Guanciale 2023

[indaswamp]

Totally forgot to post the guanciale I am curing from the pig head I got last Monday, so here it is....

Trimmed the cheeks to remove all gland material and soft fat, rinsed really well with vinegar to clean...

Salt, cure#2, and Spices mixed up... I ran that through the spice grinder into a coarse powder...

Ready to cure for 6-7 days, then I'll hang in the chamber to dry min. 4 months...but I like to let them go for about 9 months as it really develops the flavor profile.

 

[indaswamp]

Spices are bay leaf, rosemary, sage and black pepper.....traditional Roman Guanciale spices....

 

[Kvgsqtii]

Looks good. Setting a calendar reminder for 9mo to know when to start bugging you for the Carbonara cook!

 

[indaswamp]

Looks good. Setting a calendar reminder for 9mo to know when to start bugging you for the Carbonara cook!

Oh- I have Guanciale on hand right now! But I am making more now to replace it so I am not without!! I plan to cook Carbonara soon so stay tuned....

 

[JLeonard]

I need to look at houses in your neighborhood. I have got to sample some of this goodness you are posting.

Jim

 

[indaswamp]

Total of 1,828g. so just over 4# of guanciale fresh weight.... Awesome!

 

[Schwarzwald Metzger]

Totally forgot to post the guanciale I am curing from the pig head I got last Monday, so here it is....

Trimmed the cheeks to remove all gland material and soft fat, rinsed really well with vinegar to clean...
View attachment 679554

Salt, cure#2, and Spices mixed up... I ran that through the spice grinder into a coarse powder...
View attachment 679553

Ready to cure for 6-7 days, then I'll hang in the chamber to dry min. 4 months...but I like to let them go for about 9 months as it really develops the flavor profile.
View attachment 679555

You. Are. The Man! Completely righteous bro!

This is another on my list "to do". We absolutely have similar tastes.

I love it.

Brad

 

[indaswamp]

You. Are. The Man! Completely righteous bro!

This is another on my list "to do". We absolutely have similar tastes.

I love it.

Brad

Thanks Brad!

 

[LoydB]

Those are great looking jowls.

 

[indaswamp]

Forgot to post the pic. of when I moved the Guanciale to the chamber to dry after curing...

Behind the guanciale are the dried salami casings I use for my Culatello covers to slow down moisture loss and keep the humidity high around the Culatelli.

 

[civilsmoker]

I’m in to the “long haul” if I started walking towards your place I could have a stroll along the and that would be done by time I show up….lol

 

[mr_whipple]

Nice! I finally found a source for jowls, so I can finally do this. For now I'm still doing the pancetta tesa.

 

[indaswamp]

If you can find a butcher shop that buys whole hogs, you can usually get the heads cheap. But make sure you get them super fresh! Preferably the day they breakdown the pig. It really is not a lot of work to remove the jowls....

 

[mr_whipple]

If you can find a butcher shop that buys whole hogs, you can usually get the heads cheap. But make sure you get them super fresh! Preferably the day they breakdown the pig. It really is not a lot of work to remove the jowls....

We shall see. The place I finally found is when I was looking for back fat to start making salami. I bought a big bag maybe 4-5 lbs of frozen fat. I'll check out the jowl situation my next pass thru.

 

[indaswamp]

For salami, it really is best to use unfrozen fat....I'm talking about deep freeze here. Fat freezes at 27*F so lightly frozen is fine, like in a commercial refrigerator 27-32*F. This time of year, my butcher starts keeping fat on had regularly....fresh not frozen....

But use it if it is all you can get, as long as it is not old it should work ok. Ideally less than a month frozen...