Recent content by van becker

Thanks everyone. I had some this afternoon and the taste was fantastic. I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond. Bear, all I know is when I asked the butcher what he did, he said he smoked it for 24 hours. I said "you cold-smoked it?" and he said no, hot. At this point, I will...

I just picked up my deer sausage from the butcher and it doesn't smell like it took on a lot of smoke. I decided to use my bradley smoker and cold smoke it for a few hours just to get a little smoke flavor. It is 40 degrees outside today, but the temp of the sausage hanging in the smoker...

Thank you.  That makes a lot of sense.  Next up I believe I'm going to try Canadian bacon.  Definitely going 30 days on that and might smoke it for an hour. Cfarmer - I agree on sitting after smoking.  My only complaint with my first bacon was a little too much smoke flavor.  It calmed after...

Dave, I have a question about the time here.  From what I've read, if you're going to go over 30 days, aren't you supposed to use cure #2?  If I'm looking at your comment right, you'd be at 28 days.  Or, does the cure stop when you start smoking?  The reason this concerns me is because life gets...

I'm honestly not sure about the honey.  I do think I prefer my curing salt to be directly on the meat.  I will check out the other recipe as I plan to do a wet cure in the near future.  Thanks!

The first test found it to be a little too "smokie" for my liking.  I then left it sit open for a day to air out and tried it again the next day.  The smoke definitely tamed down after that.  I know now that I won't do 4 hours of a hot smoke again, because that's overkill for my taste.  The...

Tomorrow is the big day.  I skipped the fry test before smoking so I just hope it's not too salty.  I cured it for 14 days, so I'm hoping it had plenty of time for the sugar to balance the salt.  I'll let you know how it is!

Update: Smoked it today.  Very pleased with how it came out and can't wait to taste it after it rests in the refrigerator for a bit.  I hot smoked it for about 4 hours.  The internal temp sat steady at about 145 for the last hour of it.  I just flavored this one with black pepper on half and red...

Thanks Dirtsailor, I thought the same thing after I posted that - need to smoke both ways on the same cure methods to see what I like.  Doing hot smoke tomorrow because I won't have any time to do smoking on Sunday or Monday because of my schedule, but definitely going with cold smoke next time...

Thanks everyone.  I feel much better now.  I'll be smoking it Saturday, and I must admit I'm really excited to see how this bacon turns out. Dirtsailor - I'm going to hot smoke this one.  I wanted to cold smoke, but the wife wants to hot smoke the first one, and I'm ok with that. Next time I'm...

Dirtsailor, I just opened it for the first time since starting the process and it pretty much has no smell.  Even had the wife smell it, because her nose it better than mine.

Thank you bauchw for the info!

I should add that I have not opened the bag to smell the meat.

This is a 6 pound piece of side pork that's been curing in the refrigerator for 13 days.  As you can see, I'm now getting some definite pink spots.  This is my first attempt at bacon, and I was originally concerned about the small amount of dry mixture and lack of any liquid coming from it...

Thanks for the replies, guys. Chef Jimmy J - I'm not sure how much osmosis can actually take place with a dry cure.  I got about a total 1/2 ounce of water in my bag by day 4 and nothing more (6 pounds of meat).  Next time I'm definitely doing a wet cure.  Then I can see what you're describing...