Bombdog

Mark, I make some pretty large sticks, about 12". I think I got 10 from this batch. I'll get a picture tomorrow when I remove them to hang.

Mary, mine isn't that new itself. I went to NVC back in '98. For what it's worth, I agree totally with yours and Craig's summations.

Beef middles, Mark. As Michael mentioned...the processed foods might be the kicker. I pretty much do not eat ANY processed foods. I realize that some slip in on a rare occasion. But I'm pretty hard on myself about that. Edited to add: Wow, Charcuterie as health food! Who'd a thunk it!

Yep, right there on page 186. I'm using beef middles.

Rub it in, will ya? That's exactly what caused me to lose 60 lbs! Just to keep us on topic. I just finished stuffing 13 lbs of sopressata. It's in the oven to inoculate as we speak. No doubt, this is my favorite of all the cured salami I've made. But, even with the Grizzly, this is a labor of love. Dicing all that pork and fat by hand is a CHORE!

Interesting. I've had just the opposite happen to me. I've lost just a tad over 60 lbs in the past 11 months. My b/p is down and my cholesteral has dropped so much my Dr removed me from the meds. I admit to a pretty aggressive work out regimen, but I eat ALOT of my own stuff, nearly every day.

We were specifically taught in Viticulture at Napa Valley College that dropping fruit, or cluster thinning produces a higher quality crop. I pulled out my copy of General Viticulture and found reference to that in chapter 14 doing a Google book search.

Great looking stuff Ron. Thanks for the pictures!

Of course, this advice comes from the man who unhesitatingly ate green pork.

Great stuff Mike! Welcome!

You call 3 guys drinking a bit over 4 bottles a night CARNAGE? I've had some nights that would be considered Nuclear Meltdown by those standards

Sorry Abra, I guess I was rather vague there (like my notes and memory). Yes to curing salt, sweet paprika and the fennel seeds were toasted then semi crushed in a mortar. I was looking for a sweet, garlicky fennel flavor. The sweetness is rather sublime as is the fennel. But both are definitely present.

Thanks for the compliments on the lomo folks. My notes are not as complete as they should be, but I remember kinda like this. I cured the pork loin like a slab of belly with LOTS of fennel seed, brown sugar, kosher salt, curing salt, LOTS of minced garlic, black pepper corns, and smoked paprika for about 10 days. From there I rinsed the loin, leaving some pepper corns and fennel seeds, then retied the loin and hung in the curing chamber until it reached 30 percent wt loss.

My salted ham has been hanging for 6 months so far. I weighed it the other day and it still needs at least a month, minimum.

Absolutely terrific Abra! Thanks so much! Oh, BTW, don't give the cooked bones to the dog, just the raw ones.

TEACHER'S PET! At least if Abra let's us in on the recipe I won't have to buy another copy so soon!

Abra, that looks FANTASTIC!

Every morning (when I'm at home), every cup, for over 15 years. I have no idea what I'll do if I break it. They have changed the patch since I retired and I doubt this design is available any longer.

Have to admit, it's not the first time I'm been accused of that! It does sound better than fanatical though.

Thanks for the size tip Jason. I've got an order to place soon anyway and I'll add some bigger casings. Although this stuff tastes good, it's totally unmanageable. When you try to slice it, the chunks just kind of fall apart. Which is rather odd, as Michael says you can use chunks in the book.

I remember well the discussion we had a few months ago about that. I used your pictures to remove the coppa. After curing it I cut it into smaller, more manageable pieces to get it into the casings.

Thanks Ron. I didn't use a specific recipe, just put it together after doing a bit of Google research. It's basically 25 % fat, 50 % beef and 25% (give or take a bit) of pork shoulder, minced garlic and pepper corns. There is a nice slightly sour flavor, but not as much spice as I'd like. In the future I'll add some red pepper flakes.

Removd two items from the curing chamber today. A Genoa salame. I really like this one! And LOOK!, I've finally got mold, and good mold at that! This is a Coppa, although using large chunks from the shoulder portion(as Jason described long ago). I wasn't brave enough to try to stuff the entire piece into the casing. This picture doesn't really show the mold that well, but it's a nice fine white thing. Curious, it only formed on the 4 sticks of coppa and not on ANY of the other meats in the box (???)

This is exactly what I use. My temp remains about 55-60F. I keep a large glass bread baking dish filled with heavily salted water on the bottom. So far...so good. Only problems have been of my own making.

[Moderator note: The original Cooking with Ruhlman & Polcyn's "Charcuterie" topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Cooking with Ruhlman & Polcyn's "Charcuterie" (Part 3)] Damned you Ruhman! I just ordered Kinsella, Grigson, and Bertolli's books. (all your fault) It's not bad enough that after finishing Reach I had to go out and buy replacement copies of Making and Soul (loaned out and never returned) and now you tell me I'm going to have to buy ANOTHER copy of Charcuterie too! Sheesh!