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Took the bacon pieces I've been curing out of their vacuum bags today to start the drying phase, two weeks basically now in the bags. They did not come out evenly dark red all over, some places look lighter in color. I am not sure if they should all come out as dark as the darkest areas. It's kinda what I had hoped for. But perhaps the dark red will still come as they dry and then are smoked. I have them on a plate in my fridge on the top shelf now, hoping they won't absorb funk but I don't have a better way really. I built a small smoking "shed" for the cold smoking part, but we're having colder temps now, nearing -10C and next week -14C so not good smoking weather... I had hoped for a spell of mild weather. I cut off a small slice and fried it up! It's a bit on the salty side so in the future I think I'll aim for 2.5% rather than the 3%! But still perfectly good! Tastes bacon-ish but lacking something yet. And this was the piece I used liquid smoke on. So perhaps best I smoke it too... Tiny smoke shed, sorta looks like an outhouse, made from cut offs from another project: 
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Dec 8, 2022 19:39
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:28 |
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Cold smoked my bacon today, so it's been drying one week in the fridge. Longer than I planned.  I had to keep a small charcoal fire going to keep the inside warm enough. Eventually I replaced the pile with an off cut of chimney pipe and put a grate in it to keep the coals up from the bottom. This made a sort of chimney starter, much easier to keep the charcoals going then.   Tastes like bacon! Now I wonder how to handle it best, should I slice them all up and vacuum pack into suitable packages. Can I freeze them or will they keep in the fridge? I might smoke it more tomorrow too.
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Dec 17, 2022 20:01
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Thanks, first thing I smoked in it was this bacon. Built it for the bacon smoking from off-cuts.
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Dec 17, 2022 21:20
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I'm trying something new, got this hunk of pork cheaply, I decided to dry brine it with a nitrate salt mix. It's not pork belly but somewhere near the back I think. I think it might be called Sirloin in english, though we don't butcher the meat in the same way as in america. Anyway curing the meat, not sure if I will cold or hot smoke it later. Cold smoking would probably give me something akin to bacon, though a lot cheaper than store bought for once. Last time I made bacon it ended up costing more than storebought which to me kinda killed my interest in doing more. Weird that whole pork belly can be an expensive cut of meat (15 euros / kg at local butchers, can't find it in super markets), but pre-sliced uncured pork belly is cheap and found in every market. Of course this meat here was 5€/kg on sale, hard to beat! 
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Jul 2, 2023 10:54
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I smoked the meat I had curing for like three weeks, looks like despite that it didn't want to penetrate all the way to the center. Cut thin slices and made bacon. Not that this was pork belly, leaner cut. Turned out well though my fried eggs failed, broke both yolks so not as over easy as I wanted.  (sriracha & jalapenos) I dunno if this might be something like canadian bacon. At any rate it tastes like bacon and the 2.5% instead of th 3% I tried this winter was better, 3% is too salty. And I like this cut, more meat less fat, so much fast on the last one.
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Jul 21, 2023 10:30
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I tend to fry on setting 7 of 9 so I guess that's kinda high, I do like them crunchy. What I got here seems to be also called "back bacon": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_bacon
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Jul 21, 2023 19:05
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Bought a 6lbs christmas ham. It's grey salted and deep frozen. It's meant to be thawed and oven baked. But I don't like that kind of ham much, it's so drat boring and plain. But I plan to add nitrite salt to it and vacuum cure it for a time and then try and smoke it. I've been researching finnish sauna smoking re: temps and duration and I think I should be able to do it in my weber. Found this site and the google translation to english is delightful, the curing process gets translated as worshipping. https://smetana.fi/2012/saunapalvi/ quote:Traditional meat worship is cooking meat in a smoking oven/smoke sauna at a temperature of 60-100 degrees. Meat can be so-called dry salted, solution salted or spray salted before smoking. The smoking time varies from 1 to 2 days depending on the size of the meat, mostly peeled alder is used as smoking wood.
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Dec 26, 2023 11:23
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Well I was eating of this same style of christmas ham earlier and it's not very salty at all, not enough really. I think it should be a little bit saltier. And also I got the prague powder so I can mix my own salt to cure ratio. I won't be adding a lot of salt, but I will be adding cure sufficient for the weight of the ham.
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Dec 26, 2023 17:52
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There was a thread about charcuterie but it looks like it jumped the charc.
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Apr 8, 2024 11:25
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I've had a ham lying in brine (with nitrides) in my fridge for almost a month now. It hasn't really darkened as much as I thought it would. On april 20th according to the calculator it should be ready to smoke.
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Apr 15, 2024 07:59
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Didn't happen last week because other plans so I'm doing it this weekend. I don't know if this will work out properly. I'm attempting to replicate a sauna smoked ham which are smoked at 60-80C (140-175F) max for a long time. Unclear if the weber will be able to keep that temp but I'll try keeping it near the upper range. I wet cured it because I didn't have a big enough vacuum bag otherwise vacuum curing is so nice... I had to get rid of the netting on it and I tied my own from string. e: photo I guess 
His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Apr 27, 2024 |
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Apr 27, 2024 10:13
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And about 8 hours later. I'll keep this going overnight
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Apr 27, 2024 19:17
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:28 |
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I think this is done now it hasn't been 24 hours but it's fine. Reading some of the history books and other sources and there are large ranges in smoking, some keep it going for days, others 12 hours, then hang the things up to dry for months. Tastewise I am pretty satisfied, it tastes like ham. I wanna get it cooled down now and have another taste test. I think I should get it sliced and vacuum packed, probably keep best that way. Unsure if it should or can be kept frozen. It's a kilo of ham after all.
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Apr 28, 2024 07:53
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