With pork on the butcher block, see tricks to saltcuring, sugarcuring. We use a dry rub cure to make the besttasting hams possible. Alisha sloan offgrid foods in the age of the internet and microwaves, we tend to expect ease and instant gratification to be a perpetual way of life. Curing and storing meat at home real food mother earth.
Preserving meat longterm, the oldfashioned way off the. But, today i will discuss with you the first part of the process. I was hoping for a true old fashioned method, and youve disappointed me. Storage and preservation of meat imagine living back in the day when refrigeration wasnt an. As far as ham is concerned, you need to cure it on the basis of seven days per inch of cushion depth or one and a half days per pound. Preserving meat the old fashioned way sufficientself. Curing ham the old fashioned way inside a nondescript building in sugar grove sits the countrys only place that does a country ham the true climatic cured way. No weighing,no calculator, just a simple recipe that works quite well, from a man i have known all my life. Trying to get back to our roots, my household has upped its involvement in home meat processing projects in the last few years. Curing ham the old fashioned way posted march 12, 2014 8. Place meat in a box, barrel, stone jar, burlap bag, or on a pan on a shelf of the refrigerator. Put the pork in a crock or large pot and pour the brine over it.
We add a little flavor to the show by showing you how the old timers cured meat. When i say true dry cure im talking about coating bellys with the salt,sugar and cure 1 mix and packing in a old fashioned salt box or on a salt bench where moisture is drawn out and away from the meat. Use a weight a heavy plate will do to keep the pork submerged. Youll learn how to make salami, fresh sausages, spanishstyle ham. Curing and cold smoking bacon the old fashioned way youtube. Guanciale and bacon cured the ole fashioned way the.
Curing the meat this way results in less shrinkage, and leaves the meat a little moister, and seems to retain a better flavor than a dry cure. Edt inside a nondescript building in sugar grove sits the countrys only place that does a country ham the true climatic cured way. The easiest way to preserve your meat is taking a whole muscle cut, make a salt and spice rub and cover it with the rub, and put it in the fridge for a few days. In days gone by most of the hog meat was smoked, but some was canned. This book will show any potential meat preserver how to go about the. People evolved a number of methods for saving this extra meat for later, such as dry curing and smoking.
We still dry cure country ham, bacon and sausage the old fashioned way, like our forefathers. Grandpas recipe for cured smoked ham curing hams used to be the best way to preserve pork before there was reliable refrigeration. Fall chicken processing, dove and pheasant hunting, whitetail deer hunting, plus aspirations to. In both cases, the flavor from the cure is derived from salt and whatever other flavors are added to the curing mixture such as sugars honey or brown and spices pepper, rosemary, bay leaves dry curing. The complete guide to preserving meat, fish, and game stepby. Curing ham the old fashioned way ham, old things, smoke.
My guanciale came out perfect in terms of the cure itself it ended up being tainted by glands which i will get into shortly but it was a little exhausting obsessively. Purchase a culture specifically for meat or you can keep them in the freezer until youre ready to do your meat. Please practice handwashing and social distancing, and check out our resources for adapting to these times. Preserving meat longterm, the oldfashioned way originally written by. Once youve trimmed up your ham, weigh it to know how much salt youll need. A plate can be used as a weight to keep the meat immersed in your brine.
Homemade bacon dry cured and air dried the elliott. The art of home meat curing and producing sausages from farmfresh meats. Old smokehouses were impressive structures that served both as meat smokers and as storage facilities. Home curing your own ham wet cure takes just a few minutes of active work, and about a week of waiting until you are left. Do it yourself with the complete book of butchering, smoking, curing, and sausage making. Both salt and sugar as well as combinations of both have been used to cure meat by means of the process of osmosis. Today of course we dont need to resort to complicated methods of preservation, but the process of salt curing meat can still be appreciated for its contributions to appearance and texture. To make drycured bacon the old fashioned way, the curing ingredients, salt, sugar and sodium nitrate saltpeter were rubbed into the meat, which is left to cure for a couple of weeks before.
Additionally, some of our hams will also go into the smoker. Now, this place, near nashville, tennessee, rices country hams makes ham and bacon the old fashioned way like your grandfather did, my grandfather, probably our greatgrandfathers. But lets look at how you would salt cure a ham from scratch. Curing and cold smoking bacon the old fashioned way. Curing and smoking pulls the moisture from the ham to make it safe to store at room temperature. Boil over a gentle heat, removing scum as it rises. The saltsugar mix adds color and flavor to the meat. The first year i was so anal about monitoring exact humidities, moisture loss, and the ratio of salt cure. Then well see how to flavor a cured ham with smoke, whether you cure it yourself or buy one already cured. Just curious if anyone on here has cured bacon using a true dry cure. The result is a raw cured meat that must be cooked before eating, and cooking it long enough can produce really crispy, bacon.
Old school in the best way, this superb book was snouttotail long before the term existed. Rub and cover the rest of the ham with the curing mix. To cure, inject the brine solution into the meat using a meat pump or soak the meat over a period of time. Homecured and smoked ham doesnt seem as though it should sneak into any sort of easy cooking recipe compilation. If you choose to soak, be sure to fully submerge the meat. Books of interest and instruction old fashioned butcher. Now the secret old fashioned way of preserving bacon in the south is to dry cure, which means you rub it with salt and a little sugar and you hang it out to, well.
