I have been grilling and smoking meats for years, I am largely informally and self taught but have been working with a narrow range of products and recipes. Recently my curiosity has been sparked by the idea of making my own bacon, and with the great deal of insight and knowledge from this BB I embarked on my first foray into cured meat and started by making Canadian Bacon.
THE MEAT: For my choice of cut I decided to make my CB by using the smaller tenderloin rather than a whole loin, my logic was that this would not only provide a leaner cut but also a smaller cross section and sliced finished product. I was looking for a smaller cross-section/diameter of meat because the medallion sized slices that would be more suitable for hors d'oeuvres and/or to make a breakfast recipe I developed that I call "breakfast bullets"...this is a whole 'nutha topic.... I purchased 4 tenderloins at around 5lbs total and cut each of them in half for a total of 8 pieces to work with.
THE CURE: The consensus here seems to be that for a foolproof cure use the "Pops" wet cure/brine recipe. Following this advice I located the base recipe and largely followed it to the letter. http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/a/pops-wet-curing-brine I opted to keep the salt variable (sodium chloride variety) on the low side as well as adding granulated onion, garlic and added a little paprika and cayenne. I must agree that the wet cure was very easy and foolproof. I estimated the largest diameter of the loins was about 2.5 inches, which based on the formula of Diameter/2 X 4 dictated a minimum of 5 days in the solution. To be safe I let them "swaz" in the brine for seven days with a few intervals of massaging and mixing during this time. It was obvious upon removal that the cuts had become stiffer and swollen from the soak and to my surprise the raw product smelled VERY good. After the seven days I gave the cuts an hour or so of a soak in clear water with one water change to rinse and help mellow the salt/cure. Based on advice I have read here I also fried up a few slivers of the cured product to insure the salt levels were appropriate to proceed to the smoke phase. Salt levels good, and flavor very tasty...ready to move on to the cook.
SPICES AND PELICLE: After tasting the fried samples I decided the meat had an adequate sweetness to its profile so I opted to simply dust the loins with a sweet paprika with a pinch of cayenne and cracked black pepper for the smoke. I am going to experiment with glazes and the sweet stuff some other time. Loins were then arranged on a tray and placed in the fridge to form a pelicle, my window of time was a little smaller than originally planned so to speed things up I put a small fan in the fridge to help give the loins the sticky crust they needed before the smoke (worked great by the way). Given that I was going for a few hours of cold smoke and not to let any valuable rack space go to waste, I also purchased a variety of cheeses to share the cold smoke time.
THE COOK: I have never cold smoked anything before but had decided that I wanted to both cold and hot smoke these tenders to maximize the smoke absorption time. This was decided during my research phase and thus provided the time to order a 6x6 A-MAZE sawdust smoker. I ordered one of the AMAZE variety packs that come with an assortment of sawdust, this included hickory/cherry and maple sawdust. Branching out into the 'Yankee-wood" smoking was in and of itself very exciting to me as my smoking repertoire here in Texas has been mostly associated with mesquite, oak and maybe the occasional pecan. Meat and cheese was arranged on my Weber kettle for the cold smoke with the cheese occupying the area above where I would add charcoal later for a crude but effective offset smoking arrangement in the Weber's close quarters. I loaded the A-MAZE with some hickory dust, built a "tent" out of a foil pan and lit the fuse....
The cold smoking hickory dust wafted for 3 hours, after which I removed the well branded cheese and stared to add charcoal briquettes to the Weber. Outdoor temps in Texas on this day were uncharacteristically in the 30s which really help to keep the cold smoke a truly cold affair. I added the briquettes slowly and methodically via a gap in the grill to keep the rising temps associated with the hot smoke in control and slowly on the rise. Temps started at 160*ish and over then next few hours were slowly ramped up to 220*. During this time the coals were augmented with additional hickory chips. Internal temperature of the loins were monitored and once the safe range of 145*+ was achieved, I proceeded with removal and resting. Sorry for the poor picture quality, this was early in the AM and I was medicating with Kentucky Bourbon to help stave off the cold...
POST COOK: After resting to room temps, product was placed in fridge for 24 hours of marrying flavor/mellowing. After this the loins were removed to slice and package. I was really concerned about the length of the smoke on such a lean piece of meat in addition to my limited knowledge of the relative impact of curing the meat. Was delightfully surprised to find that after the 24 hours of rest the meat had stabilized its moisture content and was very moist, tender and had the ubiquitous pinkish hue of cured meat. The cheese was equally as alluring and despite all the commentary I read about the importance of letting cheese rest and absorb smoke flavors for weeks, the taste after just one day was extraordinary. For the record I smoked a 3 Pepper Colby Jack, Chipolte Gouda, Horseradish Cheddar, Swiss, and Mozzarella. Below are a few pics of finished product, I hope this write-up helps to inspire others as much as other's write-ups have inspired me.
