Just checking English to Americian ingrediants on a bacon run

[the big fella]

looking to do a first run on a simple bacon piece, been reading up like crazy here on all the recipes and methods and so on

just before i push the button and buy every thing , is there any thing i should know about with looking at an americian recipe for a british chef

 

[DanMcG]

Your cure #1 has less nitrite then ours,
Here's a link to a great blog on meat curing by one of your own.
http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/?p=bacon

 

[the big fella]

Your cure #1 has less nitrite then ours,
Here's a link to a great blog on meat curing by one of your own.
http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/?p=bacon

cheers DanMcG, i have been here a few months and keep finding small differences between recipe ingreadiants and just wanted to check before hand,

i also find that the uk based recies have lower salt contents .

the idea at the moment is one half as a plain bacon and the second half as maple bacon.

I have to check as with every thing on the internet i can order stuff and if comes from both sides of the pond at the same time so you can end up with americian and british ingrediants even if you did not organise it

 

[DanMcG]

In case you didn't know about this place, http://www.sausagemaking.org/ local for you, (sort of)
Also has a great forum.

 

[wade]

Your cure #1 has less nitrite then ours,

Dan - Where are you getting this information from? The standard Cure #1 we buy in the UK is exactly the same as you buy in the USA - 6.25% Nitrite.

 
looking to do a first run on a simple bacon piece, been reading up like crazy here on all the recipes and methods and so on

just before i push the button and buy every thing , is there any thing i should know about with looking at an americian recipe for a british chef

TBF - The amount of salt is really personal taste preference. If you buy some of the off-the-shelf ready mixed cures they can give you a result that is approaching 5% !! but most people (even US colleagues on here) find that 2-3% is about right for the average pallet.

Are you looking to dry cure or immersion brine? Dry cure is simpler (less fiddly), produces bacon with a longer shelf life, and (in my opinion anyway) produces a superior tasting bacon. Do you have any of the ingredients so far? If you need some Cure #1 to get you started then PM me your address and I will put some in the post for you. I cure a lot of bacon and so keep a stock of it.

When buying cure you MUST buy it from a reputable supply. I buy mine from either Surfys  or Weschenfelder. A few years ago I bought some Cure #1 from eBay but when I had it analysed it actually contained no Nitrite.

A good dry cure to start with would consist of the following.

For each 1,000 g (1 Kg) of pork use

• 22.5 g of non-iodised cooking salt or sea salt (2.5%)
• 12 g sugar - either white sugar or light Muscovado (half sugar to salt)
• 2.5 g Cure #1 (156 ppm)
• 10 g freshly ground black pepper

To help with the method I have attached a booklet that i provide as part of my bacon making kit. With the kit I provide a cure mix but simply substitute the cure mix above.

The only other important piece of equipment you need to buy is a large Ziploc bag that is big enough to hold the bacon while it is curing.

I hope this helps.

 

[the big fella]

wade you truely are a gent and a million thanks for your offer,

i have not brought the meat or the ingreadiants as yet, looking to do that on friday

meat wise again still to buy, size wise around medium which is from what i can gather is about two to three kilos

For each 1,000 g (1 Kg) of pork use

• 22.5 g of non-iodised cooking salt or sea salt (2.5%)
• 12 g sugar - either white sugar or light Muscovado (half sugar to salt)
• 2.5 g Cure #1 (156 ppm)
• 10 g freshly ground black pepper

the recipe i had was 50/50 salt and brouwn sugar so i am going for your version for now

i was hopping with  the large belly to do two tries at the same time, this one which is a dry version  on a polythene bag the second version i wanted to try a wet brine vesion and then  after that chop both in half and smoke a pair of them  and then leave the other two plain.

general idea is four trial packs, from that i see and taste what real bacon is supposed to taste like and from decide which route to go for afterwards

you have to remember that as a muppet i have never eaten any thing other than supermarket water injected smoke injected bacon, so i have no idea what to try or what it should taste like

as for cure one instead of the pack on amazon i was going to buy i shall try your suppliers instead a small 200gm bag will last me ages so i shall get that

as for the bacon pdf, that was an amazing read and again a milion thanks for that

by the way other than asking for pork belly at the butcher and saying its for home made bacon , is there a more specific cut i should ask for??

i was going to get 5 kilo of pork chunk for sausage trials as well. so he is aware of what i am trying to do

 

[the big fella]

with the bag i was planning on draining the liquid every day, should i or should i leave it in as it contains the cure?

