Need a less salty version of VA smoked Ham / country Bacon

[Endurance1]

Hello everyone this is my first post at SMF and I am in need of a little help. In 2 weeks the annual process begins.

I married into a wonderful family that raises there own pigs and cows. Each year butcher out a pig for each of us. They are raised from piglets. We scald and scrape them so its skin on processing.

The snag is I end up with great tenderloin, and sausage. But the Hams and bacon are nearly Salt lick status, my wife and I can't eat it plain it has to be added to beans, brussel sprouts etc. There is NO Bacon and eggs. Its Eggs and SALT in current form.

I need a recipe for curing skin on bacon and skin on Legs.

The current recipe is table salt, molasses and brown sugar heavily rubbed and packed into meat. It is then left in the smoke house for 6-8 weeks in VA winter. Its rinsed and then cold smoked for several days/weeks on fresh hickory.

No Prague or curing salt is used.

I am familiar with Prague salts I stuff my own links and I have a hot smoker at my home. I will have to use his smoke house so between curing and smoking I may need to freeze my meat of build my own cold smoke cabinet for my smoker as FIL is adamant on his 100yr old SALT Pork Recipe.


Thanks again for the assistance I greatly appreciate it.

 

[pops6927]

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/a/pops6927s-curing-brines-regular-and-lo-salt

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

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/a/fassetts-quality-foods

This is my Pop's Curing Brine recipes and you should find them to your taste! My dad created them and I converted them into common ingredients with Cure #1; hope you like them!

 

[pops6927]

Thank you so much for coming to our little group (of 35,000)! Please stop by Roll Call and let us know about you!

 

[tallbm]

Hello everyone this is my first post at SMF and I am in need of a little help. In 2 weeks the annual process begins.

I married into a wonderful family that raises there own pigs and cows. Each year butcher out a pig for each of us. They are raised from piglets. We scald and scrape them so its skin on processing.

The snag is I end up with great tenderloin, and sausage. But the Hams and bacon are nearly Salt lick status, my wife and I can't eat it plain it has to be added to beans, brussel sprouts etc. There is NO Bacon and eggs. Its Eggs and SALT in current form.

I need a recipe for curing skin on bacon and skin on Legs.

The current recipe is table salt, molasses and brown sugar heavily rubbed and packed into meat. It is then left in the smoke house for 6-8 weeks in VA winter. Its rinsed and then cold smoked for several days/weeks on fresh hickory.

No Prague or curing salt is used.

I am familiar with Prague salts I stuff my own links and I have a hot smoker at my home. I will have to use his smoke house so between curing and smoking I may need to freeze my meat of build my own cold smoke cabinet for my smoker as FIL is adamant on his 100yr old SALT Pork Recipe.


Thanks again for the assistance I greatly appreciate it.

Hi there and welcome!

I don't really understand how you are cold smoking without cure #1 / prague powder unless the cold smoke temp is under 40 degrees so I won't get into that.

What I can say is that I have learned in my curing and smoking adventures that it is basically a mandatory step to do a fry test on the meat after it is done curing/brining to see if the meat is too salty. If the meat is too salty then you must do the following to suck salt out of the meat.

To remove salt from the meat you submerge and soak in ice water for 2-6 hours and then fry test again for salt content. If still too salty after 6 hours, you change the ice water out and continue to soak and fry test until you get the acceptable salt content.

I have done this a number of times and it has worked flawlessly! Why did I have to do this to begin with? Well I used store bought bacon/ham/meat curing kits and I think they overdue things for safety reasons rather then taste reasons.

Just this week I had to soak two little wild hog hams that I brine and injection cured. I used a ham kit I bought when I bought my smoker so I decided to use it. The little hams were WAAAY to salty so I soaked for 3.5 hours and that seemed to do the trick!

So I guess what I'm saying is that if you don't have a perfect recipe you can still fry test and soak as needed for ANY brine/cure job that you are doing. I've done it for bacon, salmon lox, and wild hog hams with amazing success!

Best of luck :)

 

[daveomak]

Endurance1, morning.....
Get yourself a grams scale... 0-100 grams...
Cure #1... Kosher salt.... white sugar....
For belly bacon, weigh the bacon and multiply that weight by 454 to convert pounds to grams....
weight of the meat in grams X 0.0025 = cure needed.. or 1.13 grams per pound... = 156 Ppm nitrite... 200Ppm nitrite is max allowable for a rubbed belly...
Salt, I prefer 2%... wt. X 0.02 = salt needed...
White sugar, I prefer 1%... wt. X 0.01 = sugar needed...
Mix all the ingredients very well... uniformly cover the meat... place in refer for ~2 weeks... You can cover in plastic wrap to reduce evaporation or let evaporation take place to intensify the pig flavor...
Rinse with cold water and dry.. or return to refer to continue dehydrating and let the ingredients mingle...
Form a pellicle and I prefer cold smoke below 70 deg. F for 4 hours... I have cold smoked for up to 36 hours... over a 6 day period...smoke on... smoke off.. personal preference...

