I'm going to brine for 3 days then smoke to make a ham like with it. I think it's aka canadian bacon. Anyone that has made this have any tips? I injected the meat with the brine and have it soaking in the fridge now.
Preparing a picnic
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This is a fresh shoulder picnic, correct?
Your brining time may be a little short; you may want to increase that to 12 - 14 days, even with injection; how much sodium nitrite/curing salt did you use in your brine concentration?
Your brining time may be a little short; you may want to increase that to 12 - 14 days, even with injection; how much sodium nitrite/curing salt did you use in your brine concentration?
Yes it's a fresh picnic. I used 1-1/2 tbs of cure#1 to 1-1/2 gallons of water. I'm going to smoke one of them this weekend to check for my taste and determine the time for the next 1 based on that.
spoolinaz
Meat Mopper
I think what Pops is saying is at that concentration, the brine will need about 14 days to be effective. 3 days won't be enough time for osmosis to do it's thing. I just did a picnic with Pops wet brine recipe and let it go for 14 days. It turned out very tender and moist, a great ham!
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/128646/my-first-pork-to-ham-picnic-ala-pops-wet-cure#
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/128646/my-first-pork-to-ham-picnic-ala-pops-wet-cure#
Thanks for the advice. I think I'll definitely let one of mine go much longer based on what y'all are saying. I guess the first one will be more just like a smoked picnic. I based my recipe off of pops in the articles too. I used his reccommended amount of salt, sugars, and cure then added some garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and liquid crab boil. My only concern with the amount of time is having it be too salty. I used 1-1/2 cups of kosher salt to my 1-1/2 gallons of water. I do think kosher salt would be less concentrated than sea salt tho. I have some pics in the other thread. This was a duplicate when it told me there was an error.
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spoolinaz
Meat Mopper
I read you on the salt. My ham and turkey was full strength and a tad too salty but still completely edible. I did some shoulder bacon and used 3/4c per gallon. That was much better. I am going to try 2/3c on the next cure to see how that is.
Using 1-1/2 C to 1-1/2 gal only makes a brine of 3.7% ( if your gallon weighs 133.6oz and a cup of Kosher weighs 5oz per cup). Brines run anywhere from 3-5 % for normal brining and up to 10% in some cases. saturated brines run about 25%. Bottom line is you are at the bottom of the scale for salinity. The time length is important to let the sodium diffuse all the way throught the meat. The meat will have to be considerably less than the 3.7% you started with since there will still be an equal solution in the brine as well as the meat. If you take it out too soon, there's a chance it may be even saltier than you expect since the sodium is going to be ammased near the edge of the meat and everywhere you injected.
Another key step is to let the meat rest after removing from the brine and rinsing if you chose to do so. This will give more time for the solutes to fload around the meat and even out.
Seawater is usually about 3.5%, just for gee whiz.
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Umm, nope. It's not Canadian bacon. Canadian bacon is made from pork loin. You are just making a picnic or arm portion ham.
What a coincidence:
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/129282/four-little-hams-for-thanksgiving
I guess I will take one out tonight and let it sit overnight before smoking it then. Thanks for the brine salinity percentages. In essence by the end of the brining you want the water and meat to have the same salinity pretty much. And by that logic the surface and injections would only seem saltier in comparison to the rest of the meat but it would actually be the same as the expected end result for all of the meat if the brining process was complete.
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Ok that makes more sense since all the canadian bacon I've eaten was much leaner that what a picnic is. I just thought I read that somewhere. It has to be true it was on the interwebs lol...
I'm trying to do these to get ready for thanksgiving too. My plan was that if these work out I'd bust out a whole leg for the family on thanksgiving. I think that would take 3 weeks or more to brine tho so If this one is good, I'll just do a couple more picnics then.
Something like that. In a nutshell it all wants to balance out. If you put a 8.53 lb (boneless weight) peice of meat into 1 gal of water (8.35lb) that has a salinity of 2%, then when the meat is done brining, both the meat and the brine will have a salinity of 1%. This is known as equalibrium brining but it takes longer to do. With brines around 3.5% and higher, it's known as gradient brining. It takes less time, but like Pops said, with that size of meat, it'll take a lot longer than 3 days. I'm letting mine go for about 21 or more before i rest 'em and smoke 'em..
Heres a beginning to end of the first one, it came out awesome even though it was just soaked a day and a half. I'm already looking forward to next weekend's being even better.
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