The book, 'ham' making and a question on making bacon

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markjass
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The book, 'ham' making and a question on making bacon

Post by markjass » Fri Jul 27, 2012 08:34

A month ago the book `Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages` arrived. Thank goodness for internet shopping and free international postage. None of the bookshops around could get hold of it. Apart from a few typo`s it is fantastic. It has given me much more knowledge than I could have believed possible. A week or so ago I wet cured a 1 kg peace of shoulder pork for 6 days and then cold smoked it for three hours. After that I poached it.
My mother always bought a large piece of ham and poached it for Christmas. To me ham should be poached not baked. While I was doing this I had lots of warm fuzzy memories of being a kid. I know that ham comes from the hind leg, but what the heck. I took some of the `ham` to work it. One of the comments was that it tastes like the ham I dream of. Another person said that they thought it was a denser texture and a bit drier than supermarket ham. Interestingly I when chatting with my mother she lamented that the hams that she buys in England do not taste as good as they use to and they are not as dense as she feels they ought to be. I would have never had a go at making `ham` without the book.

After successfully making shoulder `ham` I have decided to make some bacon. I have slight technical limitations. I have made a cold smoker generator which I have fitted in to a large plastic food box. While smoking some cured sausages I kept a check on the temperature in my smoker. It got no warmer than 28 degrees C. The outside temperature was about 6 degrees (mid winter here). I have adapted my smoker to fit to my gas grill (I can grill food and smoke flavour it). The minimum temperature I can get my grill to stay at is too hot to warm smoke at. I can dry the bacon in the oven at 50 degrees for 1-2 hours. . Then cold smoke it for 3 hours at 18-28 degrees. Should I then bake it in the oven at 55 degrees until the internal temperature reaches 56 degrees C?
ssorllih
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Post by ssorllih » Fri Jul 27, 2012 15:05

This is my approach to adding smoke to my grillImage
Ross- tightwad home cook
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