anyone learn how to acheve that ham like state in smoked meats

[tasunkawitko]

food is the thing that binds all people together, and those are some dang good-looking ribs there ~

 

[pike]

looks like ii got shot down from my old school ways of my grandma. but theere are people love to learn. even it is old school and that where it all starts,

 

[pike]

there isno difference onthe smoke ring asyou say there is.

 

[kurtsara]

I would say it's the cure also, we put some pork in a buckboard bacon cure for canadian bacon 10 days before xmas with the wifes side, 3 brothers and there wives and her dad, and we smoked the canadian bacon that morning before they came over, all of them wanted to know where I bought the ham what store, how much was it, they could not believe you could cure at home and make something like that at home, they were amazed, kind of makes guy feel good about his Que

Of course they ate to much and we didn't have hardly any leftover. They are amazed with my brisket also, not that I'm that good, they have not had good Que any where else

 

[mulepackin]

After following the thread, sounds to me like you've got the answer. Why start the thread with a question, and then all the riddles. If you want to share some "secret" we aren't privy to, get it out there. There may be other ways, but curing is still my way. The way I, and apparently, many of us do this.

 

[chisoxjim]

buy enhanced ribs and smoke them, the ones I have eaten taste hammy to me. Thats why i dont buy them. Ribs are supposed to taste like porky ribs, not salty ham imho.

 

[pignit]

Slow smoke = you must cure first.
Cure is what gives you the color and texture your asking about.
You cannot cure a piece of meat by simply smoking it for a long period of time.
In order to smoke a piece of meat safely over a long period of time... it should be cured in one form or the other.

 

[tasunkawitko]

i think you've hit on somethng there, jim. whatever they inject it with must contribute to the chemical reaction that contributes to a smkoe ring. i get both the look and taste of a hammy product with them.

 

[chisoxjim]

thats just what I have noticed taste and sometimes texture wise with a sodium injected product. Just slight ham taste. I have also read that rubbing pork with tenderquick will pretty much gurantee a smoke ring.

 

[tasunkawitko]

you'd be correct in that thought. i would often take cubes of deer meat and season them with a mixture of tenderquick and other spices, dredge them in flour and fry the, the resulting cubes are pink just like a smoke ring and have a brown center. they have a taste similar to the hammy flavor, but mostly just taste like deer unless i add a little smoke. when that happens, they taste much more "hammy," for lack of a better word.

i think modern cures are simply a replacement for the old salts that had nitrate/nitrite impurities that would cure the meat this is why people would salt meats for days at a time, i guess. when you add smoke to this, you get the smoke ring and a really good taste, but the result (cure + smoke) is different than cure or smoke alone.

i am not experienced enough in the curing/cold-smoking thing to be an expert, but those are my observations.

 

[williamzanzinger]

The only time I cured ribs, was with prague powder when I had it and went crazy , did every piece of meat that was lying around.
The ribs were very very good, very very hammy but more like that sweet meat on the ham hock. So with cure its a texture thing too thats achieved. As good as they were they were not neccesarily better than ribs without cure wich are of course porkier

 

[ddave]

Pike, I got some bad news for you buddy.

If you're talking fair food, you can bet they used cure and more than likely liquid smoke if it tastes smoky at all.. It is not very likely that they spent days smoking it in a smokehouse.

Dave

 

[mulepackin]

Proabably some old nasty deep fryer involved along the way too.

 

[williamzanzinger]

With the letters IQF somewhere in the vacinity

 

[erain]

ditto!!!

 

[erain]

double ditto!!! will where the heckyou been buddy!!!

but yes, its more than a taste thing and ribs are totally different then ham. totally different meat and its just up to the individual to do what they want. cured ribs and cured ham are alot different. curing changes the texture and the taste as well as color. one thing you all have to remember is that the smoke ring created by smoke is made up of the same ingredient found in the cures. is a form of nitrite given up from the wood when burnt, is also given off to a degree from propane. this is why is more difficult to obtain a natural smoke ring on an electric.

 

[ronp]

What Erain said.

 

[pineywoods]

If your suggesting keeping uncured meat in a smoker or smokehouse at under 140 degree internal temps for days then your pretty much asking for food safety problems

 

[tasunkawitko]

i was thinking the same thing, piney (shocking, i know!). the only exception i could think of was in using some sort of natural salt with the naturral impurities that are found in chemical cures. as i've said several times in the thread, folks have been doing that for centuries, but in this day and age, tehre is no reason NOT to simply buy the cure. i don't think any commercial salt is going to have the same properties/impurities/curing agensts as the old-tyme stuff.

 

[pignit]

Curing with pure salt is a completly different process than using cure and takes a much greater understanding of the entire process. There is a much higher degree of failure also. Curing methods and processes including the history is way too involved to try and get all you need to know in a thread on the forum. We touch on the basics and important safety issues here, but I would suggest to anyone who is getting into the curing process to take it a step at a time and do the required research and study to understand what your doing especially beyond simple curing with TQ.