Should my Canadian bacon be pinker/hammier? Is this normal?

[Jcarter93]

I smoked the Canadian bacon I've been working on yesterday. I had 9.17 pounds of meat cut into 3 pieces, 1 gallon of water, .25% #1, 2% salt, and 1% sugar. I let is soak in the brine for 3 weeks flipping every 2 days or so. Then I smoked one piece in pear, one in apple, and one in cherry wood.

I sliced into the pear wood smoked piece after it had cooled down in the fridge and got the resulting pics. This has tons of smoke flavor and is delicious but to me it looks a little pale and doesn't have much "ham" flavor.

Is this normal? What do you guys think I did wrong if anything

?

 

[chopsaw]

Looks good to me , but I can't speak to your cure amounts because I dry rub mine . Someone can help you with that though .
Color looks normal to me for the leaner part of the loin .
Leaner slices on the right .

 

[PolishDeli]

Looks ok.

Can you specify the amount of cure, salt, and sugar you used in terms of grams?

When people quote %'s, i always question what thier denominator was, and what units were used.

 

[Jcarter93]

Looks ok.

Can you specify the amount of cure, salt, and sugar you used in terms of grams?

When people quote %'s, i always question what thier denominator was, and what units were used.

Sure thing.

9.17 lb meat (4159 gram)
1 gallon water (3785 grams)
20.05 grams prague #1 (comes to .2524%)
160 grams salt
80 grams brown sugar

 

[Jcarter93]

Looks good to me , but I can't speak to your cure amounts because I dry rub mine . Someone can help you with that though .
Color looks normal to me for the leaner part of the loin .
Leaner slices on the right .

View attachment 497700

Thanks for the reassurance. It's tasty, just doesn't taste like the stuff you can buy in the store which is really my only frame of reference.

 

[PolishDeli]

9.17 lb meat (4159 gram)
1 gallon water (3785 grams)
20.05 grams prague #1 (comes to .2524%)
160 grams salt
80 grams brown sugar

That all checks out.
Good recipe.

Things to try for hammier flavor:
•More cure. The pick-up equation would let you use as much as 95g, and still claim 156ppm. (You were using the equilibrium equation)
• More salt. In terms of salinity, your brine was at about 20°. You can try 50° (6% or 7% by your math)
• Try injecting. This won't change the flavor, but it will cut the cure time in half.

 

[chopsaw]

It's tasty, just doesn't taste like the stuff you can buy in the store which is really my only frame of reference.

That might be the difference between mass produced / pumped full of additives and handcrafted .
I have a few threads on different ways I've done them . I've spiced with Anise and fennel . It was good . Have also done Dave's phosphate injection . You can add whatever flavoring you like . That injection uses veg stock as a base .

If you haven't sliced it all , leave one whole . Mix up a glaze and double smoke it .
Really good . I did a thread on a double smoked if you're interested .

 

[chopsaw]

Good info in post 6 . More cure and increased salt would most likely help what you're missing with store bought .

 

[sawhorseray]

Looks pretty darned good from where I'm sitting, Like! RAY

 

[Jcarter93]

That all checks out.
Good recipe.

Things to try for hammier flavor:
•More cure. The pick-up equation would let you use as much as 95g, and still claim 156ppm. (You were using the equilibrium equation)
• More salt. In terms of salinity, your brine was at about 20°. You can try 50° (6% or 7% by your math)
• Try injecting. This won't change the flavor, but it will cut the cure time in half.

Thanks for the tips. With a pick up brine it's more time sensitive right? Like you could over-cure the meat?

 

[Jcarter93]

That might be the difference between mass produced / pumped full of additives and handcrafted .
I have a few threads on different ways I've done them . I've spiced with Anise and fennel . It was good . Have also done Dave's phosphate injection . You can add whatever flavoring you like . That injection uses veg stock as a base .

If you haven't sliced it all , leave one whole . Mix up a glaze and double smoke it .
Really good . I did a thread on a double smoked if you're interested .

I also had Thyme, black pepper, and garlic in the brine that I forgot to mention. I have 2 chunks that are unsliced, I may have to try a glaze and smoke on one.

 

[pushok2018]

What chopsaw said.... Looks absolutely normal to me from here. Nice color. I cook CB pretty often using "dry" cure and cure pieces of loin for two weeks. The result is always great to my taste....

 

[Jcarter93]

What chopsaw said.... Looks absolutely normal to me from here. Nice color. I cook CB pretty often using "dry" cure and cure pieces of loin for two weeks. The result is always great to my taste....
View attachment 497709

That looks great! Maybe I'm just being too critical on my first attempt.

 

[chopsaw]

I also had Thyme, black pepper, and garlic in the brine that I forgot to mention.

My opinion is you would pick up more of those flavors with a dry rub cure , or steep the spice in a quart of water to extract the flavors , cool and add to your liquid to make up the gallon .
I add a cap full of liquid smoke to the bag when I do mine .
Try that double smoked . Roll some smoke on it , then bring the temp back to 145 .

I enjoyed this thread . I'm glad you posted .

 

[SmokinAl]

If you use a brine cure, then you need to inject the brine into the loin. Lately I have been using a dry cure for all my curing. I think it gives a better flavor. But that is my opinion & you may get others jumping in with their ideas.
Al

 

[pushok2018]

Lately I have been using a dry cure for all my curing. I think it gives a better flavor

Agreed. I tried to brine the loins once only - the result was OK but I liked dry cure much better and use only this curing method since... Other people may like brining the meat - taste is differ.....

 

[Jcarter93]

If you use a brine cure, then you need to inject the brine into the loin. Lately I have been using a dry cure for all my curing. I think it gives a better flavor. But that is my opinion & you may get others jumping in with their ideas.
Al

I'll try dry curing next. I thought the brine sounded a lot easier to deal with.

 

[zwiller]

Gonna jump in (Rich is rolling his eyes ). I've cured and smoked plenty but no master. I prefer loins and while the taste is good it does not taste like store bought ham or CB and indeed tastes less "hammy". I prefer my CB on eggs benedict over storebought (SB) but otherwise prefer SB. I am slowly testing things but have not figured it out yet.

First off, I am quite sure 90% of all ham and CB is hickory smoked and can tell you with experience that pear is far milder than hickory. I would say you would need to smoke 2x or longer to get pear near that of hickory. From here, I agree there is some flavoring going on and have tried a few things but still not happy. I am aiming for black forest ham flavor myself. Last trial was a ham made from butt (coppa) done Omak style. Smoked 12hrs at 100F, rested a week and SV'd. The logic was that coppa having more myoglobin might mean more flavor. Tasty but not what I am after.

 

[Jcarter93]

Gonna jump in (Rich is rolling his eyes ). I've cured and smoked plenty but no master. I prefer loins and while the taste is good it does not taste like store bought ham or CB and indeed tastes less "hammy". I prefer my CB on eggs benedict over storebought (SB) but otherwise prefer SB. I am slowly testing things but have not figured it out yet.

First off, I am quite sure 90% of all ham and CB is hickory smoked and can tell you with experience that pear is far milder than hickory. I would say you would need to smoke 2x or longer to get pear near that of hickory. From here, I agree there is some flavoring going on and have tried a few things but still not happy. I am aiming for black forest ham flavor myself. Last trial was a ham made from butt (coppa) done Omak style. Smoked 12hrs at 100F, rested a week and SV'd. The logic was that coppa having more myoglobin might mean more flavor. Tasty but not what I am after.

View attachment 497720

That looks fantastic! The pear is definitely more mild than hickory but it is still a good strong smoke flavor on my final product.