 

[the big fella]

the recipe i had was

demera sugar 1.1kg

salt pdv 1.2kg

60gm cracked black pepper

hand full of optional juniper berries or bay leaves

13.5gm of cure one

able to cure 5kg of pork belly in a tray using 400gms per day per salting, fuild drained off daily

clean and cover every day for five days and then leave three days after washing clean smoke them or cook them, i was planning to smoke one half and the other half leave alone

i was planning to hand slice and then freeze down in vac bags

i was also planing to half that recipe and pork belly and try a wet rub with the other half to try that  two

 

[wade]

meat wise again still to buy, size wise around medium which is from what i can gather is about two to three kilos

The size of each slab of meat being cured is only really restricted by either the size of the container if you are immersion brining or the bag if you are dry curing. I usually buy whole pork loins or bellies and cut them into pieces of ~1.5-2 Kg to cure as there are nice manageable sizes. I get the butcher to remove the skin too as I make my bacon rindless. This eliminates a lot of fuss trying to remove it when I get it home. You can cure it with the rind on but that is again personal taste.

the recipe i had was 50/50 salt and brouwn sugar so i am going for your version for now

It depends on what you are looking for the sugar to do. Primarily the sugar is there to offset the taste of the salt. To do this you need to use about one half of the sugar to salt by weight. Adding more sugar will give you sweeter bacon - again this is down to personal taste. Simply substituting Muscovado sugar or Maple syrup  in place of the white sugar will add a different flavour without really affecting the sweetness. Be careful when increasing the sugar content though as the higher the sugar the more likely it is going to burn in the pan when it is fried.

i was hopping with  the large belly to do two tries at the same time, this one which is a dry version  on a polythene bag the second version i wanted to try a wet brine vesion and then  after that chop both in half and smoke a pair of them  and then leave the other two plain.

general idea is four trial packs, from that i see and taste what real bacon is supposed to taste like and from decide which route to go for afterwards

you have to remember that as a muppet i have never eaten any thing other than supermarket water injected smoke injected bacon, so i have no idea what to try or what it should taste like

There is really little difference in the end result between Immersion brining and injecting. Although the brine strengths are different they both end up with the meat gaining about 10% additional weight in water. Injecting it, rather than simply immersing it, just speeds up the cure penetration - which is why it is used commercially. You may bind this immersion brining method comparison interesting 

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/181560/immersion-bacon-curing-lab-test-results

Unlike immersion brining, dry curing works by removing water from the meat rather than adding to it, Because of this the shelf life of dry cure bacon is significantly longer than immersion cured bacon. Whilst immersion cured (or injected) bacon has a recommended maximum chilled shelf life of 7 days, the maximum recommended chilled shelf life for dry cured bacon is up to 6 weeks. Obviously with either this can be extended by freezing.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal...at-preparation/bacon-and-food-safety/ct_index

by the way other than asking for pork belly at the butcher and saying its for home made bacon , is there a more specific cut i should ask for??

i was going to get 5 kilo of pork chunk for sausage trials as well. so he is aware of what i am trying to do

When you buy the belly take a look at it in cross section. If you are not careful you may be given a slab that has so much fat content that it will look like it is all fat in places when it is cured and sliced. The thicker the piece of belly pork the more "meat" it is likely to have. If you do have areas of excess fat when you get it home you may want to cut some of it off. Try to aim for about 50% meat and 50% fat in cross section. If it goes to 75% either way in places that isn't a problem.

If you go for pork loin then that produces "back bacon". It purely depends on your bacon preference as to which you choose. Personally I prefer the back bacon.

