Well if your interested in curing, a great first project is bacon.
Al
I really have a taste for some nice Jerky, though bacon would not be bad either, wife makes me a bacon egg and cheese every morning :)
Jerky for some emergency stash and for fishing trips
I want to do some bacon as I do love bacon and have read so much and seen the pics and they do have me drooling.
I have always smoked food like steaks, burgers, brats, summer sausages, and chicken quarters cooked for 5-6 hours painted with sauce often that would make you think about killing for another piece hehehe, I always cooked slow, would fire the side burner, keep temps around 200 and use hickory, oak and maple for smoke on top of my charcoal, I could bring family from across the country lol to have some.
Now I see I could have brought them from another continent if I had been brining / curing / and smoking, not sure how I stayed in the dark so long, but I am out of the closet now !
I can see the Brine ! LOL
Thanks Al for the reply, as soon as I get a couple more things rounded up I will start, #1 Cure will be here this week, got 2 - 5lb jars to hold me over for a long time, stocking up on bulk sugar, salt, garlic cloves, peppercorns, cayenne and molasses along with some various spices so I can have them on hand to try out.
I love Jerky so want to try that, but the other reason I am starting there is because I will not need to use much room in the fridge for the moment and I can use small amounts for test jerky so I can get a feel for the process a bit better, as soon as I can afford to get these shops wired up for power in the backyard (and yes I do it myself, never made it to beverly hills with Jed), I have a chest freezer modification I will perform to make it a fridge so I can have a good place to brine and wet cure my goodies, that way they can be in the shop out of the way when I get really geared up, until then I have to share the fridge politely or I may not get that bacon egg and cheese every morning.
Again, Thanks for the reply, I have read some of your bacon posts in the forum already, and I have already saved a couple in my .txt files I am getting ready to print out for further study.
I had a traumatic brain injury 20 years ago and it messed up my memory and and much more, this is why I do not work............but I have adapted, I just have to go over something like this every day or other day over and over and it will stick, then it will get lost and I have to fight to fish it back up again but it is all good, I make the best of it and laugh at myself a whole lot :)
Guy
