Homemade Sausage Making

I pick up two picnic hams in couple days one will be prosciutto as seen here http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/2014/08/ ... l?m=1#more the other a country ham. For the country ham I am following the university of kentucky video in wich he says
"8lb salt
2lb brown sugar
black pepper red pepper paprika
10lb will do 100lb
"
doing the math on that its 8% salt 2% sugar without knowing exact amounts of other ingredients its a guess as to exact proportions.

On the above blog for proscuitto jason uses 3.5% salt and in home production of quality meats book it says for dry cured hams 5-6% salt so if I included the cure #2 with the salt would 5% salt(4.7 salt .3 cure #2) be alright to put me in safe zone along with 1.5%% sugar + other desired spices black pepper 2% chilli .5% and paprika 2%? ALso the country ham get wrapped in paper then hung would there be any advantage in also wrapping proscuitto befor putting into the press? I got one of these https://www.kennedywire.com.au/products/prosciutto/ thanks in advance.

Thought it was a nice day for a picnic.
Proscuitto 3.6kg
3.5% salt
.3% cure #2
35g bpepper
Proscuitto salted bagged, and pressed


Country ham
3.9kg
4.7% salt
.3% cure #2
2% bpepper
2% sweet paprika.
Country ham rubbed with cure mix wrapped in paper and ham sock.

Spalla cruda looks great! And I wish I had one of those presses! To answer you earlier question, the paper wrapping won't make much difference , but won't hurt. The paper is used to slow down the drying in the early stages, so that a hard crust won't form preventing moisture evaporation from the inside. Country hams are made from the hind leg and probably three times the weight of your picnic hams, so you drying time will be considerably shorter.

The size is main reason I didn't do the rear leg I don't think it would fit in my chamber.

I have some port which is dregs from a port barrel. It has a lot of wine sediment and oak barrel sediment and stuff in it. It is still fine to drink not sour but just not that great due to sediemnt etc. Is it ok to use this to wash down my two legs before ageing them or am I better off with buying new wine for the job?

Pour the wine with the sediment into glass jar, cover with saran wrap. Place in the fridge for a day. The sediment will settle to the bottom, and you can pour off the clear wine and then use it to wash the ham.

Great idea thanks.

My country style shoulder is in the smoker getting cold smoked. I plan on 3x 8hr sessions thought I would take advantage of a cool day.

Question about sweating it. On the university of kentucky video they sweat it straight after its cured and equalized. This ok or should I take it to 30% loss then let it spend some time at higher temp?

Give us the details. Length of cure, post cure equalization etc. At what temp and how long are you planning to "sweat it"?
What temp are you cold smoking?

Country ham
3.9kg
4.7% salt
2% brown sugar
.3% cure #2
2% bpepper
2% sweet paprika.

35 days cured including equalization at 3c. I plan to cold smoke between 20c-25c 24hrs I got 4hrs smoke time yesterday.
Plan to sweat at 23c 80% humidity going by colour smell. People say it gets a nutty flavour guessing you need to taste. Not sure how to judge when its done.

I remember going down this road back in 2013. LOL
I went two years before I sliced mine up. For all the babysitting and wondering if the mods were OK I don't think I would try it again but that's just me.
Good luck with your journey. Mine tasted just OK.........nothing to special.
Heres some pictures of mine.



After two years of hanging


All cleaned up waiting to get sliced up


The slicing begins


Some of the final product

I followed this video. Pretty good explanation on what to do.

https://youtu.be/qcwu6K4crHc

Looks awesome devo. Yea i will prob be happy to settle for coppa and pancetta but figured I had to try a big bone in cut at least once.

On side note my lamb proscuitto is ready. So will have that and plenty coppa and bresaola over Christmas. Pancetta crudo has been my fav so far.

Yes thats the same one I followed. Did you sweat at high temp right from when cured or did you dry to a % loss first. Thinking I will take it to 20% then use sugna(being a picnic rather then ham there is a fairly big area of exposed meat) then sweat it for final 15% loss at 23c ish..

bluc wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 15, 2020 03:41

Yes thats the same one I followed. Did you sweat at high temp right from when cured or did you dry to a % loss first. Thinking I will take it to 20% then use sugna(being a picnic rather then ham there is a fairly big area of exposed meat) then sweat it for final 15% loss at 23c ish..

Truthfully I really don't remember the steps I took. I get brainfarts sometimes trying to remember