I am not a sensitive to critique and appreciate candid feedback and suggetion. Please feel free to comment on how and why you would have done things differently.
Smoke on....
Ken K
THE MEAT: For my choice of cut I decided to make my CB by using the smaller tenderloin rather than a whole loin, my logic was that this would not only provide a leaner cut but also a smaller cross section and sliced finished product. I was looking for a smaller cross-section/diameter of meat because the medallion sized slices that would be more suitable for hors d'oeuvres and/or to make a breakfast recipe I developed that I call "breakfast bullets"...this is a whole 'nutha topic.... I purchased 4 tenderloins at around 5lbs total and cut each of them in half for a total of 8 pieces to work with.
THE CURE: The consensus here seems to be that for a foolproof cure use the "Pops" wet cure/brine recipe. Following this advice I located the base recipe and largely followed it to the letter. http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/a/pops-wet-curing-brine I opted to keep the salt variable (sodium chloride variety) on the low side as well as adding granulated onion, garlic and added a little paprika and cayenne. I must agree that the wet cure was very easy and foolproof. I estimated the largest diameter of the loins was about 2.5 inches, which based on the formula of Diameter/2 X 4 dictated a minimum of 5 days in the solution. To be safe I let them "swaz" in the brine for seven days with a few intervals of massaging and mixing during this time. It was obvious upon removal that the cuts had become stiffer and swollen from the soak and to my surprise the raw product smelled VERY good. After the seven days I gave the cuts an hour or so of a soak in clear water with one water change to rinse and help mellow the salt/cure. Based on advice I have read here I also fried up a few slivers of the cured product to insure the salt levels were appropriate to proceed to the smoke phase. Salt levels good, and flavor very tasty...ready to move on to the cook.
SPICES AND PELICLE: After tasting the fried samples I decided the meat had an adequate sweetness to its profile so I opted to simply dust the loins with a sweet paprika with a pinch of cayenne and cracked black pepper for the smoke. I am going to experiment with glazes and the sweet stuff some other time. Loins were then arranged on a tray and placed in the fridge to form a pelicle, my window of time was a little smaller than originally planned so to speed things up I put a small fan in the fridge to help give the loins the sticky crust they needed before the smoke (worked great by the way). Given that I was going for a few hours of cold smoke and not to let any valuable rack space go to waste, I also purchased a variety of cheeses to share the cold smoke time.
THE COOK: I have never cold smoked anything before but had decided that I wanted to both cold and hot smoke these tenders to maximize the smoke absorption time. This was decided during my research phase and thus provided the time to order a 6x6 A-MAZE sawdust smoker. I ordered one of the AMAZE variety packs that come with an assortment of sawdust, this included hickory/cherry and maple sawdust. Branching out into the 'Yankee-wood" smoking was in and of itself very exciting to me as my smoking repertoire here in Texas has been mostly associated with mesquite, oak and maybe the occasional pecan. Meat and cheese was arranged on my Weber kettle for the cold smoke with the cheese occupying the area above where I would add charcoal later for a crude but effective offset smoking arrangement in the Weber's close quarters. I loaded the A-MAZE with some hickory dust, built a "tent" out of a foil pan and lit the fuse....
The cold smoking hickory dust wafted for 3 hours, after which I removed the well branded cheese and stared to add charcoal briquettes to the Weber. Outdoor temps in Texas on this day were uncharacteristically in the 30s which really help to keep the cold smoke a truly cold affair. I added the briquettes slowly and methodically via a gap in the grill to keep the rising temps associated with the hot smoke in control and slowly on the rise. Temps started at 160*ish and over then next few hours were slowly ramped up to 220*. During this time the coals were augmented with additional hickory chips. Internal temperature of the loins were monitored and once the safe range of 145*+ was achieved, I proceeded with removal and resting. Sorry for the poor picture quality, this was early in the AM and I was medicating with Kentucky Bourbon to help stave off the cold...
POST COOK: After resting to room temps, product was placed in fridge for 24 hours of marrying flavor/mellowing. After this the loins were removed to slice and package. I was really concerned about the length of the smoke on such a lean piece of meat in addition to my limited knowledge of the relative impact of curing the meat. Was delightfully surprised to find that after the 24 hours of rest the meat had stabilized its moisture content and was very moist, tender and had the ubiquitous pinkish hue of cured meat. The cheese was equally as alluring and despite all the commentary I read about the importance of letting cheese rest and absorb smoke flavors for weeks, the taste after just one day was extraordinary. For the record I smoked a 3 Pepper Colby Jack, Chipolte Gouda, Horseradish Cheddar, Swiss, and Mozzarella. Below are a few pics of finished product, I hope this write-up helps to inspire others as much as other's write-ups have inspired me.
I am not a sensitive to critique and appreciate candid feedback and suggetion. Please feel free to comment on how and why you would have done things differently.
Smoke on....
Ken K
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