Sweetheart Ham

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Sweetheart Ham

Post by Fusion5567 » Sat Jan 21, 2017 19:32

Reading through the forum yesterday and came across Sweetheart Ham recipe posted by Butterbean.
http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.ph ... theart+ham
I had just bought a pack of 2 very nice pork sirloin roasts weighing about 1 kilo each and decided to give it a try, cooked up the brine, let it cool and put everything in a plastic tub and into a cold (50F) garage.

My question, is 50F cold enough for this 10 day soak or do they need to be refrigerated?
Last edited by Fusion5567 on Tue Jan 31, 2017 15:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Bob K » Sat Jan 21, 2017 21:05

It should be at refrigerator temps, 40f max
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Post by Fusion5567 » Sat Jan 21, 2017 21:11

Moved, good i asked, thank you Bob
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Post by Fusion5567 » Tue Jan 31, 2017 03:04

So i made this just as recipe but did not inject brine, hot smoked with oak pellets for 2 hrs, started off at 150F, gradually brought temp up to finish at 250F over 6 hrs.
Internal temp 155F

This is one of the best pieces of ham i have ever tasted :mrgreen: and i have 2 of them
I think my only change next time would be 1/2hr less smoke time, its just bordering on too much smoke, hope it will mellow just a little after i vac seal it.

Thank you Butterbean for the recipe.

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Post by Butterbean » Tue Jan 31, 2017 04:25

That looks beautiful Fusion and I'm glad you liked it and thanks for giving feedback.

Another thing I do with these is to not cook or smoke at all and simply slice then freeze till you need it then pan fry. Its good that way also. Also, sliced thin like you have it cooked makes great sandwich meat.
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Post by Fusion5567 » Tue Jan 31, 2017 04:31

Butterbean wrote:That looks beautiful Fusion and I'm glad you liked it and thanks for giving feedback.

Another thing I do with these is to not cook or smoke at all and simply slice then freeze till you need it then pan fry. Its good that way also. Also, sliced thin like you have it cooked makes great sandwich meat.
I will try that, im very sure i will be making more of it.
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Post by StefanS » Wed Feb 01, 2017 02:41

Thank you Fusion for posting that nice picture and process of smoking. And sorry but it is My Point of View on your nicely overcooked, baked piece of meat. Here we are to present, show, explain and give opinions on culinary/meat processes, so please do not take my words like total criticism of your work. IMO - vacpack won't help to mellow outer burnt ring. Most likely inside your meat is also dried, not juicy like it should be. But if you are consider that it is grilling or barbecue that is different story.
In BB recipe and your process is not specified how much brine per Lb/kg of meat you are used.
Question #2 - really is there 342 grams of total sugar per 1 Gal. of water? Reason I'm asking is that from mine knowledge sugar is absorbed 10X slower than salt so most of it is not inside meat plus, in recipe is rinsing so in other words - washing it out of surface, plus sugar left on surface will caramelize very quickly and will make difficult for smoke to penetrate a meat.
BTW - it is a good idea to do that ? Butterbean wrote:Another thing I do with these is to not cook or smoke at all and simply slice then freeze till you need it then pan fry..... Amount of Cure plus days of curing plus days in freeze plus then high temperature - what happen during high temperature process with nitrates...... Polish moguls trying to avoid as much as possible to use high level of Cure in meats processed in high temperatures.
Again - it is only my opinion, I can be wrong too.
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Post by Fusion5567 » Wed Feb 01, 2017 03:21

StefanS
Thank you for your thoughts on my post, most of your questions i can not answer as i am very new at this.
I can however tell you the inside of the Ham is very moist and tasty, the "burnt" look to the outside is where my AmaZeN pellet smoke generator was a little to close to the ham.

As i said, the rest of your questions and suggestions will need to be answered by a member with more experience than me.
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Post by Butterbean » Wed Feb 01, 2017 13:47

Stefan, I really don't follow what you are saying. Don't know where nitrates came into this since no nitrates are mentioned and had they been used it would require heating the meat to 600F to convert any of the nitrate to nitrosamines and the only thing I cook at that temp is pizza in my stone oven.

As for the brine recipe, its not equilibrium curing but time based so you have me confused here also.

