Is it better to vacuum seal or just use a ziplock bag when curing?
I once tried vacuum sealing , but for me I found it too hard to get the wet pork into the bag without making a mess of the bag on the inside. Having damp messy insides of the bag just made it too hard to get a good seal.
I personally use cellophane to wrap my pork belly up after I've sprinkled the dry cure ingredients on it. I bought some sort of 'commercial' width cling wrap, and I can wrap it up pretty tightly , without too much effort. I have just stuck it in zip lock bags, without wrapping it up first, but I believe the tight wrap helps keep the cure and the liquid that gets drawn out of the meat , in contact with the meat, which I believe helps the process. I use the 'EQ', method of curing ( equalization method ), and the principle is that the liquid, meat, and the cure ingredients all eventually reach a 'salt equilibrium' , so I feel keeping everything in contact with each other is important enough , to try and make it happen. I actually then place the wrapped curing belly into Zip-Lock bags, because there will be some liquid that escapes , and I don't want it all over the inside of my refrigerator.
I have used nothing but zip lock bags. When I do this, I just try to get rid of any excess air in the bag, and fold the bag around the hunk of meat, trying to get that reasonably tight, for the same reasons I stated above. I have found that even when trying to be really careful, my zip lock bags like that tend to find ways to leak too, so I would actually bag some up, then place a couple bagged chunks into a bigger bag, trying to avoid liquid spilling into my refrigerator during the curing process.
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Topic: Bacon... and/or cold smokin' and 'warm' smoking (Read 2404 times)