Tri2Cook

Honestly... nothing in particular. I had sassafras pellets and sugar maple pellets on hand so it was gonna be one of the two. Maple sounded too easy, a gimme, so I went with the wildcard. But let's be completely honest, the difference in the results from various woods isn't generally as pronounced as we like to tell ourselves it is. There are softer and more assertive smokes and some minor variances but I'm betting if I did half in the sassafras and half in the maple, most people (most likely including me) wouldn't notice. 😁

I hope it's worth tasting. First time using sassafras.

After 11 days curing, the pork was removed from the bags, given a quick rinse, patted dry and spent the night on racks in the fridge uncovered. I cold smoked it with sassafras wood for 5 hours Saturday morning and another 5 hours Sunday morning (fridged in between). It's currently in the fridge wrapped. Tomorrow will be see what we got day.

Just over 13 lbs. of pork belly vac bagged with an equilibrium dry cure. To be continued...

I assumed the fat from the nuts would effect the texture but if it could still be molded into bars, that wouldn't matter in this case. This is just a favor for a friend so there's not gonna be any complaints. That sounds pretty close to what I was thinking but with the nuts taking up some of the slack for the sugar but I think I'll try your version first. I was only focusing on the macadamias because they were mentioned, I'm not set on having them in there. Thanks!

Fortunately for me, there's no urgency in this one. It's just one of my buddies I've been working with for the past 13+ years. He was recently moved into the diabetic category after a long period of adjusting his weight and eating habits still didn't do whatever they were looking for to his numbers. We're always swapping out things we make, he makes really good jerky. He asked if it was something I could do, I said I'd take a stab at it. So no harm, no foul if I can't make it happen. 😁

I don't know, honestly. I assumed the sugar would be the primary issue since diabetic friendly milk chocolate exists but I've never actually looked into what goes in those chocolates. I was picturing taking a formula for maybe a 40 - 45% milk chocolate, calculating the sugar added by the milk powder and then replacing enough actual sugar with ground macadamias to get the sugar level in line with a 70 - 80% chocolate and spinning it in the melanger but I have no scientific reason behind any of that. Also, no idea what that'll do texturally but that's easy enough to find out if the rest of it makes sense. Edit: I was trying to see if I could do this without resorting to sugar substitutes but the friend never actually said using them was off the table.

Diabetic friendly chocolates is not really an area I have any interest in pursuing as part of what I do. However, a good friend who is diabetic was told by their doctor that a small piece of dark chocolate occasionally was ok. The friend doesn't like dark chocolate and asked me if it was possible to make something that tastes more like milk chocolate while being diabetic friendly. I was honest and said I didn't know but I knew where to ask. Macadamia nuts (and almonds but the friend doesn't like those) are apparently approved so I considered something more gianduja like by replacing a percentage of the sugar in the melanger with the nuts. I know there's been advances in sugar replacers as well but I have no knowledge in that area. Anyway, open to experimenting with any suggestions. Edit: I suppose I should have mentioned that part of the difficulty for me with this one is, I have no idea what a doctor has in mind when they tell someone occasional "dark chocolate" in small amounts is ok. "Dark chocolate" is a pretty wide range.

@rotuts Thanks! It was a flat I had in the freezer so I wasn't expecting juicy but maybe slightly less dry than I got. But it's fine, not too dry to eat even without condiments. The bag juice wasn't too salty to use but the mustard was more than sufficient to solve any problems so I didn't use it.

Cured a brisket for corned beef, tossed it in the sous vide hot tub for 48 hours and piled it on marble rye with mustard and a side of fries for dinner last night.

Cooked sous vide 60C/140F for 48 hours. Very tender, a little more dry than I expected (maybe should have tried 36 hours) but not unpleasantly so, easily sliced without crumbling or mush. I should have rinsed off the ground spices before cooking. Cooking with the ground spices seemed to really pull the pepper to the forefront. At least, I'm assuming that's what's causing the sharp peppery aftertaste I'm getting. Also, the spices were a tad gritty after cooking so I decided to rinse them off which was a royal pain in the rear. They'd latched on pretty good, definitely would have been easier pre-cook. The minor issues were unnoticeable once it was piled on rye with mustard so I'm happy overall.

