Venison Prosciutto ...
- Thread starter Dr.S.Jordan
- Start date
Well - it's had 5 weeks in the fridge and now it's doing the month drying in the bottom of the wine store which holds 10C and 70%. I've omitted the second larding as i'm pretty sure there are no flies inside the wine fridge...hopefully
I made all efforts over Christmas to ensure a clear bottom shelf. I feel a medal is in order.
I made all efforts over Christmas to ensure a clear bottom shelf. I feel a medal is in order.
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
Sit Rep....... two weeks in and second half of the cure has been added.
Meat smells good, so i think it is working as planned. Nothing has gone green either, so the clingfilm mummification is doing its job well!
I didnt bother taking a piccy, as its just a lump of meat covered in herbs and salt / sugar at the mo!!
Fingers crossed for the next two weeks.
@Legolas - bit of advice needed here - for my next leg of venison, i am thinking of adding black strap treacle, but as this is a liquid, should i do this at the same time as adding the prague powder or after the curing has completed??
Cheers
Steve
Meat smells good, so i think it is working as planned. Nothing has gone green either, so the clingfilm mummification is doing its job well!
I didnt bother taking a piccy, as its just a lump of meat covered in herbs and salt / sugar at the mo!!
Fingers crossed for the next two weeks.
@Legolas - bit of advice needed here - for my next leg of venison, i am thinking of adding black strap treacle, but as this is a liquid, should i do this at the same time as adding the prague powder or after the curing has completed??
Cheers
Steve
hi Steve, I'm glad to hear it's going well. RE the treacle air dried venison, I've never done it so any advice is purely hypothetical, but I have made dry cure black bacon and buckboard bacon, both of which use treacle or molasses. In bothe cases I applied the treacle as soon as I'd put the dry rub on and if I was going to air dry a leg I would do it the same way. One thing I did find was that treacle soon mixes with the leached liquid from the meat and goes quite runny so you would probably want to make sure it was super watertight wrapped and turn every day to make sure the treacle covers all of the meat.
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
Hi Legolas,
Thanks for that info.
I too have done black bacon in the way you describe and it does go very runny! I will have to think about how to cover the joint - maybe clingfilm and a very large zip-loc bag??
Would you still recommend adding the cure in two parts?
Cheers
Steve
Thanks for that info.
I too have done black bacon in the way you describe and it does go very runny! I will have to think about how to cover the joint - maybe clingfilm and a very large zip-loc bag??
Would you still recommend adding the cure in two parts?
Cheers
Steve
To be honest steve I'm not sure if it's neccessary, I've done pig legs in one application which are 90% covered in skin and they've worked out grand (and tend to use this method now) and from this, with a venison haunch being completely skinned with a far greater absorbent surface area Ive not bothered with two applications myself.
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
Ok. Will try that next time, as you say it's the skin / fat that makes the absorption process slower.
I am nervously excited about this as I have a great supply of CWD and Canada geese so I can see my cured meat intake increasing somewhat.
If if you were doing a leg of pork, would you follow the same approach or would you increase the length of time curing?
thx
I am nervously excited about this as I have a great supply of CWD and Canada geese so I can see my cured meat intake increasing somewhat.
If if you were doing a leg of pork, would you follow the same approach or would you increase the length of time curing?
thx
jammy sod!!!! I
you can make great goose/duck ham with the breasts, they don't take five minutes to cure and very little time to dry either. Re the pigs leg, give it the same amount of time. I don't have ready access to smaller deer carcasses so I don't get to experiment a lot but I suspect that a full month is more than neccessary for a roe or smaller deer haunch and the next one I get I am going to maybe try a Couple of weeks in cure as I'm sure the greater flesh exposure and size of the leg will achieve equilibrium much faster.
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
Ha! Was pure luck as a friend is a cow foot trimmer and happened to be on a farm local to me which had a goose problem and, as it happens, a nice little group of CWD!
farmer loves it as the geese hammer his grass and I get a ready supply of goodies!
on your advice, I will give the leg 3.5 weeks curing (the second half of the cure went on last Wednesday) and will then dry. It's only 1.6kg bone in so can't think it will take long to dry out either.
Im off doing a fallow stalk on the 20th so will do one of those legs if I manage to bag one.
thx
steve
farmer loves it as the geese hammer his grass and I get a ready supply of goodies!
on your advice, I will give the leg 3.5 weeks curing (the second half of the cure went on last Wednesday) and will then dry. It's only 1.6kg bone in so can't think it will take long to dry out either.
Im off doing a fallow stalk on the 20th so will do one of those legs if I manage to bag one.
thx
steve
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
Christmas! Mine won't last till May!!
you have some self control there!!
you have some self control there!!
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
Sit Rep v2.0
CWD leg has finished 'curing' and is now drying in my loft. Everything smells good and meat has firmed up well, so all seems to be on track.
Will leave to dry for a week and then will check for progress.
Piccies for those who are interested:
Straight out of the cure:
After a wash and brush-up:
And larded and peppered ready for drying:
As for larding - couple of tips - you need another person or somewhere to hang the leg whilst you wash your hands, and have a bowl of fairyed up water ready, as i now know how far peppery lard spreads around your kitchen!!
Also, wasnt too sure if lard and pepper were mixed or lard applied and pepper dusted on top, so i did both to be safe!!
Next ones will be a black cure and a standard ham cure (so no herbs, only salt and sugar) - having bought Michael Ruhlman's book, i have lots to try!!
CWD leg has finished 'curing' and is now drying in my loft. Everything smells good and meat has firmed up well, so all seems to be on track.
