Pancetta Tesa Redux

[mr_whipple]

So after my epic fail with the drying chamber I'm back at it with the Pancetta tesa and a few other items.

Off we go after 13 days in the vac seal.

Cleaned up and given a nice grind of the peppercorn melange along with the puncture wound for hanging.

Into the chamber yesterday with a few other things that I was too lazy to document with pics. Right to left: Basturma, Duck Breast, the Pancetta and a Bresaola. Optical illusion, but the Pancetta is actually behind the Duck Breast and Bresaola. indaswamp I pretty much copied the spice mix from your last Bresaola post minus the KCL. Man did that thing smell amazing when I took it out of the vac seal.

Thanks for looking!

 

[indaswamp]

indaswamp I pretty much copied the spice mix from your last Bresaola post minus the KCL. Man did that thing smell amazing when I took it out of the vac seal.

Did you not use a casing? hung naked in the chamber?

 

[mr_whipple]

Did you not use a casing? hung naked in the chamber?

Collagen sheet for the bresaola / basturma, but yep... nekkid for the pancetta.

I'm not ready to make the jump to natural casings. Baby steps. These are all relatively cheap pieces of meat so if failure occurs it's not going to hurt anything but my pride.

 

[indaswamp]

Just easier to dry properly with a casing as it does slow moisture loss is the reason I was asking...

 

[mr_whipple]

Just easier to dry properly with a casing as it does slow moisture loss is the reason I was asking...

Ya, but every video and recipe page showed folks doing the tesa without a casing. I just figured that's the way they do it so I ran with it. Let's see how it turns out. Most of what I've read/watched folks leave them hang for a few months so we're going to weigh it every so often and see where we're at at the 2 month mark. Now if I ever decide to try the Arrotolata I'll most certainly use a casing. That said, I'm using these collagen sheets but they're expensive and kind of delicate once you start wrapping and tying so the next logical step for me will be to start learning about the natural casings and how to handle them.

 

[indaswamp]

Ya, but every video and recipe page showed folks doing the tesa without a casing. I just figured that's the way they do it so I ran with it.

Ah, you are correct. I id not think about it being Tesa...
Most of the Tesa pancetta is heavily coated with spices; Black pepper or Calabrian pepper and this helps keep the flies off when hanging in the open and does impede airflow contact directly on the meat.....

 

[mr_whipple]

I gave it a light coat of fresh ground pepper, and hopefully there are no flies in my chamber
I have high hopes for it, so fingers crossed.

 

[mr_whipple]

Here we are after almost five weeks hanging. Hit 35% loss. I was going to take it to 40 but maybe next time.

Each side shots

Gave it a good scrub with a bristle brush to get the majority of mold off, and then a vigorous scrubbing with cheap white wine. Took some work but in the end we prevailed over the mold.

Cut shot.

And the taste. Very mild, pleasant and flavorful. Not anything flavor forward but I did get a little of the nutmeg in the background.

Slowly rendered a few slices to see how this was going to work in some sauces, which is why I made this. Wow did it become salty, and I mean salty. Salty like I don't care for. Hmmm...

In the end I'm calling it a win, but it doesn't look like I'll be cubing this up for any carbonara or otherwise. Gonna rethink the recipe and the salt %. Thinly sliced with some bread or as is will be how this will be consumed.

Thanks for looking!

 

[indaswamp]

Looks great! What salt percentage did you use on it?

 

[mr_whipple]

Looks great! What salt percentage did you use on it?

2.75% salt, .25% #2. Virtually every recipe I saw used these percentages so I went with it.