Coppa di Testa

A while ago I decided to buy 1/2 of a Guinea Hog from a local farmer. Of course, every part of the pig had to be used to make delicious salumi!
Initially I had intended to photo document the breakdown of the pig, I started out well, but then it just got too complicated and time consuming, it got late, the pig had to be broken down and refrigerated, and basically I didn’t do a good enough job to post it up here. So i’ll go through what I have produced and show as much as I can of the breakdown.
First up: Coppa di testa !

Pancetta Steccata dei Monti Nebrodi - Tasting

The pancetta I made late last year is ready (well, it was actually ready in February!), and it's FAAAANTASTIC.

The quality of the pork from Mosefund farm is spectacular. The fat has a wonderful low melting point and just disappears on the tongue.

 The folding allowed the pancetta to stay quite a bit moister than leaving it all flat, while allowing for long aging.
The spicing is great, and evident, but the flavor of the pork stands out beautifully.

This is great both eaten sliced thin on bread, put on warm pizza or in cooking. It's a winner all around!

Thanks again to Mosefund for the Mangalitza belly. I can't recommend them enough. Their pork is great, go get some right now!

Mangalitza Culatello

I think by now pretty much everyone who is into pork and heirloom pig breeds has heard of Mangalitza pigs. Long story short; they’re an old world Hungarian lard pig, and when properly raised are about as good as it gets for curing.

I had the opportunity to purchase a leg from a Mangalitza pig, and I immediately thought “culatello time!”

I’ve gone into great detail on my last culatello post, so this one will just be some pictures showing the big differences between that commercial one and this one.

Crema di Lardo

I’m not sure if this is the actual name of this product, but it’s fits! It’s something I made for a party where I wanted to share my lardo d’Arnad, but didn’t feel like dealing with slicing it.
If you have lardo ready, it’s incredible easy, and incredibly delicious!

Plug and Play Thermohygrostat

When I first made my curing chamber finding the necessary temperature and humidity controllers was a bit of a challenge. They were out there but they were expensive and somewhat specialized. (at least for humidity control, temperature has always been easy)

Recently I ran across something which would make the whole thing a little easier. It's a thermohygrostat all in one with two plug and play outputs.

Basically, with this controller, you plug the fridge into one outlet, the humidifier into the other, put the sensor in the fridge, and set it and go. Seems pretty awesome to me!

If anyone has tried one of these, I'd like to hear how it works, but I suspect it's pretty good, as Auber Instruments makes good, inexpensive, controllers.

UPDATE 2/15/14: A friend pointed out that Auber now makes a controller for high humidity environments which has a more robust humidity sensor...i've heard the ones on the standard one go out if they get too wet....it's $20 more but seems to be worth it.

Curing chamber change

My curing chamber has been working very well for a very long time, but just the other day I decided to make a small change. I've had a bulb in the fridge, on a dimmer, which generates heat to force the fridge to cycle more often, lowering the humidity. This is especially useful in winter when the fridge isn't cycling as often and when a new batch of product is added, which is losing a lot of moisture.
The bulb has worked well, but I've read a lot about how light affects fat and speeds up the oxidation. I'm not sure I've experienced this, but I've read it and heard it from so many sources I figured it must be accurate. To address this I replaced the bulb with a non light emitting ceramic heater used in reptile cages. It plugs right into a bulb socket and can be dimmed just like a bulb. It's perfect!

So far I like it. My chamber was running around 83% RH after I put my latest batch of salame in, which is a touch high. I turned the heater on real low, and it's now around 78-80 which is good; and no light!

Equilibrium cure vs. Excess salt cure

I've gotten a number of questions regarding the application of salt during the curing phase of cured meats as it related to quantity and duration, so I thought a small post was in order to clarify various curing methodologies.

There are generally 2 methods to cure meat:

1. The older method (I believe) is what I would call "excess salt" curing. This basically involves applying a generous quantity of salt to the piece of meat, together with the spices, and waiting a certain amount of time for the meat to absorb the salt.
2. The other method is what I (and others) call "equilibrium curing" in which a calculated quantity of salt is added to the meat, with the spices, and allowing enough time for the meat to absorb all the salt.

While both methods will work, the excess salt method involves guessing, hopefully based on experience, how long the meat should be left in this salt mixture to cure. If it's not left long enough, not enough salt is absorbed to preserve the meat, if it's left too long the end product will be salty. This "guessing" will have to vary based on the percentage of meat to fat in the product (fat absorbs salt less readily), whether the product has skin on it (skin acts as a barrier), the thickness of the product, the temperature of the fridge, and probably many more variables. I've heard people say to leave items for 1 days per kilogram of meat, but that doesn't really make sense as it doesn't account for thickness or fat content.  Sounds to me like the old recipes where people were told to cook something in the oven for X number of minutes per pound. It'll work, but most likely you'll end up with overcooked/undercooked food because the variables are not accounted for! Honestly, this type of curing doesn't make much sense to me. I don't see an advantage, but I would be happy to hear from people who do this (and there are many!) to correct me.

I always cure using an equilibrium cure. I use between 2.5% and 3.5% of the meats weight in salt, rub it all over the meat, and put the meat in a sealed bag, flipping it every 3-5 days in the refrigerator to make sure the  chunk is always exposed to the brine that is formed by the salt pulling out water from the muscle. After a fairly arbitrary amount of time, but one which is long enough to make sure all the salt i've applied has been absorbed, I consider the meat cured and ready to move to the next phase, into the fermentation box or curing chamber. To me this is much easier than excess salt curing. By applying a known, wanted, quantity of salt, the product will not become over-salted, ever, no matter how long it's left in the fridge. The question is really what the minimum amount of time is for the meat to absorb the salt. I don't really have a good answer, other than "leave it long enough to be SURE it's absorbed the salt". I always leave my items in the fridge curing at least 2 weeks, and for very large things like a culatello, I give it 3. That's the beauty of this system..... you can't overcure! I guess if I'm in a analogy to cooking mood, this method would be the sous vide cooking of the curing world. By cooking a product at it's final temperature, you can't overcook it, and it won't be undercooked if you leave it long enough.

I hope that sheds some light on the different methods, and why I do things the way I do.