Confusing dry curing with dry curing.......

[dick burrell]

Can the bacon and ham's be smoked without curing them? What is the advantage to having it cured?

 

[daveomak]

Can the bacon and ham's be smoked without curing them? What is the advantage to having it cured?

Dick, afternoon and welcome to the forum.....  Without curing, you have smoked pork....  curing is the first step in making bacon and ham...  smoking completes the process...  You can have smoked pork, corned/cured pork, and when you combine the 2 processes you get bacon and/or  ham...  Contrary to some folks, properly cured food is healthy and safe to eat..... curing adds flavor and the pink color to pork....

Please take a moment and stop into " [color= rgb(146, 144, 139)]/[/color][color= rgb(128, 0, 0)]Roll Call[/color][color= rgb(146, 144, 139)]/[/color]   " and introduce yourself and get a proper welcome from our members.... Also, if you would note your location in your profile, it will help in the future when answering questions about smokin'...   elevation, humidity etc....    

We're glad you stopped in and joined our group...    Enjoy the long smokey ride....     Dave

 

[bregent]

Just adding to the confusion....

http://www.mortonsalt.com/for-your-home/culinary-salts/meat-curing-methods
[h3]Dry Curing[/h3]
Best used to cure hams, bacon and smaller cuts of meat, dry curing involves you applying the cure mix directly on the meat. After the application, place meat into a plastic food storage bag and tightly seal. From there, put your meat in the refrigerator and let the curing process take place. After curing, remove excess salt by rinsing your meat. The final step then is to cook your meat and taste.

 

[daveomak]

Just adding to the confusion....

http://www.mortonsalt.com/for-your-home/culinary-salts/meat-curing-methods

[h3]Dry Curing[/h3]

Best used to cure hams, bacon and smaller cuts of meat, dry curing involves you applying the cure mix directly on the meat. After the application, place meat into a plastic food storage bag and tightly seal. From there, put your meat in the refrigerator and let the curing process take place. After curing, remove excess salt by rinsing your meat. The final step then is to cook your meat and taste.

That note from the Morton folks is not dry curing...... Please delete it..... Why would you want to confuse folks on such an important issue... Food safety is not to be taken lightly.....

 

[bregent]

>Why would you want to confuse folks on such an important issue

My intent is not to confuse anyone. I'm brand new to the hobby, having never cured anything till just last week. I had received an old copy of Morton's 'Home Meat Curing Guide', 1988 , I figured they were experts on the subject since, as you know, manufacture very popular cures. 

After familiarizing myself somewhat with the subject from their literature and website I came to this forum and found a lot of difference of opinion on what 'Dry Curing' is. There certainly is not a consensus here from what I can tell. 

>... Food safety is not to be taken lightly.....

Not sure where you coming from with that one. I don't see how quoting a popular source and opening it up for discussion is dangerous. 

>  Please delete it

A moderator can delete it if they think it poses a safety concern. I'm sure I'm not the only newbie that's visited the mortonsalt.com website. Rather than delete the post and making believe it doesn't exist, maybe you or other experts can talk to it and explain why it should be ignored. I'm sure that the curing processes are very clear in your mind, but to beginners like me, it is still quite confusing.

 

[diggingdogfarm]

Morton doesn't necessarily follow recommend cure limits and the like so they publish a lot of confusing and down right bad information.
It makes it difficult to educate folks because they do see Morton as an authority.

But, it's not just Morton's, there's bad information and mistakes everywhere....some of the most popular books by Kutas, the Marianski's, etc. contain bad information and very serious mistakes.


~Martin

 

[wade]

Just to add a little more confusion as it really does depend on whether you are dry curing, dry curing or dry curing. When dry curing some sausage you use a fermentation culture to increase the acidity to inhibit unwanted bacterial growth and less nitrite. When making Salami or Chorizo for instance you will also add a blend of acidifying and flavouring bacteria right at the beginning. For the fermented dry cured sausage there is another important (but possibly unintuative) difference in its production. As soon as you add the curing salts and culture mix to the meat you need to keep the sausage at room temperature to give the added fermentation bacteria the environment it needs to multiply quickly and become dominant.

I am agreeing with what has been said previously in this thread - the different methods of "dry curing" are each designed to produce a different type of product. It is very important that this is recognised and the correct nitrite levels are used for the particular end product that is being produced.

 

[lowslowjoe]

I'll apologize in advance for bringing up this very old thread.  However, this thread touches very closely on something that I've been trying to get answers about recently... and that is 'what defines dry cured bacon'.      One thing that hasn't been mentioned here, is that the USDA  and/or FSIS state that "dry-cured" ( note the hyphen ) bacon has a room temperature shelf life of 10 days when it's in sliced form, and 3 weeks when in slab form...  other forms of bacon they speak of ( pumped or immersion cured)  have zero shelf stability/life at room temperature.

