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Hog Jowls And Bacon

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 02:04
by Doug
Hello All,

Chuckwagon, thanks for the email. I figured out why my bacon would not cure. My garage refrig. at any setting - the temp is always 25 F. Took care of that!

I just picked up 6 hog jowls for 0.69 cents a pound. I don't know for sure what to do with it - all I know is that it was priced like a steal. The meat supervisor said he would save me 10 pieces a week. So, I want to use jowl instead of butt for my sausages. The jowls have a lot of lean meat on them so that should be perfect for sausages.---What else can I do with it? (the jowls are small - about 2 lb. after trimming.)

I told Carbonia about it and he got excited! Said that is an unheard of price! He suggested
Guanciale - yes but what am I going to do with 40 pieces of Guanciale a month! plus whatever sausages I make.

I do not have fermentation/curing chambers so I am limited to Lop Cheung which is cured and dried under a fan. And bacon.

Thank you for your suggestions and comments
Doug

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 03:09
by ssorllih
I covet jowls for curing for bacon. Cure them as bacon and smoke them . There is none better.

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 03:34
by Butterbean
I like how they are marbled. Good for sausages too. Sounds like you hit the gold mine.

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 03:39
by Baconologist
I eat smoked jowl nearly every morning.

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 13:28
by sawhorseray
I've eaten jowl meat from whole hogs cooked in the ground and on a spit, an absolute delicacy. Ross' recommendation of bacon would seem spot on. Great price! RAY

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2013 14:53
by NorCal Kid
Doug, I used pork jowls for the first time in my most recent batch of braunschweiger. Looked a considerable good deal like pork belly. And the price was right (cheap!). Asian market. They seem ideal for sausage-making, if not cured bacon...

Braunschweiger:
http://www.wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.php?t=6514

Kevin

Image

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 02:11
by Doug
Yours are a lot better looking. Mine was a lot thinner - after trimming the nodes. glands
and edges etc. I lost a lot of the weight.

I got mine at an asian mkt also. The regulsr butchers did not know what a jowl is so I had to place my hands on my cheeks and motioned down to my neck.

I hope the 10 pieces he's holding for me are thicker - I'll know Saturday.

Multi national sausages.

Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 16:41
by Doug
Hello all,

Since I will be getting various sizes of jowls - I have decided to use the larger pieces for bacon and grind up the rest for sausages.

Since I do not have a Fermentation/ curing chamber;
My plan is to utilize Len Polis. Rytek Kutas, Marianski and forum recipes for a base - omitting the asian spices and using Italian, polish, Hungarian, spanish and mexican spices - then
oven baking at 160 F. till IMT is 145 to 150 F. > cold smoking for about 24 hours > air dry with fan till wt. loss is about 35% to 40%.

Or making my own concoction following USDA recommendations ; 1 tsp cure #1 per kilo of meat and about 5% salt plus spices.

Does this sound like a viable plan?

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 13:40
by Chuckwagon
Hi Doug,
Careful with your Cure #1. That's more than twice as much as you need. One kilo of meat is 2.2 pounds. In that case, you should only be using 2.5 grams of cure which is only about half a teaspoon. The FSIS specifications are 1 level tspn. (about 5.66 grams) of Cure for 5 pounds of meat. For twenty-five pounds of meat, use 28.35 grams (once ounce) of Cure.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 15:44
by Doug
Hello Chuckwagon,

I stand corrected.
1000grams of cure per 5lb of meat? That would really pucker me up. :shock:
I like 1 level teaspoonful of cure/5 lb. meat better. :grin:

Doug

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 00:30
by ssorllih
Chuckwagon wrote: Hi Doug,
Careful with your Cure #1. That's more than twice as much as you need. One kilo of meat is 2.2 pounds. In that case, you should only be using 2.5 grams of cure which is only about half a teaspoon. The FSIS specifications are 1 level tspn. (about 5.66 grams) of Cure for 5 pounds of meat. For twenty-five pounds of meat, use 28.35 grams (once ounce) of Cure.
This entire thread needs to be reviewed!!!!

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 00:45
by Bubba
ssorllih wrote:This entire thread needs to be reviewed!!!!
I agree!

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 02:49
by NorCal Kid
For sausages,(comminuted meat), 1.13g per 453 g of meat (= 1 lb).
This is equivalent to 156 PPM.

Thats the ratio I use, so for 5lbs: 5.66g of cure for 2268g (=5lb), which is approximately a level tsp (or pretty darn close). I prefer to always weigh rather than use measuring spoons for cure.

Kevin

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 03:25
by Doug
Thanks Kevin,
It is so easy for a beginner to confuse the curing requirements between sausages and bacon.

Doug

Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 04:03
by ssorllih
I use the same cure schedule for bacon and butts as I do for ground product. 2% salt and .25% cure#1. If your bacon or hams or loins are too salty it is because you are putting too much salt into them.