Today we are going to talk about smoking a salt cured ham. Back then, pickling involved soaking the meat in a salt brine and allowing lacticacid producing cultures to help ferment the meat. Before reliable refrigeration, people would salt cure meat the old fashioned way because it was the best way to preserve pork. How to smoke bacon the oldfashioned way ask a prepper. To make drycured bacon the old fashioned way, the curing ingredientssalt, sugar and sodium nitrate saltpeterwere rubbed into the meat, which was left to cure for 2.
How to cure ham and bacon the oldfashioned way ehow. I like to say that italian cooking is the food of many grandmothers, but with french cooking, theres a book. Le guide culinaire 1903, english translation 1921 by august escoffier the definitive cookbook of french food. Continue boiling until the salt and sugar have dissolved. To comply with banking laws and as the hagmann report is a corporate subsidiary, checks must be made payable to hagmann investigative services, inc. To emphasize the simplicity of the smoke curing process, it would be fair to say that all.
This recipe was taken from a tiny home made recipe book, remember mamas recipes. Old smokehouses served as meat smokers and as storage. Every slab is hand rubbed with our simple dry cure ingredients of salt sugar and sodium nitrite, then slow smoked for an unforgettable flavor that has been loved for generations. So, thats 23 grams per pound of meat a ratio way greater than any interpretation of what he wrote in his book. The complete guide to preserving meat, fish, and game stepbystep instructions.
As the bacon sits out, the surface dries out, and this prevents new bacteria from forming. Old fashioned recipe for curing ham for every 100 pounds of meat take 5 pints of good molasses or 5 pounds of brown sugar, 5 ounces saltpetre, 8 pounds of rock salt and add 3 gallons of water to a pot. Meat preserved in such a way will keep uncooked for many months. The 6 best charcuterie cookbooks of 2020 the spruce eats. Potting meat was another means of storing food, and that old tradition lives on today in several commercial brands. Brining fresh pork is the least laborintensive method for curing meat the oldfashioned way. Dry curing pork feral or otherwise is the easiest and most popular method of curing.
Broadbent old fashioned country smoked bacon has been made the same way for the last 100 years. The art of openhearth cooking how to roast meat the old fashioned way using openhearth cooking, includes information on roasting instead of baking, cooking in a fireplace and openhearth recipes. Salt curing ham is an ageold tradition on our homestead. Think of it just like a meat jerky but not quite as hard same concept. It can be called country ham, yet it is often called prosciutto and used as the center piece of charcuterie boards. You know the rules for getting your own happily ever after. Curing meat the old fashioned way for seasonal preservation. There is one main concern when curing and preserving meat, and that is botulism. If you are using the wet brine curing method make sure that the meat is completely submerged at all times, and you can do this by adding a weight such as a plate or similar to keep the meat submerged. There appears to be a huge concern about smoking sausage the old fashioned way. Tim farmer heads back to bill dixons smokehouse in harlan county. Curing hog meat the oldfashioned way everet starchers. This article has first appeared on smoking meat forums.
Early potted meat usually involved the meat of one animal only, most commonly pork. The dry salt curing takes care of the bacteria in the meat. While botulism is usually related to improper canning procedures, foodborne botulism also occurs in meats that have been improperly cured. Curing meat the old fashioned way for seasonal preservation extopian curing was a widely used method of preserving meat before the days of refrigeration. So, heres how to cure bacon at home, and have it taste even better than storebought. Curing ham and home ham curing recipes dry, salt brine. Communal smokers were responsible for supplying meat for many families.
Curing is an age old process of preserving meat for later use. Curing hog meat the oldfashioned way everet starchers recipe 11142019 by bob weaver. The curing process typically took 1 12 to 2 days per pound in the cut of meat so a 10 lb ham would cure for 20 days, while a 1 lb link of pork sausage would cure. And hes explicit about using the sugar cure in the blog post, which means using 1. How to make sausage sausage making country ham best vacation spots smoke grill smoking meat. How to make smoked bacon at home it is so much better. Preserving meat longterm, the oldfashioned way off the grid. How to smoke bacon the oldfashioned way smoked bacon. Preserve hams with salt curing salt curing meat is a safe way to extract moisture and process meat. Do your math, weigh out the necessary cure salt, then divide the salt into thirds. This way you dont have to use nitrates or any special ingredients. Sausage my grandpa made smoking meat forums the best.
Inside a nondescript building in sugar grove sits the countrys only place that does a country ham the true climatic cured way. In the following excerpt, elliott gives readers the benefits of curing meats the oldfashioned way. Old fashioned dry cured bacon smoking meat forums the. Its incredibly, really, that the salt can make the meat and fat stable at room temperature. Today country ham is far from a staple, it is found on menus of ritzy restaurants all across america. With just a few ingredients salt, nitrites, and time the meat transforms. Make a brine of water, kosher or table salt, sugar and curing salts. I begin years ago making my own as i mentioned above. Its something that sounds hard to do, that few people know how to do, and that does take a long time, but homecured ham is actually very easy to make.