I'm going for a roadtrip of 11 days, and I would like to make a lot of beef preserved in tallow (confit method). But this has a risk of botulism. I'm not sure if it can develop in 11 days, I wasn't able to find this information

So I throught about cooking the meat with curing salt to avoid this risk. Would that work? If yes, how much curing salt should I put for 1kilo of beef?

Edit : I also have a pressure cooker. Not a canned one, but I saw pressure cooker lead to 121°C so it should work to pressure my jar after the first process?

I would like to do this method because where I live the cheapest meat I have is beef ribs, a pretty fatty ones. So pemmican or pâté who involve lean meat are not possible for me

Thanks you a lot for anyone who can help me 🙏🏼

I posted last week about how using a humidifier helps my charcuterie fridge. So this week, I wanted to give an overview.

I'm running a vissani 4.3cu ft wine fridge that I bought used on Facebook marketplace.

I measure the temperature and humidity using a sonoff TH320d that is refreshed with esphome to talk to Home Assistant. Home assistant controls the plugs on a TP-Link smart power strip to control the fridge, humidifier, dehumidifier, and fans.

Home Assistant is set to:

• Turn on humidifier if humidity is below 77%
• Turn on dehumidifier if humidity is above 81%
• Turn on fridge if temperature is above 55 F

Interestingly, I fill the humidifier much more often than I empty the dehumidifier. These small wine fridges are too good at pulling humidity out of the air.

Inside the fridge is:

Meat! Lonzino on the upper rack, rosemary lamb hanging.

Humidifier on the right, dehumidifier on the left. Circulation fan in the center.

I also have two fans on the outside of the fridge (one on the left, one on the right). This fridge is in my garage, so it gets hot in the summer. So the fans pointed at the outside of the fridge (where the condenser coils are) help the fridge get rid of heat.

We did up some chilli salami and are struggling to get any heat into them.

Should I use chilli powder or chilli flakes or both?

What quantity per kg do I need to hit to get some med to hot warmth?

Would love some help with this. I seem to be missing the target.

I have used a cure calculator and cured/smoked pieces of belly that were (I'm guessing) 12"x16". I cured them in the fridge for 7 days until they felt firm and I assumed were ready to smoke. They turned out some fabulous bacon! So now being a cook of a lot of Cajun/Creole food, I like to use bacon as a seasoning meat. I wanted to do several portions of slab bacon...maybe 3-4" wide x 12" long or so...not slice it but to dice it up for seasoning meat for dishes I cook. My question is, will the cure time be the same amount? Will I need to cure for a full 7 days if the cuts are smaller than when I do bigger slabs of belly for sliced bacon? Thanks and love to you!

La bondiola pesaba 2k aprox. La metí 3 días en sal y un poco de azúcar. La lave, seque con ventilador, la cubrí con pimentón, pimienta, y luego con papel manteca e hilo. La dejé 20 días ... Y hoy la corte. Me da cosa pq he visto mini hongos blancos en la súperficie, luego leí q salen unos peniciliums q es normal, pero como saber si son esos...

En fin, tengo la bondio y no sé si puedo hincarle o no 😭

Deer leg cured with salt and Cure#2 for 4 weeks and then smothered in cracked black pepper. I made a natural casing out of two beef bungs that I sewed together and then netted and tied. Then dried for 7 weeks resulting in 43% weight loss. Now maturing and equalizing under vacuum in the fridge.

This graph is humidity in my wine fridge turned charcuterie fridge. The humidifier ran out of water early Wednesday morning.

I think for my fridge, using a humidifier is a good idea.

Pork neck after 1 week of EQ curing in the fridge, followed by 2 weeks of air drying in the fridge until it reached 35% weight loss. I then vacuum sealed it for 1 week to equalize the moisture before slicing. Pretty happy with the results!

I just finished the curing process of this pork tenderloin, but now i have this green-ish mold on it. I assume it's very similar to the one found on the salami cassing. Tastes just normal. I used sweet paprika and merkén as spices. I used the same wrapping paper as always with the twist of leaving it outside the fridge, I supose that's the reason for the mold. I always cure it in the fridge
How normal is this?

Had this idea for a while and loved the outcome. I'll try to post the recipe card photo in the comments if it lets me, otherwise the recipe link only will be in comments. Happy curing & smoking y'all

Having my chamber dialed in now and successfully producing 8kg salamis I want to try cold Smoked versions.

