how simple it really is. There are many correlations with brewing too, such as maintaining temperatures, maturing times etc so I would imagine that most of the members of Jims would be of the right mind set and have the logical approach to produce some really good quality hams etc.

The sausagemaking.org site is a really great place to start, they also sell pre-mixed cures etc to get you going.

Here's some air dried ham I cured in my boiler cupboard







Once you've made your own bacon (literally half an hour start to finish with a couple of days in the fridge to cure) you'll never want the supermarket stuff again



Here's some smoked salmon and kippers cold smoked in an oil drum, again the salmon takes less than half an hour to prepare then overnight in the fridge





Cheers

[leedsbrew]

I'm with you on this one JR. I've done a couple of sided of belly into bacon last year and will definitley be getting into air dried ham this year.

did you use the parma ham cure from sausagemaking.org? How did it turn out. It looks awesome. How was the flavour?

[JontyR]

I did use their cure mate and it was very good. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible with my 1st air dried ham so I reckoned using a pre-made cure was the best option. I tweeked the instructions a bit as they are geared to a full leg, if you have a go at something smaller give me a shout and I'll send you a copy.

The flavour is fantastic, in fact I've the remnants of one of th hams hanging in my cupboard just behind me as I type, I think I know what's on the lunch menu now!!

I've been a bit limited with he curing since we moved into a house without a cellar (perfect conditions) but since reading all of the info on here, I'm sorting out a temperature controlled fridge that I can now use for both brewing and curing - happy days!

[b-fly]

Shame on you, JontyR. Now I'm hungry. my father is making homemade bacon. i hope one day he will tell me the secret

[Capper20]

Remember Parma ham only uses a particular leg - the one the pig doesn't scratch with. Apparently they all use the same leg, genetically predisposed to... Believe it is left for the ham but double check.

[mshergold]

I made pancetta a couple of months ago. It was great. I'd love to have a go at a whole ham. It's my birthday soon and I'm pretty sure GF has boought me a mincer and sausage making attachment for my Kenwood Chef.

[mshergold]

Well, I got my mincer which was great, as were the sausages, but managed to break my Kenwood Chef in the process. Hopefully we collect another from GF's parents within the week. I made some more pancetta, but it went seriously wrong. Two kilos of pork belly were seriously off. The smell was horrendous. Either it was caused by a) the cable from a thermometer & hygrometer probe between the door seal and fridge allowing something in or b) thinking it would be a good idea to give the fridge a quick spray with the diluted videne I use for sanitising all my brewing kit and then not wiping it dry afterwards causing way too much humidity.