Roxy and Rich is the only colored cocoa butter I've used (because it's what the 2 main places I get my supplies from carry) so I can't compare it to other brands but I've been happy with it. I use single action bottom feed Paasche brushes (which would have been gravity feed double action if I'd done more research before buying). I'm going to add a double action to the quiver because I'd like to have one brush that can shoot air without shooting color if I want it to. I have a dehydrator with digital temp control and a bottom temp of 85 F I use as a warming cabinet. Set it to the temp I want for my cocoa butter, toss in the colors I plan to work with plus the brushes and cups in the morning or the night before depending when I need it ready to use. The brushes are warm so I can just swap on the fly if I have clogging issues. The clogged brush frees up quickly once back in the cabinet. The above works pretty well for me but full disclosure, I very rarely do much spraying. I'm drifting more towards bean to bar production and the natural colors of the chocolates. Which is a fancy way of saying all that spraying can be a pain in the caboose and I frequently just don't want to bother with it. 😆

If the local grocery store could be counted on to bring in decent looking corned beef briskets, I'd be tempted to do the same. But most years they don't bring in any and the few times they have, it would have been less disappointing if they hadn't. They looked pretty awful.

Thanks! Cooked, I'd say maybe 3.5 - 4 hours-ish. Didn't actually time it. I "dry brine" the pork a couple days ahead, cook it in the lard until it gets some color then toss in the juice and peel from an orange, a few garlic cloves and a little evap milk, back the heat off a bit and let it cook until it's tender. I don't do anything to it once it comes out of the lard other than stuff it down my gullet.

Me too... on spaghetti with diced onions and a pile of fine shred cheddar. Not gonna deny the stretch involved with calling it chili but I've seen things far less chili-like called chili.

There are online equilibrium brine calculators all over google that will allow you to fine tune the salt level and give you the numbers but I used 2.5% salt, 1.25% sugar and .25% #1 cure by weight based on the weight of the meat.

Recent carnitas... because pork cooked in lard is one of the finer things in life. 😁

Last week, I pulled a brisket flat I picked up at the farmer's market last summer from the freezer to thaw. Saturday, I calculated for a dry equilibrium brine, ran the spices I wanted to use (standard corned beef stuff) through my spice grinder, rubbed the brisket down, split it into two pieces and vac bagged 'em. They'll have 10 days of fridge time before a trip through the sous vide tank.

That's the thing, I don't have anything in particular in mind right now. Thought a little eGullet fishing trip might inspire some ideas. Google found nothing no matter how I worded the search but there's no way somebody hasn't already had the same thought. I have a container of chipotles in adobo I pureed hanging out in my freezer. Maybe add a few appropriate spices to some of that along with the salt and curing salt. Or a similar approach with a Thai red curry paste. Not really sure, just a couple things that came.to mind quickly.

Yep, pretty much exactly what I normally do with a few additions to the spice blend and I don't add water to the SV bag. But I'm thinking something way outside of the normal. Nothing really in common with the corned beef flavor profile. The salt and curing salt plus I'm not sure what at this point. But I'm cutting it close on time for St. Patrick's day so I'll probably stick with my usual for this brisket and experiment on something else when I have more time to think about it.

Brisket on deck, ready to start the curing process. I'm doing an equilibrium "dry brine". Possibly heresy and presumably not gonna be able to call it corned beef but this being eGullet, just curious if anyone has cured a brisket in the style of corned beef but using non-traditional flavors? Something other than various takes on the standard "pickling spice" blend. Part of me wants to give it a shot, part of me doesn't want to risk a nice from the farm brisket on an experiment.

Made pancakes for Fat Tuesday dinner with bacon for the daughter and homemade breakfast sausage for me. The daughter decided to revisit her childhood and requested chocolate chips in her pancakes. An abomination in my opinion... but I did it anyway. 😁

Based entirely on my experience and somewhat tongue-in-cheek... Coffee Cake: a cinnamony crumble topped cake usually so dry you can't choke it down without a cup of coffee to help.

Came here hoping someone better with words than I am had already shared the news because I was gonna take a, probably clumsy, stab at it if not. Congrats Rob!

Never mind... this was one of those times where asking leads to deciding on my own. Thanks anyway!