Dry cure bacon first time!

[SmokinEdge]

Sorry, I forgot to respond. I'm sure you wouldn't take an actual whiff of it lol, but I guess you could describe it as earthy or musty.


Anyway, I'd trust Eric on this. White, surface mold is common when doing a true dry cure, but as he said, it's rare for this to happen under properly held fridge temps. Could there be some condensation in those drawers?

Perhaps someone like @indaswamp could offer you better insight?

You can pretty clearly see the white mold over the dark patch. This leads me to believe that more likely the dark patch was from surface drying or becoming like jerky. This is common in dry aging and can be more pronounced in refrigerated drying as the average humidity in refrigeration is generally in the mid 40% to maybe 50%.

I watch for this and sometimes bag on day 10 or 11 if I feel it’s getting to dry on the surface. In dry aging steak for example, once finished they will cut their steaks off of the primal and then trim the dry rind off, that rind can appear very dark even black.

 

[Astralogics]

You can pretty clearly see the white mold over the dark patch. This leads me to believe that more likely the dark patch was from surface drying or becoming like jerky. This is common in dry aging and can be more pronounced in refrigerated drying as the average humidity in refrigeration is generally in the mid 40% to maybe 50%.

I watch for this and sometimes bag on day 10 or 11 if I feel it’s getting to dry on the surface. In dry aging steak for example, once finished they will cut their steaks off of the primal and then trim the dry rind off, that rind can appear very dark even black.

Right, and in his shot slicing into it, it looks good. And the fact that it had no smell (it probably smelt great honestly), I'd think he was starting to get a nice pellicle going.

 

[indaswamp]

The problem with black mold is that it has roots that penetrate into the meat. As @SmokinEdge mentioned, just trim off the end where the black mold grew. I'd trim 1" off the bacon like you did. You can wipe with a 50/50 vinegar and water solution even after the bacon has been smoked....

 

[meatloaf]

It’s whole muscle not sausage, so yes like I mentioned earlier, trim anything that doesn’t look right. You really don’t need to waste a lot. Just the surface 1/4” or so usually.

You must have some funk growing in your fridge. Under refrigeration we rarely see this in this time frame with cure meats. But just clean it up and enjoy. Next time vinegar wipe off any mold.

maybe it was the ziploc bag but it was a new one.. only 1 out of 4 bags had the mold. i ended up garbaging it because i found a spot that looked more like a black mold on the bottom and its just not worth getting sick over.

 

[meatloaf]

Sorry, I forgot to respond. I'm sure you wouldn't take an actual whiff of it lol, but I guess you could describe it as earthy or musty.


Anyway, I'd trust Eric on this. White, surface mold is common when doing a true dry cure, but as he said, it's rare for this to happen under properly held fridge temps. Could there be some condensation in those drawers?

Perhaps someone like @indaswamp could offer you better insight?

yeah not sure. .... i ended up garbaging that one. there was no condensation in the drawer but i did it in a ziploc bag so that would be higher humidity..... but that is what most dry cure recipes say to do.... maybe next time i should do it on a rack ?

 

[meatloaf]

Right, and in his shot slicing into it, it looks good. And the fact that it had no smell (it probably smelt great honestly), I'd think he was starting to get a nice pellicle going

pellicles look like mold? I am very inexperienced lol.

 

[Astralogics]

pellicles look like mold? I am very inexperienced lol.

No, pellicle is a hard, dry surface. Kinda "jerky" like as Eric had described it.