Will leave to dry for a week and then will check for progress.
Piccies for those who are interested:
Straight out of the cure:
After a wash and brush-up:
And larded and peppered ready for drying:
As for larding - couple of tips - you need another person or somewhere to hang the leg whilst you wash your hands, and have a bowl of fairyed up water ready, as i now know how far peppery lard spreads around your kitchen!!
Also, wasnt too sure if lard and pepper were mixed or lard applied and pepper dusted on top, so i did both to be safe!!
Next ones will be a black cure and a standard ham cure (so no herbs, only salt and sugar) - having bought Michael Ruhlman's book, i have lots to try!!
i appreciate that it's an individual's choice whether to use nitrates and nitrites but I think there's a lot of myth written about them, there's more nitrate in a portion of broccoli than in a properly cured ham. Salt will merely retard botulism whereas using cure2 will kill it.
levigsp
Well-Known Member
I agree, I know someone who smoked some salmon, it all looked and smelled great.
He tried some with his wife one lunch, they both nearly died!
I would not dream of curing anything without something that kills botulism.
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
In reading Michael Ruhlman's charcuterie book, he mixes and matches using Instacure, lactic acid culture and salt for various different recipes.
For a whole leg of ham, its just salt, whereas for brasaeola its instacure and salt and for salami its instacure, salt and culture, whereas for saussison sec its just instacure and salt.
confused?? Yes, me too!
The idea behind the culture is to inhibit the botulism bacteria from growing whilst in an anaerobic non-acidic environment as it produces lactic acid which the bacteria dont like, hence the salami, etc can dry out at the right temp without fear that the bacteria will produce their spores. But why not use this for saussison sec? Surely, its the same but only smaller (so it is the drying time??)
Equally, if brasaeola needs instacure, then why not a leg of ham?? Both a lumps of meat with no air pockets inside of the joint which could possibly have botulism spores in them, and i would have thought that raw beef is inherently safer than raw pork, even when cured!
So is this to manage just botulism or are there other nasties which need to be handled using different methods or are created by performing different processes, i.e. cold smoking??
For a whole leg of ham, its just salt, whereas for brasaeola its instacure and salt and for salami its instacure, salt and culture, whereas for saussison sec its just instacure and salt.
confused?? Yes, me too!
The idea behind the culture is to inhibit the botulism bacteria from growing whilst in an anaerobic non-acidic environment as it produces lactic acid which the bacteria dont like, hence the salami, etc can dry out at the right temp without fear that the bacteria will produce their spores. But why not use this for saussison sec? Surely, its the same but only smaller (so it is the drying time??)
Equally, if brasaeola needs instacure, then why not a leg of ham?? Both a lumps of meat with no air pockets inside of the joint which could possibly have botulism spores in them, and i would have thought that raw beef is inherently safer than raw pork, even when cured!
So is this to manage just botulism or are there other nasties which need to be handled using different methods or are created by performing different processes, i.e. cold smoking??
You raise some good points Steve, and I wish I knew the answers! I've read Michael Rhulmans's book and kind of understand his reasoning behind if you mince the meat you expose a greater surface area of it to oxygen and you can produce a breeding ground hence the use of cure and when doing a full muscle cure isn't required. I have also successfully done a whole leg of pork with salt only - and it was literally 5 tablespoons of salt. But as an amateur, doing fairly small batches of stuff for my nearest and dearest, I'd rather use a cure and err on the side of caution.
I have also noted that point about the breasola - I wondedred if he was just using a collection of recipes and that one flew under the radar? I'm with you in my thinking that if I can eat it rare or raw then using a cure is less imperative.
I have also noted that point about the breasola - I wondedred if he was just using a collection of recipes and that one flew under the radar? I'm with you in my thinking that if I can eat it rare or raw then using a cure is less imperative.
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
Hi Legolas,
Yes - it does seem strange, but im with you in that for the sake of a bit of pink powder, i will err on the side of caution and use both the cure and salt.
I also had a good outing at the weekend on the CWD again, and bagged a couple, so i have another leg doing the same cure as before but i have gone for a black cure on the other. Basically, the same proportion of salt and instacure as for this recipe but with a good spoonful of black strap treacle on either side after having applied the cure.
Im expecting this one to get messy, but if it works, i think it will be sublime!
I am also going to have a go at CWD brasaeola (should cure in minutes) and some saussison sec in beef middle runners (so black pudding size) with a mix of pork and venison.
My aim is to confirm once and for all whether nitrates / nitrites are bad for you by consuming tons of cured meat!!
Yes - it does seem strange, but im with you in that for the sake of a bit of pink powder, i will err on the side of caution and use both the cure and salt.
I also had a good outing at the weekend on the CWD again, and bagged a couple, so i have another leg doing the same cure as before but i have gone for a black cure on the other. Basically, the same proportion of salt and instacure as for this recipe but with a good spoonful of black strap treacle on either side after having applied the cure.
Im expecting this one to get messy, but if it works, i think it will be sublime!
I am also going to have a go at CWD brasaeola (should cure in minutes) and some saussison sec in beef middle runners (so black pudding size) with a mix of pork and venison.
My aim is to confirm once and for all whether nitrates / nitrites are bad for you by consuming tons of cured meat!!
My aim is to confirm once and for all whether nitrates / nitrites are bad for you by consuming tons of cured meat!!
I'm prone to believe that copious quantities of red wine consumed at the same time cancels out any ill effects - I'd appreciate a second opinion on this if possible.
Keep up the good work
Cheers
Jonty
TringSaint
Well-Known Member
Well, in the interests of science, I will do my utmost to prove this hypothesis correct!
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