# Collagen Sheets or Cheesecloth



## Papalarge (Jan 23, 2020)

Hi All from Va
  I have just joined. I did my first Curing of a Pork Loin and I'm hooked. My first curing was simple, trimmed a pork loin with Kosher salt, brown sugar and pink salt. put it in the fridge for 4 days. Took it out, rinsed and wiped it down with white vinegar and hung it to dry for about an hour. seasoned with Kosher salt, Brown sugar and Pepper and Rosemary. Then tied it, wrapped cheesecloth and tied again, weighed it (W. x .65 = T.W.) and hung in the Refrigerator till the weight was right.  
  So now I got my second batch  got 3 Pork Loins hanging and I did a small Beef Roast. I'm hoping the Beef Roast comes out good because the Pork Loins were only $1.29 a pound and the Beef was almost $5 a pound. The Second batch should be ready next week. Now I want to do some Capocollo (Gabagool)  do I need to use Collagen Sheets or will Cheesecloth be fine. Here the thing my local Super Market has Boston Butts for $.99 a pound and from what I was able to fine the Collagen sheets are from $4 to $5 a sheet where as $5 of cheesecloth will last me this curing and next. I would hate to pay the same for a Sheet of Collagen  as for the hole piece of meat I am curing. What do you think?
 Also could anyone tell me how to cut back on the salty taste of the meat. Does it come from the initial Curing or when the meat is hung? 
  Thank you so much in advance, 
       Papa


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## daveomak (Jan 23, 2020)

Evening....   First.....  get a grams scale...  I recommend a 0-100 grams with 0.01 resolution for accuracy....  
Add any cure at 0.25%....  salt at 2.75%.....   for dry curing whole muscle....
Seems I keep reading the "safe" amount for salt additions is 3% for bacterial growth....  The 2 values above get you there, or darn close....
That should be the first step....  Then zip bag it and refer it for 2 weeks...   
Second, remove and rinse and dry and wrap in collagen, single layer, as close as you can get it..
Then I would put in a stretch tube netting to hold the collagen tight to the meat....
Refer until weight loss desired has been achieved.....
The collagen will slow down the weight loss considerably and almost eliminate case hardening of the meat muscle..   And give you a much better, higher quality product.....


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## pc farmer (Jan 23, 2020)

For actual dry curing you need to use cure #2.  The sheets will make make it dry better.  The cloth, if conditions are not right will get case hardening.


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## pops6927 (Jan 23, 2020)

I use: 






						Cotton Ham Bag 36 (Qty. 100) [DF36STOCK100] - $18.70 : Butcher & Packer, Sausage Making and Meat Processing Supplies
					

Butcher & Packer Cotton Ham Bag 36 (Qty. 100) [DF36STOCK100] - These 36 cotton bags are used for smoking hams and picnics. Also great for cooking product that you boil and want to remove from water easily.



					www.butcher-packer.com


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## Papalarge (Jan 23, 2020)

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the feed back. I do have a scale.
I do have a couple of questions:
1. The First Pork Loin I did, was roughly 2-1/4 lbs., so I used 500 grams of kosher salt 250grams Brown Sugar and a half of a teaspoon of Bolners Fiesta Curing Salt in a Tupperware for 4 days. Now what I just described was the Curing Process, correct?
2. After the 4 days I rinsed with white vinegar and cold water, padded dry and hung it up to dry for an hour. Then seasoned it and wrapped it in cheesecloth. Then weighted it after it was wrapped it weighted 975 grams which put the target weight at 633 grams. I take it that this is the drying stage, correct?
3. The Starting Weight is before the Curing Process and the Target Weight is at the end of the Drying Process. So in actuality I dried the Pork Loin to long, right?  It took 6 weeks but it was so good, it didn't last 2 days.lol 
4. Does Case Harding mean when the outside of the meat gets hard? 
  I didn't mind the outer part being hard, I pretty much had shave slices off.  For the Capocollo I will be using the Collagen Sheets.
 This was my first.






 This is what I got hanging now, the 3 on the left is Pork Loins and the 1 on the right is Beef.





 The 2 on the left is tinted from the chipotle and paprika seasonings.
  Thanks for the help


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## daveomak (Jan 24, 2020)

No case hardening....   Might as well try and make the best as long as you are making the stuff....


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## SmokinAl (Jan 24, 2020)

Yep as Dave says with collagen sheets you will not get the case hardening. Here is some pancetta that I made & it took 6 months to dry. It was stuffed really tight into a collagen casing.





Al


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## pushok2018 (Jan 24, 2020)

Cannot comment on using a Cheesecloth ... Never used it.  For curing cold smoked pork loins, bresaola or pancetta I used to use beef bung. I tried collagen sheet with netting twice and didn't like it because of case hardening.... but this could be caused by my personal error....


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