Pops6927's Wet Curing Brine

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Did I skip something?

The Belly and a Butt have been in brine since March 6th.

I swished them around a bit today and while swishing the Belly I noticed I did not remove the skin.

Was I supposed to remove the skin prior to brining? If so what can I do at this point.......?
 
Since its cured, it can handle an inital 4 to 6 hour low and slow smoke. The back in the reefer. The ham will afterwards still be raw but have a good smokie coating. Then the next day you can take it up while smoking to your desired cooked temp while applying more smoke doing it. Bearcarver is a master of the technique.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/141903/double-smoked-hams-times-4-step-by-step

Since I can't see where you live I can't make any exact suggestions of type but with all that smokie goodness it can easily stand a glaze.  Maybe a maple peach or a kumquat bourbon, what ever is locally available is always best to strat with because peoples taste buds are already liking those tastes. These are all just some ideas. Check out the Bear's ideas too.

I will always defer to Pops on nearly any part of what he recommends on the boards, I don't know about his gumbo or sweet tater pie though. Its always better to be safe with food and leave no mistakes which can to be made. I just like the texture better with raw bacon. It may also be why mine burns so darn bad.

One thing I do different than Mr Bear's I score or criss-cross the skin and fat instead of removing it, I like that golden nector basting it while also affording a great place for the glaze hold on to. My mouth is watering now.
That's a good idea. I'm thinking I can smoke right through, by putting the belly and butt in till belly is 145*, about 4-6 hours,  Then raise the heat and continue the butt another 4 hours or so. Put it in the fridge and next day another 10 hours or so...next time I may reconsider the 10 lb but because of the smoking time though. I'm sure it will be worth every hour of somoking.
 
 
One thing I do different than Mr Bear's I score or criss-cross the skin and fat instead of removing it, I like that golden nector basting it while also affording a great place for the glaze hold on to. My mouth is watering now.
If you're talking about my Double Smoked Hams, you should look closer:

I put the trimmed extra fat in a pan with holes in it, above the Hams, so the fat can drip down & baste the meat instead of the fat basting the fat.

And since I removed the fat, the glaze can hold onto the Ham Meat, instead of the Ham fat.

Bear
 
 
Anyone wanting to Brine should read every word of this Thread...And anything else that Pops posts..
yeahthat.gif


Absolutely!!

Bear
 
I have a question. About 30 years ago  had a job for a couple of summers in a meat packing plant. As a summer student, I was relief for everyone's summer holidays. I spent 2 weeks at many different jobs, one of which was the bacon press. We would take the bacon off the hangers, and put them in a hydraulic press to square them up to make it easier for the slicer, and to make the slices more uniform. Now as I recall, they would pump the belly's, hang them, let them drip, maybe overnight, and then into the smoker. Sure never brined them for anything close to 2 weeks. Did they use a different cure that required less time, or more of it, or was the pressure pump with the grid of needles enough to get an even brine?

(More packing plant stories)

I worked on the ham boning line where a dozen guys would each cut off one part of the ham, or a vein. I could see all them leaving a particular ham untouched for me, the new guy, I just let it pass me by as well (I may have been new, but I wasn't stupid), and they all voiced their disappointment, the ham had a cyst, that when i cut into it would have exploded green pus all over me, nice guys. The foreman would watch the line, and if we weren't sweating to keep ahead, he would turn up the belt speed. Sure learned to put an edge on a knife quick there, with a dull knife you just get further and further behind. That square sandwich ham was just gross, we would de-bone the pork, soak it in a vat with cure, then pump the slimy meat into molds, and steam it.

And the hot dogs, haven't eaten one in 30 years, can't even be in the house when they are cooking, it's not what is in them, although it used to be a lot of blood, both fresh and frozen plasma, boxes of mechanically deboned chicken, that frequently had feathers, (I think they just ground up the whole chicken). It was the smell of that brown guck, (that you couldn't wash off) before it turned red in the smokers, I can still smell that when they are cooking...

I spent a month pulling pancreas, at the end of the line, what was left of the guts would fall on my table, (a couple of times bristling with worms), I would sort through it (not the wormy ones, just tipped them into the chute), find the pancreas and pull it off, then push the rest of the guts into a chute down to be loaded onto trailers to the rendering plant. I could probably still do it, in the dark even. They told me they sold the pancreas to be processed into insulin for some outrageous amount per pound. Insulin is now synthetic, no pork pancreas pullers anymore.