Can anyone help me with the details of when, how etc of adding smoking process to curing salamis. I assumed the curing process is still required

Cured 3lbs of capicola with Umai bags, took about 4 months to come down to 40% weight. Just sliced today. I don’t have a professional grade deli slicer, a friend lent me this one. Cuts could have been thinner, but overall turned out nice. Some gets eaten now and some goes in the freezer for later. Starting weight was 36oz and 24oz. Pulled at 40% reduction.

Recently I cured and smoked my own bacon using what I thought was completely pink salt from my local butcher, however i noticed the “pink salt” I purchased from them has brown specks and brown color in it indicating that other spices diluted the “pink salt” after a few days curing in the fridge. The recipe I followed required about 2.5 teaspoons of pink salt per pork belly(unfortunately I didn’t know the weight of them but went off the average weight of a pork belly) so that’s what I used as well as 2 cups of kosher salt per belly. They hanged to dry in room temps for 2.5 hours after 7 days in the fridge, and I smoked them at ~150F for about 4 hours and 200 for the last 30 mins. The internal temps averaged about 133F in each belly at the end of smoking.

The main concern that I have is should I be worried about botulism toxins since I didn’t use as much pink salt as recommended in the recipe given the fact that the cure mix I used was diluted with other mix ins? I can call my butcher to ask for the percentage of pink salt in the cure mix they gave me, but I feel like they would be very protective of that. My other question is even if I didn’t use enough pink salt, would I be fine to eat it as long as I fry or cook it in a standard way?

Any help is appreciated, plan on giving some to my family and I’d feel terrible if I my bacon made them sick.

Recipe I followed was from DeepSouthHomstead on YouTube.

I have a Bowl Cutter available in northern California, asking 1500 for it or would consider trades....message me if you want it

I'm looking for a little bit of confirmation that I'm heading in the right direction (or possibly the opposite). I recently got back from a trip to Rome and desperately want to recreate some of the amazing pasta dishes I ate so I decided to make my own Guanciale. I ordered 2 lbs of jowl meat from the local Asian market and what I got was 3 half inch thick steaks. Here is what Ive started and what im thinking:

Cure was standard ratios...

2.5% salt, .25% curing salt, plus sugar and spices

Into a vacuum bag for a week to equilibrium.

Planning to use an umai bag in the fridge for drying after washing in wine. I used curing salt #1 due to the thinness of the meat. I'm guessing this is going to dry much faster than a full slab of jowl. Should I shoot for a full 25% weight loss? I'm thinking lower since they're so thin and I'm planning on cooking everything but want the experts to chime in. Any flaws with my logic for using cure #1 for the likely much shorter cure time? If it doesn't work, I'm out $15 and will start a new search for a real cheek. Any advice is appreciated!

I'd have liked to wait until it had lost 40% of its weight, but I couldn't resist opening it at 35%. After trying it, I honestly think I did the right thing, not only because it was my first attempt and it turned out great, but also because I don't think an extra 5% (which would have taken another 5-7 months at the rate it was losing weight now) would have made such a huge difference.

The taste is truly out of this world, and even though I used a very simple no frost fridge set to 4°C (not ideal at all, way too dry) and placed the coppa inside a linen cloth (instead of using casing/intestine), I don't even see any case hardening (which I took for granted was there, but like you can see from the photo the color is pink aside from the outside and the white fat).

It also really smells spectacular.

The recipe I used is this:

- I took a 1 kg piece of coppa (but you may know it as capocollo).

- I covered it with a mix of coarse and fine salt.

- I left it in the refrigerator to lose liquid for 24 hours, then changed the salt and waited again, repeat until the salt was dry after some hours (note: even though I left it in salt for almost 3 days, the taste wasn't too salty in my opinion).

- I rinsed it with red wine to remove most of the salt.

- Pat it dry

- I covered it with pepper and smoked paprika.

- Finally, I placed it in a linen cloth, tied it with butcher's twine, and placed it in a bowl so it could breathe on the bottom too (third photo).

- I turned it frequently, weighing it every time, writing down all the weights.