  So, clearly dry-cured bacon, must be significantly different then other bacon.  Now, I'm a bit of a novice at this stuff, and I must say, the lack of clear definition of what exactly constitutes dry-cured bacon is somewhat disturbing.  Even in the FSIS, they give a pretty vague description of what they mean by dry-cured bacon.   Surely there is some guideline or rules as to exactly how you achieve a bacon that has a room temperature shelf life of 10 days when it's sliced... 

 No way that pork belly cured with dry ingrediants for a week or two wrapped in plastic bags and nothing more is going to achieve that level of shelf stability... There must be something done to reduce the water activity to a certain level, or something..  Yet, I have yet to find anything that clearly defines this 'dry-cured' bacon with the remarkable room temperature shelf life...

 Anyone got any further ideas on this? Or can you point me to something resembling definitive information?

 

[daveomak]

Here's a thread by AK1.....

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/103229/ready-to-eat-baconhttp://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/103229/ready-to-eat-bacon

I attempt to do something similar...

Belly rubbed with 2% salt, 1% sugar and 0.25% cure #1...  

On a wire rack in the refer for 2 weeks...  rinsed, dried and back in the refer for 1 more week on the wire rack...  the refer dehydrates the meat and intensifies the flavors...   the "time" allows for the complete penetration of the salt and sugar...  sugar molecules are big and time is needed for a homogenized  hunk of meat...    then hung in the smoker, with no smoke, below 70 deg. F, to form a pellicle...  fan assisted air flow...

Then cold smoke, intermittently, until the smoke is to your liking...  up to 30 days some say...     then back in the refer for an additional week for additional drying and blooming of flavors...

I haven't tested it but I think the water activity is low enough, and the salt is high enough, after all the dehydration, that this bacon could hang for months, in a cool environment, without spoiling...  and the bacon flavor is intense...   I do cook it...   baked on a wire rack...

 

[diggingdogfarm]

'what defines dry cured bacon'.      

"For country ham, dry salt cured ham, country cured shoulder ham, or dry-cured bacon, the internal salt content should be 4% when used with nitrates/nitrites or 10% without the use of nitrates/nitrites. Properly prepared dry cured hams are safe to store at room temperature (Reynolds et al.,)"

"Bacon can be manufactured without the use of nitrite, but must be labeled "Uncured Bacon, No Nitrates or Nitrites added" and bear the statement "Not Preserved, Keep Refrigerated Below 40 °F At All Times" — unless the final product has been dried according to USDA regulations, or if the product contains an amount of salt sufficient to achieve an internal brine concentration of 10% or more, the label does not have to carry the handle statement of "Not Preserved, Keep Refrigerated below ___" etc."

More precisely, 'dry-cured' has been defined as less than .92 water activity but, unfortunately, that's not a practical definition for home curers.

b09qahG.png

• diggingdogfarm
• Mar 31, 2017

HTH

~Martin

Sources:

• http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/lit_rev/cure_smoke_pres.html
• FSIS: Bacon and Food Safety Fact Sheet
• Reynolds AE, Schuler GA 1982. Sausage and Smoked Meat. USDA Cooperative Extension Bulletin 865.
• The Health Effects of Nitrate, Nitrite and N-Nitroso Compounds, National Academy of Sciences.

 

[wade]

Hi Martin - Good to see you back posting. Is everything OK with you now.

 

[daveomak]

Hey Martin...   Good morning.... 

 

[diggingdogfarm]

Hi Martin - Good to see you back posting. Is everything OK with you now.

Hi Wade, and thanks!
I have some very serious health issues that don't permit me to do sausage making, meat curing or BBQing (and many other things) anymore, unless a friend helps me.
But that's not very often, unfortunately. :icon_sad:

Hey Martin...   Good morning.... 

Hey Dave! Good Afternoon! :icon_smile:

 

[lowslowjoe]

Thanks everyone... some good helpful information here.   I do think the term 'dry cure' is somewhat confusing , however I'm not sure there's a good alternative really.  To me, it's actually kind of like two things... one is the 'dry cure', meaning the ingredients are all dry and is at least in part intended to pull some moisture out of the meat... but the other part , is actually drying, and not curing.   But then obviously there is that USDA term 'dry-cured bacon' that obviously has it's it's own meaning.

  Either way, I do think I personally am starting to understand, so thank you all for helping.