Hog Jowls And Bacon

ssorllih
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Post by ssorllih » Sun Jun 02, 2013 21:04

No sugar and no smoke?
Ross- tightwad home cook
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Post by ssorllih » Sun Jun 02, 2013 21:46

Doug, Did you cure in a sealed zipper bag? Did you get a large volume of exudate in the bag? Did you leave it in the bag to be reabsorbed? I generally allow most of the exudate to be reabsorbed and then hang the slab to dry without rinsing it. My last batch hung for 4 days because of my other irons in the fire. Bacon can hardly get too dry because we want to fry it crispy and to do that we have to get all of the water out of it.
Ross- tightwad home cook
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Post by Doug » Sun Jun 02, 2013 23:09

Thanks Crustyo44, I will try Big Guys recipe tomorrow morning.
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Post by huckelberry » Sun Jun 02, 2013 23:19

Just a suggestion but I tried Chuckwagons honey bacon rub and it wes great... if ya get a chance you should give it a try. Simple and delish.
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Post by Doug » Sun Jun 02, 2013 23:29

Hi huckelberry

Yes I tried Mr. CW's cure - it did not come out to my satisfaction. I'm sure nothing is wrong with the recipe - just me. I am somehow doing something wrong or incorrectely. I will try his cure again as I always do because I don'tt give up easily
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Post by Doug » Sun Jun 02, 2013 23:46

Hi Ross

Yes; zip-lok bags for curing
1 cup maple syrup
1 cup crystal cane sugar
no cold smoke this time as the rain melted my cardboard Costco box
what little exudate there was had reabsorbed back into the bacon.
FINISHING THIS BATCH IN THE OVEN TO IMT 150F.


Now defrosting 6 more large jowls that has been in my freezer at -10F for about 20 days. I'll make a new batch tomorrow morning. WET CURE THIS TIME.
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Post by ssorllih » Mon Jun 03, 2013 01:11

That is an unusual amount of sugar for a dry cure. What was your basis for the proportions that you chose?
I use 1.8% salt and .25% cure#1 and 2% sugar and molasses and a minimum of one week per inch of thickness. The premise being that the amount of salt used is all of the salt that I want in the bacon. The amount of cure meets the standard for cured and smoked meat and the sugar isn't so much as to overwhelm the other flavors.
Ross- tightwad home cook
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Post by Doug » Mon Jun 03, 2013 01:39

I did a 14lb batch of jowls.

126gm purified salt (2%)
15.8gm cure #1 (0.25%)
1 cup maple syrup - recipe called for
1 cup crystal cane sugar - recipe called for
3 tablespoonful black pepper.

11 days curing in zip-lok

rinsed/blotted dry with paper towels
Into the oven at 1pm pst - it has been 4 1/2 hours and the IMT is only 133F. Time now is
5:35pm pst.
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Post by ssorllih » Mon Jun 03, 2013 02:09

My last batch dried for four days with no rinse and was smoked for about 12 hours over hickory smoke.
Ross- tightwad home cook
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Post by Doug » Mon Jun 03, 2013 02:57

That is very interesting! Where did you hang it ? What temps/humidity ? and you did not cure it wet.

That could be the reason I am not getting " crisp " bacon. There was still too much moisture in my previous batches. I did not hang them for 4 days. 5 - 6 hours only then to the cold smoke for 11 - 30 hours depending on which experiment I happen to be on.

I shut off oven at 6:35 pm pst - IMT = 152F and it still looks like it's bulging with liquid.
I opened the oven door 4 - 6 inches and am leaving them there till I make up my mind on what to do with them next.
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Post by ssorllih » Mon Jun 03, 2013 03:17

I have three refrigerators and I use one for curing and hanging meat before I smoke the temperature in that one is kept at about 32°F. They are frost free fridges so the humidity is quite low. When i smoke bacon or rolled butts I try to pick weather when the nights will get cool below 50°. The next morning I bring it in to the fridge and hang it there until I cut it into smaller chunks and wrap it for freezing.
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Post by Doug » Mon Jun 03, 2013 16:18

Removed 2 slabs bacon from cold smoker at 6:30 AM - it looked pretty good - it even smelled
like bacon finally. 8 hours smoke time.

Placed the other 2 in the smoker and will smoke these for double the time - 16 hours.

I'll chill these in the refer for a couple of days - slice it up and fry it up. I'll find out if the longer smoke time and ultimately less moisture will taste better and crisp up like I want it to.

I decided to hold off on the wet cure of the new jowls till I taste these two batches.
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Post by Doug » Tue Jun 04, 2013 23:48

Ended up smoking them for 8 hours.

Sliced up the bacon on my new $99 Chef Choice mdl 610 - it did a good job..
The bacon smelled, tasted, crisped good.

All my future bacon will be based on the recipe I used for this batch.

Whew!! That was some endeavor.

Now on to Hungarian, Italian and Polish Lop Cheongs. I mentioned to Mr. CW and posted my
desire to make some semi-dry sausages using Lop cheong recipes for a starting point and
subbing the Asian spices for the European spices/flavoring. I need to do it this way because I do not have a curing/fermentation chambers.

Will keep all posted on how those experiments go.
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Post by Doug » Thu Jun 06, 2013 19:51

Just finished up a batch of hybrid sausages - combining and omitting spices of several
recipes.

I'll never use edible collagen casings again - I had about 8 sausages burst on me when tying
to joint the sausages.

The sausage patty I fried to test the mix was bland to say the least. My question to the forum is
- can I slosh the sausages through apple cider vinegar to acidify and give the sausage a little
tang or flavor substance ?

Would appreciate any input on how I can save these sausages.

Thank you
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Post by ssorllih » Thu Jun 06, 2013 21:09

Doug, Collagen casings are not very stretchy. You can gently pinch them to make links and very gently tie them. It you pull the knot tight quickly you can cut the sausage at that point. Usually we make a taste test patty before we stuff and correct the seasoning then if need be. I can't imagine any surface treatment that will help. Perhaps you can strip the casings and mix in the missing seasonings? Did you keep notes to record what you used and how much? How large a batch was this? If you were light on the salt you could posibly soak them in a brine for a short while and taste test every couple of hours.
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