Meat Miscellany

So, first of all...

The bacon is done!  Well, most of it was done before, but the pieces I wanted to smoke were done yesterday. I didn't have a "bacon hanger" (yes, there is such a thing) nor the desire to get one.  So, I used what we had.  Since we make a lot of sausage, we have a lot of twine.  So, here you go...

Hey, how's it hangin?

The pepper cure is in front and brown sugar in back.  I didn't want a lot of heat under it, so I started a separate fire and put the coals in a pan.  Those were topped with wet wood chips and sawdust.  The wood chips were a mixture of oak and mesquite.  There was also a little pecan in there since that was part of the coals from the fire.  After 2 1/2 hours of waiting...

Beer:  Shortening wait times since 5,000 B.C.

this is the result:

I know it doesn't look much different, but you can just see the color change.  It took on a perfect amount of smoke.  One of the suggestions which I'm glad I paid attention to, was to make sure the surface of the meat is completely dry.  I let it sit, uncovered, in the refrigerator to ensure dryness and it paid off.  The droplets of water collect smoke particles and can cause almost a bitter, smudgy surface.  So, after this I cut it all into nice thick, uniform pieces and vacuum packed them in Ziploc bags.  FYI, if you want a good tip put a few boxes (or more) of Ziploc vacuum bags and a hand pump in your "go" kit.  The possibilities are endless and no batteries or electricity required.  I did a little test before packaging and must say the smoke was the perfect final touch.  Of course, now I wish I would have smoked all of it.

And now, on to more curing.  I mentioned the peameal bacon and it started tonight.

I cleaned up two large back loins (back-straps for you hunters) today and cut the center section of each out for this project.  I'm excited about this because I fell in love with it while visiting Canada and you can't get it down here.  I'm sure this is the item from which the misnomer "Canadian Bacon" was coined.  So, this is step one, curing for 5 days.  More to come.

P.S. I chose the title so kymber would not try to avoid the post.  :)