Bombdog

Gotta cast my lot with Jason here...NO Miracle Whip, AND thick slices (preferably from my own herb brined and smoked breast)

Thanks Jason. I've lost about 27% so far. I'll check it in another 2 wks to see where it's at. I wonder what difference the bone in vs boneless does for the wt loss?

Chris, those look amazing!

Thanks Aaron for the references. After reading these other two I decided to go with one jowl in the traditional pancetta cure and another with a bunch of fresh herbs, rosemary, sage, oregano and thyme. Here is one jowl in the salt box And here are both in separate zip locks ready to start the cure. Like Aaron, I wasn't certain what the glands were, but trimmed a few things away that didn't look like they belonged. Best description I have is sort of like chicken livers. I'm sure that the dogs will love me even more next meal time. Elie, I'm surprised that if you have a supply of fresh belly and fat that you can't get jowls from them too.

I'm looking at the chart on page 34 of the book, and I misspoke. I thought it was a picnic, but obviously by the shape it is either a portion of the ham or the shank. On this chart, Michael says that the jowl is cured like pancetta. I've got two here, so I'll do one with the pancetta cure. Still looking for suggestions for the other one.

I picked up 3lb 6oz of jowl today (99 cents a lb)...now, who ha suggestions for the cure? Am I right in that it is cured just like bacon? I don't want to smoke this (smoked jowl bacon is readily available around here), so do I hang it after the cure?

It's wrapped in cheese cloth, partially to help with the hanging and to keep the pepper I rubbed it with in place. There is plenty of circulation. The picnic I did from the book for "Salted air dried ham" Page 197 Aaron, What Michael said is exactly what I was thinking when I read your post about the duck proscuitto; that you did a great job of improvising and getting the duck out in good shape.

I think it was labeled "whole picnic". Not sure if that meant the entire leg. It started at 9 lbs, so it's pretty large. I'll check the lamb in another couple of weeks, actually unwrap it. I just took it out and weighed it this time. I just placed another order at butcher-packer.com. This one has some beef middles. My next project is going to be sopressata.

No, this is a bone in, just like a pork proscuito. I'm pretty close to 30 percent loss from the VERY beginning, but only 3 oz lost since I hung it in the curing chamber. I mean, it's only hung for 32 days, so I suppose that's not too bad. It is getting pretty firm and was a fairly small leg to begin with. In comparison, the pork proscuito I hung started at 9 lbs. It went in about a month earlier (still has at least 5 months to go) but it's not near as firm.

It's been in there for 32 days right now. the humidity holds about 60 percent, ( sometimes as low as 55 and as hi as 70). Do you mean 30 percent from raw to finish, or from the time you put it in the curing chamber?

I'm thinking that sound pretty interesting...let us know how it works

Yes. I have it plugged in and set to the warmest setting. I'm actually using the freezer for other things. I figured that this way I was getting air circulation with it coming on and off occasionally. It keeps it a bit cooler than the idea temps, (48-52F) but so far that doesn't seem to be giving me any problems.

Jason I checked on my lamb proscuitto yesterday. So far I've only lost 3 oz since I hung it. I lost 16 oz during the cure, but not much since hanging. Do you weigh yours before and after, or just go by texture. It's feeling pretty firm right now.

I have an older refrigerator in my garage that I use as a curing chamber. I cleaned it out, removed all but the topmost shelf supports and it works fine. I keep a thermometer and hygrometer on a door shelf and a pan of salted water on the floor. Susan, if your room is cold enough, why don't you get a large box and rig up a method to hang things. That would take care of the light issue. Is your humidity in that room high enough? And THANKS for posting the venison sausage recipe.

They sound delicious! Please do post the recipe. I have some more venison here and I'd like to try them. I really can't say why they are crumbly. I've had that happen too, even when I knew that I had everything cold enough. It's frustrating....at least they still taste great. Maybe someone else can give us a clue.

I do everything the same as bacon, leaving the skin on, and smoke it facing down. The only thing different is using the cure for pancetta.

Thanks! As far as the pancetta cure for bacon...that's exactly what I do. I am NOT a fan of maple and like the savory cure of the pancetta.

Not at all. I'm not a real spicy eater anymore. These were pretty well balanced I think. I wanted to respond to some of your problems with the KA stuffer. I have had some similar issues, and yesterday pretty much decided to look into a different method for stuffing. I'm pretty satisfied as far as the grinding goes, but there just seems to be too many issues for stuffing the quantities we are going through around here. First, the "fart" issue. I found that feeding small "balls" of mixture, that just fit through the intake, seems to lessen that problem, but not totally eliminate it. Second, after Chris' temperature post a while back, I have shoved the instant read into just about everything at every step the last 2 or 3 times I've made something. When I made the venison salame I really worked at keeping it just above 32F. That turned out to be a mistake. I found out there is such a thing as too cold. More than once I noticed that the mixture filling the casing looked like it was emulsifing. I was stimied, knowing that I had a good cold mixture. Turns out I had frozen portions that were clogging up parts of the apparatus, thus causing the emulsion effect as the unfrozen parts were forced past the remaining space. Not sure if that makes sense. I pretty much found that, for me, 37-38 F seems to work best.

Thanks Ron. Not from the book, just something I came up with after our upthread discussion about different fat usage. Here's the ingredients. The directions are standard for the stuff we've been making. 4lbs fatty pork butt 1 lb smoked fat back, trimmed from previous bacon projects 1 cup of poblano peppers, roasted, peeled, seeded and chopped 1 can of chipotle peppers in adobo (7 oz), run through the food processor briefly 1 bunch of cilanto, chopped 2 T cumin 1T kosher salt (the fat back was pretty salty from the bacon cure) 2t curing salt 1 cup red wine, ice cold

Thanks Abra...and it tastes good too! As promised.... Here are the pork sausages made with the smoked fat. They were really tasty (grilled and served on some Rancho Gordo posole verde), but the anticipated smoke flavor from the smoked fat really didn't come through. No matter, they were still damned good!

Elie, I am humbled. Thanks for the compliment. I'm just an incredibly lucky rookie following the instructions in the book.

that is gorgeous stuff. what i love best is that it looks like real dried sausage, not crap in plastic yellow packages or the greezy shit on a dominoes pizza. thanks for the pix. ← Thanks Michael...and you are so right, it's not anything like the commercially produced stuff we are used to in the US. Of course, I don't need to say that this is the ONLY peperone we will be eating in my house from now on.

Well there's 4 lbs of the stuff, help your self. Which leads me to the question, where has all the bacon, tuscan salame, hungarian paprika sausage, duck breast proscuito, bresaola and pancetta gone?

Pulled the peperone out this morning. Wonderful taste, just like Michael described in the book, tangy and spicy. I also finished the pork sausages with roasted poblano and chipotle peppers. I'll have some pictures after dinner.

Just a little bit of time in some warm water. I suppose I could have gotten creative and soaked them in the wine, but I didn't think of it.