Curing your own meat

For anyone interested here's the plan I've made for the curing. It's going to be a long process :eek:

Process
Prepare Pork Leg
Massage femoral artery to remove all blood
Add cure mixture to leg
Store in fridge
Curing
Turn leg over daily
After one month take out, rinse, soak overnight in plain water.
Hanging
Hang in curing fridge for at least a month
Apply lard/flour paste to exposed meat.
Wash, add crushed black pepper to the exposed bone/under skin.
Hang back in fridge for a few weeks.
Move to shed.
Diary
Prepare Pork Leg
Leg weight: Xkg
Cure ratios: 2.5% salt
Cure amounts: Xg salt
Added to fridge: 26/09/2014
Curing
Take out of salt mixture: 25/10/2014
Soak overnight until: 26/10/2014
Hanging
Hang in fridge: 26/10/2014
Wash, add lard/flour and black pepper: 23/11/2014
Move to shed: 13/12/2014
Move back to house when temperatures outside get above 13C
Done: 01/11/2015 (zomgz)
 
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Spam spam spam.

Cut down one of the 'lumps of spreadable chorizo. In theory it's kind of early but I've been wanting to try it for ages.

Totes delicious. Would have been ground better had I done it but for the lack of hassle involved (not to mention that I no longer have a grinder) I can't complain.

It's just as expected - tangy, with a nice kick and tons of paprika and smoke flavour.
 
Around a year later and I made the mistake of thinking I had made a mistake :/

I'm just going to spam my post from the charcuterie group in here too:

I'm half way between annoyance and elation. Based on some of the horror stories I'd read on here, the poor cut by my butcher (which was my fault - lack of knowledge when explaining) and some of the characteristics displayed by the prosciutto I started in September last year I seemingly incorrectly assumed that something had gone horribly wrong. Namely - bone rot and all the associated pain that goes along with it. Based on that assumption I had kept my leg in the fridge for a few weeks whilst preparing myself mentally for the worst. Tonight I decided I'd cut it up and see what I could salvage. Stupidly I didn't follow a proper guide for it so it has been a very haphazard job. Somewhat annoyingly but also amazingly, the leg is actually fine and tastes like a very young prosciutto. Sadly it is now cut into smaller pieces so it will never have the wow factor of being a whole(ish, see earlier comment about my lack of experience at the time explaining this to the butcher) but I'm both incredibly shocked and incredibly happy to see that there was no rot. I tasted a little whilst portioning it up for further vacuum sealing and it is delicious. I'm kind of tempted to cold smoke one of the smaller main portions to see what I end up with too.
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Main cross-section. I expected this to be a mess.
AumAdWY.jpg


More of a general view of the bits and bobs I ended up with. Such a shame that I cut it up though as I said I thought I had major rot problems. Live and learn.
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Duck breasts are a good starter project as you say.

Personally when I cured some I was a it worried about the non-skin side hardening up too much so I sandwiched two breasts together and dried them that way. It worked well but took ages. I'd suggest not bothering if you want to see quick results.

Simple method would be: cure via the equilibrium method, along with whatever spices/herbs you want to add, wash, hang in the fridge wrapped in cheesecloth. After the first few days, take it out, rinse with wine or a weak vinegar solution, re-wrap (new cheesecloth) and hang up again. As we get towards winter you could probably do this out of the fridge if you find a cold enough spot. At least here in Manchester the RH is usually high enough that we can get away with that kind of thing. Obviously you need to be careful of insects/pets/etc if you do though.

Make sure you weigh the breast before you hang it up. It should lose 30-40% of it's weight when it's ready.
 
silent said:
after reading this thread, i'm keen to cure a bit of pork.

whats the best way to do a simple cured pork shoulder for ham in time for xmas? i may do some cured belly bacon as well.

i have a 4 bed house, no fermidor, a GF that like a red hot house and no spare fridges.
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I'd suggest curing something you're going to cook (as an alternative to one you cure and age to the point of it being edible 'raw') and as it's for xmas going for xmasy-spices and sweetness levels.

So I'd probably go for an equilibrium cure of 2.5% salt, 2.5% brown sugar, 0.25% cinnamon. The percentages are in grams and based on the weight of the meat - i.e. 100g of pork = 100 * 2.5% = 2.5g of salt. Mix the dry ingredients, add the pork to a large freezer bag and then add the cure mix. Distribute evenly and leave in the fridge. Turn over every couple of days. For a large piece of pork I'd give it a good two weeks curing time and don't worry if you end up giving it more. The nice thing about an EQ cure is that you don't need to worry about leaving it too long - it will reach 'equilibrium' and will happily stay that way for weeks extra.

Once you want to cook it, take it out of the cure and rinse it. Then cook it at a low ~100C temp for a few hours. Take out an glaze with maple syrup then stick it back in the oven at ~170C for 5 minutes. That should do it really.

Given how far we are from xmas you could do one of these now and then cook it towards the end of Oct as an experiment. Potentially you could repeat it in Nov and then in Dec have it pretty nailed down :)

If you wanted to do something that was 'raw' you could instead cure a pork loin or tenderloin (lomo). Lomo will take a week or two to cure then a few weeks to dry enough. A larger loin piece would probably be done just in time for xmas if you started it now. However, I wouldn't really recommend either of these for xmas. Lomo/tenderloin will complete in time easily and is nice but I think you'd enjoy the cooked ham more. I certainly would for xmas anyhow :)

HybridX said:
Cheers for the info. I have seen a few vudeos of people doing just single breasts and they dont seem to dry out on the non skin side. What timeframe do you think it would take to do a singular breast
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Yeah, they'll be fine on the non-skin side unless you're in particularly dry conditions. As I said, I was just a bit paranoid at the time really :) If it does start to dry out you can always cover up that side.

I'd give it about 1.5 weeks to equilibrium cure. The non-skin side will be done well before that but the skin and fat reduces the rate of absorption massively. With EQ curing it's better to give it extra time rather than too little.

After that, weigh and hang as above. I'd check it after a week and weigh it again. Repeat every 4 days after that. It has been a while but iirc 2-3 weeks is about right?
 
You'll be okay with any brand of sea salt. No need for anything fancy. If you start getting into curing pork I'd suggest getting some nitrate (cure #1) salt too for presentation and safety aspects. Don't be tempted by "natural" nitrates - they offer no benefits (they're still nitrates) and some disadvantages - i.e. unknown quantity of nitrate contained.

You're right re the reasons for duck breast. Also, the thick fatty skin layer helps prevent it drying out too much in a non-ideal environment, such as an unmodified home fridge.
 
A low tech way to do that is to have a big tray of salt at the bottom. You'll need to periodically dry the salt out again in the oven (or just throw it away).
 
ttaskmaster said:
No, but it sounds like a good one to try!!
The wife has a Biltong box and does batches up quite regularly. She wants to move into other gamey type stuff like springbok and kudu anyway, although she's strangely reluctant to attempt droewors...

She also likes those Spanish hams at Christmas, so maybe if we find her a box big enough...!! :)
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To be fair to her, droewors are way more hassle than biltong. I always got really bored during the mammoth sausage stuffing sessions :eek: in the past.
 
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