curing meats

[THEFERMANATOR]

Found this on another forum doing a search for ham curing, and figured I would post it up here as well. Since I now have a nice smoker, I plan on doing some of this stuff now.

http://www.pelletsmoking.com/searchi...01-bacon-6993/

[inaforty]

Looks like a fun project.

[macojoe]

I really regreat getting rid of my smoker when I sold everything!!!!

[cfelton]

When I was young my uncle and I raised hogs (around 300 at a time) and farmed. Every year around the 1st week in January we'd kill and dress 25. My dad had the smokehouse and smoked all the meat.
We killed them, scalded the hair off and gutted them the first day.We would hang them up and in the cold the meat would firm up overnight. Next day we cut them up, hams, sides and shoulders. We'd grind some of the meat, backstraps and such for sausage and air dry and smoke that. The shoulders, sides and hams we packed in rock salt for about a month. Then we'd pull them up, wash with Boraxo and hang them in the smokehouse. My dad would collect Apple, Persimmon and Oak wood during the year for the smoking. He would build a fire in the yard and fill old metal lard stands with the burning wood, punch holes in the cans with an oyster knife and set them in the smokehouse till they went out. this process went on for a week. That was the best country smoked meat youll ever eat. Some of these new processes are pretty good too! I miss those days! I'd get out of school for two days as I was the ham trimmer.

[DiverDux]

I use a Bradley smoker. Love anything pork. Also does a great job with chicken.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Just used this link to make homemade canadian bacon, and am very pleased with the results.

I used 6 quarts of water, 13.5 teaspoons of #1 curing salt, 1 cup pickling salt, 1/4 cup light brown sugar, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, 1/4 cup moalsses, 1/4 cup honey, 2 tablespoons of whole peppercorns, 1 tablespoon prudhomes meat magic, and a whole garlic bulb(probably 12 cloves) cleaned and sliced into 1/8" thick slices.

I put 1 quart of water into a pan, and added my spices, garlic, and sugars into it, and boiled them for about 15 minutes to get the flavors to steep out.
I then took 2 quarts of water in another pan, warmed it until almost boiling, and dissolved the salts in it.
Then finally I mixed the 2 pans, and added the remaining 3 quarts of water to it to finnalize the brine, and put aside to cool to 40 degrees.
I then took 2 whole pork loins, sliced them in half to make them fit in my brining bucket, and trimmed ALL the exterior fat off I could.
Once the brine was chilled I injected each half with roughly 12 onces of brine to get me to a 10-15% injection rate, put into my brining bucket, and poured the remaining brine over them.
Put them aside in a small fridge I have for 5 days at 40 degrees to cure. From what I have read, temp is CRITICAL here. You want to keep them at 38-45 degrees with 40-42 being your target goal here. If you get below 38 degrees, the curing process will cease, if you go over 45 degrees spoiling can occur.
After curing I took them out, and soaked them in clean water for about 30 minutes(I should have soaked them longer as it came out a bit salty still.
I smoked them in my smoker at 200-225 degrees until internal temp was 160 degrees. If you want to cook yours in a pan to sear it like traditional canadian bacon, then you smoke to an internal temp of 140-145, and pull them.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Also adding this link here as well for making corned beef/pastrami.

http://amazingribs.com/recipes/beef/...rned_beef.html