Bragging on bacon

[susie]

 

Kill pig, cut off sides, cover with salt for a day, hang to dry, eat after one month.

[Granny]

I remember grandparents and most of their generation all had a smoke house for meat curing. Salt pork was also quite common. I wish had paid more attention or asked them questions about this years later as adult. On the salt do you cover it entirely or just sprinkle heavy? Also how does one hang it. (Having visions of clothes pins here LOL). If draped over some line or rack did you turn or rotate at all?

[susie]

I put salt to cover...really cover...and then I left it in a huge pan, skin side up, with more salt on the exposed bits, for eighteen hours. I've also tried it on a wooden plank over the sink, in order to let it drain (my friend, Marcel-the-farmer, says I use too much salt and waste it, as the meat will only take what it wants).

 

Some people leave it in the salt for 24 hours, but I find that too much time in salt makes the bacon way too salty (by the way, ham here is left n salt for three weeks)...sometimes I also break bayleaves or juniper or thyme or peppercorns in with the salt, too.

 

I hang mine with an old S-shaped meathook stuck through the top, bash a big nail in a beam, and then hang it in a cool and drafty place...this year it was the staircase, but the attic seems the best, as the bacon in the stairwell tended to get a fuzzy mould (wiped off with a papertowel and vinegar). I used to have a neighbor who hangs it under the eaves of her house. Marcel hangs his in his barn, right above the tied-up-for-the-winter cows.

 

I hang mine like that...you might be able to see in the picture that Kalani is holding the other end by the meathook, and the bacon is a big slab....but many here roll the slab, skin side out, and tie it before hanging it (you get rounds of bacon that fit well on bread when it's sliced).

 

Be warned...it gets as hard as a rock, especially the skin side, and needs a very sharp knife to slice. You can fry it with the skin on, but it's too hard to eat and we cut it off with scissors before cooking.

[sassenach]

Susie for posting on how you cure bacon and the variety used among those you are friends with there. It really is pretty simple to do.

 

Another question, when salting down meats do you want to use pure salt, without iodine in it for this ?

[susie]

I use our local salt...the town is famous for it and we have a hot saltwater cure spa place. Our tourists are called curists, and come from all over to bathe in the waters and get cured.

 

http://destinationsflen.eurostar.com/sisp/...&event_id=13063

 

The salt is everywhere...and salt even crawls up the walls inside of the stone houses.

 

I think it's not iodized. It's called salt for preserving at the store (I get mine when the salt festival is held, they have huge bags with tons of it, free for the taking).

[sassenach]

That spa sounds wonderful to me with 3F degrees outside and falling to well below 0F tomorrow and Tuesday!

I will be right over! LOL.

Thanks for the info on the special local salt you have. Thats neat.

[etp777]

Might want to look into pink salt here in the states, which has the nitrite(nitrate?) coommonly used to help inhibit bacterial growth in bacon preserving. ANother forum I post on someone mentioned this book as the "bible" of making bacon:

 

Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

[susie]

We have saltpetre crawling up the walls in the house...I wonder if I could scrape it off and use it? (just kidding...I think)

 

Some people that make cured hams use a product from the pharmacy called sauvejambon (hamsave), I asked and it's saltpeter, which I think is sodium nitrate.

 

I'd love that book on my shelf at home.

[HSmom]

According to Google saltpeter is Potassium nitrate.

 

But that's all I know. Thank you for sharing your methods with us Susie!