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Author Topic: Curing Meat Books  (Read 916 times)

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pmillen

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Curing Meat Books
« on: December 07, 2020, 11:58:31 AM »

BigDave83 wrote about curing a ham with a low salt brine in this thread.

Marcia and I have both been advised to reduce our salt consumption and I thought that maybe I should start following BigDave83's method.  I've only cured pork for Canadian Bacon, although I've done a lot of brining.  What book(s) do you recommend to get me started?
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02ebz06

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #1 on: December 07, 2020, 12:46:14 PM »

The only book I have on the subject is "Dry-Curing Pork" by Hector Kent.
Lots of recipes for many types meats (Dry-Cured Loin, Salami, Coppa, Pancetta, etc.)
Even includes bacon. Not dry-cured, but included, well, just because it's bacon. Haha
Several pages just cover the types of curing and the process.
Pretty detailed description of the process for each recipe.
One thing I like, he uses Bakers Percentages in recipes.
Makes it easy to adjust recipe for different amounts of meat.

A well written book IMO.
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BigDave83

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2020, 12:59:02 PM »

i have some books but rarely use them and not even sure where some are.

when is comes to curing meat, you want to decide what you are doing. Are you wanting to make a dry or wet cured product that needs cooked afterwards (Bacon, Ham) or are looking for a dry cured and dry aged product that is ready to eat (Prosciutto for example) ?

First step if you want to cure and watch your salt is toss out the Mortons tenderquick if you have it. Better to use Cure 1 and you can add your degree of salt to it. I do use tenderquick for some things, i like  my canadian style bacon using it. i tried the wet brine and I didn't like the result as well.

My canadian bacon is 1T per pound Tenderquick and 1.5T per pound of dark brown sugar. Rub well into and onto the meat on a sheet pan and then I put the meat in a bag and dump the stuff from the pan in the bag and seal up. Usually 10 days but I have had some sit in my fridge for 5 or 6 weeks. When you take it out you can rinse or just cut a small piece of and test fry. Me i end up cutting a piece off and just eating it, if it is saltier than I want I soak for an hour with 1 water change. I like to cure the front part of the loin (maybe 6 o8 inches of it) for a small ham, nice to slice pork chop size slices off and brown up even with out the smoke.

 Cure 1 is usually done at 0.25% when dry curing something to be cooked later.  Salt for me is 2.5% for most things. It has a salty taste but I don't notice the effects on my legs as much. I love salt, would eat a handful of salt over a handful of sugar any day.

If i do a dry cured like a Lonza or Coppa then I go closer 3% but it is a Cure 2 type product and cures for several weeks then dries until it loses 40 to 45% weight. which is sometimes a few months. I don't have a curing chamber yet so i have been using Umai bags, but i usually end up with case hardening, So I cut a bit of for myself then vac seal and back in the fridge for another month or so to equalize.

If you Google Pops Brine you will find a couple of good write ups he has done. Find the one on Smoking Meats Forum. George Fasset I believe is his name he was a butcher in Ohio.  That will take care of your wet brining. I would put a link but I try not to break the rules.

 If you are wanting to dry cure, google EQ (Equilibrium) Curing method.

For me more important than a book would be a good scale, i have one that goes to 11 pounds and 1 that goes to i think 22. You will want to find one that will weigh in Grams also. The nice thing with weighing and calculating is you can repeat the recipe over and over, and if you put in 2.5% salt and it needed more or less then it is easily adjusted next time either up or down, same with any of the other seasoning.

 The grams scale is great for other things also, like making up seasoning blends, I make sugar free hot chocolate mix then use sweet n low when I make a cup. We shop at Gordons food service a good bit. We have found we really like potato pearls, so i buy a box or bag the then calculate for smaller portions than the whole box, usually weighing the potatoes out in grams and then figuring the water from the nutrition label. Oh well getting off track. Any questions leave me know I will do my best to answer them with me limited knowledge.
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Bentley

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2020, 01:07:26 PM »

I just use here, or the internet.
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02ebz06

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2020, 01:34:12 PM »

I agree on scales. Definitely necessary for consistency.
I have two. One for larger amounts, only measures down to 1g.
And a smaller one for small amounts that measures down to .01g.
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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2020, 03:53:57 PM »

Olympia Provisions is a great learning tool.  Little bit of everything in that book.

In the charcuterie is another good one.

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yorkdude

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #6 on: December 07, 2020, 05:06:10 PM »

I have tried several different things and they are probably okay by other people but having said that, I have never had success following the recipes verbatim. I have found it to be a good starting point though.
It seems that everything is awfully heavy on the salt (cure) issue. YMMV.
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NorCal Smoker

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #7 on: December 07, 2020, 08:17:07 PM »

In addition to the book above, I bought the following:

Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing by Rytek Kutas
Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages by Stanley and Adam Marianski

These are much more textbook like than Charcuterie mentioned above. They are very detailed, but are considered excellent resources based on my research.   They are both great in my opinion.

Good luck!
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pmillen

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #8 on: December 08, 2020, 09:11:51 AM »

I appreciate the suggestions.  I’ll probably buy the one(s) that are available as an e-book.

BigDave83 knows how to reduce the salts (sodium compounds) in a liquid cure and still cure the meat by increasing the curing time.  I’m hoping to learn to do the same.

If a recipe calls for two cups of Kosher salt, three tablespoons of Prague Powder #1 and curing time of 10 days, does one of these books address how to achieve the same cure with less salts and more curing time?
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Paul

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BigDave83

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #9 on: December 08, 2020, 11:15:11 AM »

I appreciate the suggestions.  I’ll probably buy the one(s) that are available as an e-book.

BigDave83 knows how to reduce the salts (sodium compounds) in a liquid cure and still cure the meat by increasing the curing time.  I’m hoping to learn to do the same.

If a recipe calls for two cups of Kosher salt, three tablespoons of Prague Powder #1 and curing time of 10 days, does one of these books address how to achieve the same cure with less salts and more curing time?

Sent you a message with some links to hopefully get you the information you are looking for.
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02ebz06

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Re: Curing Meat Books
« Reply #10 on: December 08, 2020, 11:21:58 AM »

This is all that is in my book about Salt:

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