But I digress, just wondered about the brine time out of curiosity.

Doug
 
You are correct.... when needle injecting meats, like bacon, the injection points are so close the additional resting in a cure/brine is not needed nor is it recommended..... The correct amount of cure has been injected.... they verify that with weight increase per pound... usually 10%... some manufacturers adjust stuff for a 8%..... When I worked at Hempler's, if I remember they had one product where more than 5% was not allowed or they had to call it enhanced.... They specifically avoided that in some products.....
 
So I have a couple bellies in a batch of Pop's brine right now.  I was originally planning on smoking them this Sunday, but some things have come up and I think I'm going to have to do them tonight.

Will 8 days in the brine be long enough??  I measured the thickest part at 1.75" before I put them in.  I'll be doing a tray's worth of cold smoke from the AMPS.
 
 
So I have a couple bellies in a batch of Pop's brine right now.  I was originally planning on smoking them this Sunday, but some things have come up and I think I'm going to have to do them tonight.

Will 8 days in the brine be long enough??  I measured the thickest part at 1.75" before I put them in.  I'll be doing a tray's worth of cold smoke from the AMPS.
That would be long enough if Dry cured with TQ, but Might not be long enough in a wet cure of Pops' mixture.

I'm not that well versed on it, but I think his is a weaker cure designed for a longer curing time.

Better make sure you get input from somebody who knows more about Pops' method.

Bear
 
 
So I have a couple bellies in a batch of Pop's brine right now.  I was originally planning on smoking them this Sunday, but some things have come up and I think I'm going to have to do them tonight.

Will 8 days in the brine be long enough??  I measured the thickest part at 1.75" before I put them in.  I'll be doing a tray's worth of cold smoke from the AMPS.
I saved this on my computer as a rule of thumb.  It's incompletely cured Canadian bacon after 7 days with pop's wet cure.  Regular belly bacon is the same amount of  curing time as Canadian bacon with pop's wet cure.
Maybe this may help. Pop's wet cure has the same curing time for Canadian and belly bacon.  Better to go a little longer than not long enough.

-Kurt

1/25/13


Pops recommends 1 week per inch of thickness in his brine. Here is what he wrote on Canadian Bacon.

Pops6927
Dec 10, 2012 at 5:09 am

It is not mandatory to inject; just make sure you cure it long enough. I go by 1" = 1 week. 2" 2 weeks, 3" 3 weeks and inject, 4 weeks 4" and inject. Canadian bacon pork loin is in the 2" category and optional on injecting. The main thing is to let it cure long enough so you don't get this:


That is Canadian bacon that was not cured long enough, so it never got cured fully in the center. 14 days is minimum to cure it (I think this was 7 days in the brine).
 
Pop, I plan on using the brine to season and cure some sirloin to make jerky. If my pieces are 1/8-1/2in thick would a couple days allow the cure to penetrate or is that too long?
 
Thanks Doug you just put me back aways with ya story.

I know where ya comin from as I worked in a Meat Works once but we were only handling beef at the time and I sure saw some strange things happing there.

Cheers from Down Under.
 
I'm smoking some bacon I made with Pop's Brine and there seems to be a problem.  It does not look cured at all, the belly is not red at all.  This is not the first batch of bacon I've done using this brine, all the others came out looking like bacon.
 

The only thing I can think of that might be the cause is if when I wrote down the ingredients (computer is upstairs of kitchen) I might have wrote tsp instead of Tbsp, I've done that before in a recipe but it doesn't matter so much when it is spices instead of cure.  Thats also why I've always used Tbsp and tsp with Tablespoon getting capitalized.

So, if that is what I did, that would make it ~0.33 oz / gal of water.  Is that enough to be safe?  I've found references to a maximum amount of cure but not the minimum.

Also, if that amount is too low and I need to toss the stuff in the smoker what about the two slabs that haven't left the fridge (not enough room in the smoker).  Can they be safely re-cured or should I just save them for use as not-quite bacon (and treat them as not cured so keep the 40-140 / 4hrs cooking requirements)?

thanks for any help.
 
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