If you are going to make sausage as well then this is a different process and you should research it in parallel. Depending on the type you are going to make you may need Cure #2 (air dried salami etc.) but for fresh sausage the Cure #1 will be fine. Pick a recipe you like the look of and go for it. If you need pointers to some good books on sausage making then let me know.

Don't for get to take photos and make plenty of notes so that you can tweak your recipe next time.

Cheers

Wade

 

[wade]

 
with the bag i was planning on draining the liquid every day, should i or should i leave it in as it contains the cure?

It is essential that any brine produced remains in contact with the meat as this will contain the dissolved cure. Some of us actually vacuum pack our meat during the curing process to ensure this happens. When you place the meat in the bag get as much air out of the bag as you can before you zip it. Turn the curing meat daily to ensure that any brine there comes in regular contact with both top and bottom of the meat. If you do not see much brine don't worry as some meats vary alot in how much is produced.

You will find some methods that tell you to drain away any brine that is produced (River Cottage, etc.) however these are usually the ones that only use only an excess of salt to cure and contain no Nitrite. Here you are draining away the brine to prevent the final cured bacon from becoming too salty. In the method above we are adding a carefully calculated amount of salt and Nitrite to our piece of meat and we want it all (or as much as possible) to penetrate into the bacon.

 

[DanMcG]

Dan - Where are you getting this information from? The standard Cure #1 we buy in the UK is exactly the same as you buy in the USA - 6.25% Nitrite.

Not the first time I was wrong but last I knew UK cure #1 contained 5.88% nitrite. I can find a number of references to it when I did a search, but I'll believe what you tell me Wade. You're a little more knowledgable then me for sure. Look at the link I posted above Phil Young's calculators offer amounts of #1 in 5.88 or 6.25.

My apologies for steering ya wrong Big Fella.

 

[the big fella]

wade your knowledge is stunning.

so we have decided to go via the wade route

For each 1,000 g (1 Kg) of pork use

• 22.5 g of non-iodised cooking salt or sea salt (2.5%)
• 12 g sugar - either white sugar or light Muscovado (half sugar to salt)
• 2.5 g Cure #1 (156 ppm)
• 10 g freshly ground black pepper

into a vac pack bag for a ten day run in the fridge, no draining !

meat wise i am looking at back bacon at around 2kg and a piece of belly at 2kg as well, the same cure for both cuts, i was going stay skin on but will go skinless now for both pieces

after curing i am going to cut in half both pieces and smoke two halves and slice and freeze the plain pieces

i want less water  in bacon rather more water so no brine for me.

the sausage chunk is to do a run of basic sausage trials too, plain, cumberland, and a few others rather than dried or cured sausages.

 

[wade]

 
after curing i am going to cut in half both pieces and smoke two halves and slice and freeze the plain pieces

the sausage chunk is to do a run of basic sausage trials too, plain, cumberland, and a few others rather than dried or cured sausages.

After smoking the two pieces be sure to allow then to rest in the fridge for 2-3 days before freezing to allow the smoke flavour to penetrate into the bacon.

If you are going for a sausage, why not try something like a Kielbasa (Polish sausage) as they are easy to make. 

 

[the big fella]

for now i want to test the equipment and the bloke holding it, better to start with a basic set of sausages and from that i can start with the many other versions

 

[smokin monkey]

Bit late to this thread, but you will not go wrong following Wades advice.

This is my first attempt at Bacon

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/158480/first-attempt-at-bacon

Also take a look at my on line Cook Book, may give you some ideas, or use it for reference.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/253497/the-smokin-monkey-cook-book

 

[dirtsailor2003]

No matter what continent you are on this calculator gives spot on results every time. You can adjust the salt and sugar percentages if you like. I have found that where they are set is perfect foe our tastes. As for other seasonings I normally do not measure I shake on what looks right. I like to add garlic powder, black pepper and powdered white pepper. I apply these seasonings after curing and prior to aging. I age my bacon for 5 days uncovered in the fridge then I cold smoke it for 18-24 hours. After smoking I let it age again for 5 days in the fridge before packaging.

http://diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html