Yes, you are right about the slowness of sugar absorption and that is why there is 342 grams and not 34.2 I'd guess. The sugar is more of a flavor enhancer. Gives the ham a sweet background.
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Post by Bob K » Wed Feb 01, 2017 14:32

Butterbean- A frying pan on a stove top can easily reach 600F. Natural gas burns at 2000F , thus all the cure rules on bacon.
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Post by StefanS » Wed Feb 01, 2017 15:39

Sorry Butterbean for confusing you. First at all my mistake for nitrates - it should be nitrite - like sodium nitrite in Cure #1. Then - meat curing in brine - 95% of meat used in "wedzonki" is cured in brine. During preparations to do that we (means polish sausage makers) considering a few things like weight of meat, days of cure, amount of brine per 1kg of meat (usually 0.4-0.5 litre/1 kg), injections or not, even what kind of meat is used to brining (example - pork loin is absorbing salt much faster than pork belly, or pork shoulder). For that purposes there is prepared tables developed by researchers and professionals (some of them already on our website).
Amount of sugar is also used in small quantities - as you know - it is also bacterial food - so even low curing temperatures (in refrigerators) sometimes not doing a required process (usually during more days of curing ).
Hopefully that is making a little more sense to what is IMO.
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Post by Butterbean » Wed Feb 01, 2017 16:38

Bob K wrote:Butterbean- A frying pan on a stove top can easily reach 600F. Natural gas burns at 2000F , thus all the cure rules on bacon.
True enough but who cooks at 600F? While coils may be at 600F the pan is a heat sink and absorbs a large amount of the energy. The average pan frying temperature is only 248F in most pan frying procedures. Also, the smoke point of bacon grease is 370F so this should give a good indication of how hot the pan is so unless you are intent on burning your food and smoking up the house I can't see why anyone would exceed this temperature.

Then there is the flash point where the grease will ignite. This occurs around 700F but is lower for lower smoke point oils like bacon grease. So, it would be reasonable to me that if one was cooking at 600F it wouldn't be long before they had a fire on their hands so I don't think this is the norm.

Here is a photo of some bacon being cooked the way I normally cook bacon. The IR thermometer is reading the temp of the bottom of the frying pan - a check of the coils showed them to be 652F and since the bacon is not fused to the bottom of the pan its temp was considerably less than this because the meat is also a heat sink and a very poor collector of energy. So, in my view, one would probably need a laboratory to replicate some of the results researchers claim to have shown.

Image

In this photo I turned the heat up to where the bacon was cooking at a temperature past the smoke point. It basically ruined the bacon by burning it but you can see the temp is still far from 600F.

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Also, since the amount of cure used is within the bacon guidelines and since finished cured meats only have around 10 parts per million of nitrite I can't see how this could be of more health concern than foods such as stir fry which contain high nitrate concentrations and are cooked using high heat sauteing since amino acids are found in many of these ingredients used.

That is my view on the subject but I may be missing something. I've been wrong plenty of times so this won't be the first if I am. :oops:
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Post by Bob K » Wed Feb 01, 2017 17:07

Butterbean wrote:I can't see why anyone would exceed this temperature.
I agree but......You have never seen my wife cook! :shock:
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Post by Butterbean » Wed Feb 01, 2017 17:35

Bob K wrote:
Butterbean wrote:I can't see why anyone would exceed this temperature.
I agree but......You have never seen my wife cook! :shock:
:lol: :lol: :lol:


In all seriousness, I think there is a lot of hoopla made about nothing when it comes to nitrates/ites

A few months ago I listened to a researcher discuss the negatives about a practice I use at work all the time. He bashed the practice pretty hard and showed pictures of the damage it did to the environment and how we needed to use chemicals instead. After the meeting I talked to him about his research and asked why such shoddy work was done in his research plot and he confessed that he had the equipment operator go out of his way to do a shoddy job and remove more topsoil than would normally be removed to make his research show what he was trying to prove. :roll: I can't help but think a lot of this nitrate research was conducted in this same manner and think its put undue fear in people's minds about cured meats.


Brining info split to: http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.php?p=36295#36295
Last edited by Butterbean on Thu Feb 02, 2017 13:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Bob K » Thu Feb 02, 2017 20:42

Here is a variation on Butterbeans recipe that was equilibrium cured instead of brining.
After curing for 3 weeks in the fridge, light smoke at 130F for 6 hrs, then sous vide at 152F for 6 hrs the following day.

After smoking and cooking cooled for 24 hrs.

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Degreased from sous Vide
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Cut and sliced for sandwiches and Strombolis ends for casseroles
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