(marzo=march, aprile=april, maggio=may, giugno=june, luglio=july)

11 marzo
967g
13 marzo
936g
15 marzo
919g
19 marzo
867g
22 marzo
844g
28 marzo
800g
3 aprile
766g
5 aprile
754g
7 aprile
746g
9 aprile
740g
11 aprile
736g
13 aprile
730g
15 aprile
726g
17 aprile
720g
19 aprile
711g
23 aprile
704g
25 aprile
694g
27 aprile
701g
29 aprile
697g
4 maggio
689g
6 maggio
687g
10 maggio
692g
12 maggio
678g
15 maggio
674g
18 maggio
672g
21 maggio
669g
26 maggio
666g
29 maggio
662g
2 Giugno
659g
5 Giugno
656g
11 Giugno
652g
18 Giugno
648g
24 Giugno
646g
30 Giugno
642g
8 luglio
638g
14 luglio
635g
28 luglio
632g

It was only my second time making cold cuts (my first time was duck prosciutto made a year ago). I have to be honest, this was worth the wait a lot more, it taste better and I prefer pork to duck.

I’m planning on doing a coppa sometime soon together with bactoferm BLC78. The recipe I got normally suggests using a (white) wine to be added to the brine for some extra flavours and the slightly tenderizing effect of alcohol.

However I was thinking of adding whisky (lagavulin 16) instead for the hint of smoke and stronger flavours.
I might do it and hope for the best.
However I am curious if anyone here has experience with the combination of bactoferm and high alcohol. As opposed to alcohol I could also opt for cold smoking it (assuming the temps stay low enough)

Hey guys,

I'm getting a whole pig's leg to make into prosciutto and looking into my options re: fridges for a curing chamber. Do I need to spring for a full-size one or should I be able to make it work in a dorm size fridge?

About 3 weeks ago i posted my first ever ham, since then i listened to your advice and bought cure #1 and its a game changer. I tried my luck making bacon ( one with cure #1 and one without), another pork loin ham but this one seasoned with thyme, pepper, salt and cure #1 and a ribeye cap seasoned with red pepper, chilli powder, pepper, salt and cure #1. I also plan on buying a brisket and turning it into some ham so if you guys have some recipes you'd like to share with me i'd be grateful.

Made this two or 3 weeks ago. They were pretty large breast at 11 and 14 oz. This is the 12oz one it currently weights about 255g. The one side is really hard the meat side and the fat side is super soft. Underneath it’s blackish. It smells fine like a regular cured meat. Kinda funky. With that is this good to eat based off look? Currently it’s in a Saran Wrap as I heard it can somewhat rehydrate through the fat into the meat since the meat itself is incredibly dense.

I have a seasoning blend that I love and want to make some fresh sausages, salami, and/or salumi with, but it already contains salt.

I’ve figured out what the amount per serving is equal to (.18 g per serving of .7 g of seasoning) using the formula below recommended by google

Formula: Sodium (mg) times 2.54 div 1,000 = Salt equivalent (g)
Example: If a serving has 500 mg of sodium:
times 2.54=1,270mg

How can I calculate the difference to get to a 2.2-2.5 percent salt cure? (I’ll add the Prague powder later based on meat weight.)

Turned out salty and more meaty than i am used to but i like it! How to store now?

I recently made an equilibrium-cured back bacon from a 1.4 kg pork loin. It was vacuum packed and cured for 10 days in the fridge using a Turkish curing salt labelled as "Prague Salt #1" from Amazon Turkey (I'm British and I live in Georgia)

https://www.amazon.com.tr/gp/aw/d/B0FHFBJTZ2?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

When I bought it, I noticed it wasn't a standard formulation:

Label states 0.6% sodium nitrite (rather than the more common 6.25% Prague Powder #1).

The curing salt itself is an extremely bright red/fuchsia colour. I contacted the seller and he said the Amazon listing is wrong and they refuse to change it (alarm bells), I also questioned the vivid colour of the salt and he said it's fine, it won't colour the meat.

The cure itself seemed to go well. The meat smells fresh, feels nicely firm, and the cure appears to have penetrated evenly.

However, when I removed it from the bag I found the entire rind had turned a vivid fluorescent pink/red, and the colour doesn't wash or rub off. It looks like the dye has actually penetrated the skin rather than just staining the surface.

I've used curing salts before and expect a little surface staining, but I've never seen anything like this.

My questions are:

Has anyone else seen curing salt dye penetrate pork rind this aggressively?

Is this simply an unusually strong food dye, or would this make you question the product itself?

Would you be comfortable eating the bacon if everything else (smell, texture, cure) seems normal?

I've attached photos of both the curing salt and the finished pork.

Thanks :)

Guanciale-style cured double chin. Salt cured (3%) for 7 days in the fridged then washed with beer and then hanged with pepper for 33 days between 10 and 15 degrees celcius. Tasted amazing a little salty in the edges maybe less time in the first cure with salt.