For the ham... I have developed a method that mirrors commercial curing...
Weigh the ham... weigh out 10% in distilled water or soup stock... I like vegetable stock....
weigh out the cure, salt and sugar per the above amounts... cure = 1.1 grams/pound... salt 9 grams/pound.... sugar 4.5 grams/pound.....
Add the ingredients to the liquid you chose and dissolve.... DO NOT HEAT THE LIQUID.. 130 deg. F and above break down nitrite...
Have the pig cold... 2-3 day in the refer is good... cool the injection liquid to refer temps...
Inject ALL of the liquid into the pig... start along the bones and joints... then the meat every 1.5" in a checkerboard pattern... Now you are positive everything you need to make a great ham is inside, along the bones and joints and it will cure properly... Cure migrates at an estimated rate of ~1/4" per day.. at 38 deg. F...
In 5-6 days the pig leg will be cured... you can let it rest in the refer longer, no problem...
I like the leg in a plastic bag and turn it over daily... that's so any cure that leaks out will be absorbed back into the meat... I also skin the leg... use it for "treats"....
Whenever you smoke meats, the meat needs to be at or above ambient temperatures... that's so condensate does not collect on the meat... Smoke in a cool smokehouse for as long as you like... Slowly raise the temp... 5-10 deg. every couple hours or so... I would stop raising the temp when the smoker gets to 170 ish... bring the meat internal temp to at least 145.. it's safe to eat at that temp...
Some folks recommend a higher cooking temp... I find the meat gets case hardened if the temp's too high... not really a problem... personal preference... the meat can be wrapped in butcher paper after the smoke has been applied.. that will reduce surface evaporation... paper recommendation,
I use STPP to retain moisture in whole muscle meats and ground meats.. good stuff..

 

[Endurance1]

Thanks everyone for the information this will help. I think given the process injecting is going to be the easiest method or me. Figuring out the smoke process I may have to the do them at the house myself as Dave said bring it to 170'F. My smoker is a converted Charcoal unit that I bought and stripped all the plastic of an electric hot plate for. I wrapped all the controls and wires in foil and then set the burner on blocks. It looks silly but it is easily temp controlled and very stable and produces epic smoke from a cast iron mini fry pan.

"THE CURE"
I have been skeptical about the "cure" thats been used for the last many years as there is no cure in what is used. We do cook everything that comes out ham pieces bacon ETC. As it never exceeds winter air temp in central VA.

A story goes that years ago Grandpa butchered pigs with the neighbor and the neighbor one morning decided to help out. He built the smoking fire and he went a little to big. The fire cooked the fat in the bacons that then added to the fire and all the meat was lost. Nobody lights the fire except my father in law, since Grandpa passed away.

The smoke house is a rough sawd barn with 2 foot shelves. It is bigger than most peoples tool sheds. The meat is salted and then hung on cotton twine from the rafters over the fire for a long period of time. Grandpa used to go out to the smoke house every morning and cut a piece of ham. Light the smoking fire, and cook his breakfast all winter long. He passed away 4 years ago at 96 he was the 2nd youngest of 7 siblings. Also None of any animal was ever wasted they made SUET, fatback, candles ETC we aren't that devoted but a depression era child learned a different way of life.

The pigs are killed on a Friday night scalded, scraped, and then hung and gutted. they air dry over night and we break them down the following day. Bed sheets are spread on the shelves the legs are packed in the salt, sugar, Molasses mix and left to "cure" after 6-8 weeks they smoked at near freezing temps.

When I asked about Prague or other cures I was told "nope" not in a mean way just Nope. I started stuffing meat sticks last year and added Cure to the sausgae that was already seasoned and then proceeded with a reasonable success.


I will post the Ham recipe they use today its written on a faded note card on a kitchen cabinet.

 

[Endurance1]

A special thanks to Dave and Pops.


We butchered the pigs on the 15th and16th of December, I broke tradition and used my own curing methods. I brined Pops method on 1 side of the belly, and I used Dave's method on the other half. I did add a splash of dark brown sugar to Dave's Bacon recipe, roughly 1/2 cup to give more color. Both bacon's went into the smoke yestarday for 4-5 at 70'f(cold smoke piped in) hours in Apple smoke. I left skin on until slicing I will say both are the best I've ever had but my sweet tooth won out on the Dave Cure. I did only let Pops cure in the brine for 7 days probably should have let it brine skin off for 10-12 days and it would have deepened the flavor.

I did 1 ham in Dave's recipe it went into the smoker this morning its cold (15'f this morning) it will get smoked for 3-4 hours then brought up to temp. to 150 internal. I fry tested the ham last night. It has nearly same taste and flavor as commercial hams smooth meat and good salt content. THanks again for the help.

 

[Endurance1]

I should say the Pops brined ham will come out in 2 weeks 30 days in the brine, FWIW I checked it yestarday the water bags holding the ham down were frozen solid in the brining pot because of this cold snap needs to be a little colder to freeze the brine.

 

[daveomak]

Cool.... Now you are on your way to tweak the recipes to your personal preference... That pork is something I long for... Home grown...