Shagdog
Quintessential Chatty Farker
Homemade Bacon is the gateway meat. I said this to my friend and fellow brethren Dennis (GSXR883) The first time I tried his bacon. I could see immediately that this wasn't going to end well. Delicious, certainly, but not that well for my health of waistline.
Sure enough, in no time I was making bacon 50lbs at a time, bought a grinder and a stuffer and was making and smoking sausages. What's next? Dry curing, of course..
So… Through the brethren I met a couple more guys with the same addiction I have, who also happen to live within 5 minutes of me. ChicagoKP (Kirk) and OIFMarine2003(Chris) We were sitting around one night and Chris brought up wanting to try dry curing. We realized if we all went in on it together, it would defray the costs a bit, and it would be a fun project to work on together. We were off to the races. We immediately began research on what we were doing, how to do, and why it worked etc. I can honestly say, we still don't have all of those answers, but we know enough to be dangerous now..
Here's how it works. The overall objective is to very slowly dry the meat so that it loses around 30% of its moisture. Very slow is necessary because you want the meat to dry uniformly from center to edge. To do this you want an environment with a cool temperature and high humidity. Steady levels of both are preferred.
We started out with finding an old fridge on Craigslist for 40 bucks. A harvest gold beauty. The fridge was immediately named Richard.
First thing we needed was to figure out how we were going to control the temp and humidity levels. After some research, we settled on these controllers.
https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-All-...pID=41qoIapm7VL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
https://www.amazon.com/AGPtek%C2%AE-WH8040-Digital-Humidity-Controller/dp/B009VXXBCQ/ref=pd_sim_328_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=B5HQVN5S4G2A0ZAS9RDW
To do the actual humidifying, you need an ultrasonic humidifier. It puts out cool (not heated) air. We decided on this one for its increased capacity (less opening the fridge to refill) Seemed like a solid plan, but honestly, it’s a small box. The humidifier doesn't run that much. In a month, Chris refilled it once and it wasn't empty.
Here's what we bought –
301 Moved Permanently
Now to the nitty gritty.
The controllers work like this – There's a sensor for the temp controller I put in the fridge. I plug the fridge in to the temp controller. I tell the temperature controller I want my temp to be between 44 and 46 degrees. When the fridge gets above 46 degrees, the controller gives power to the fridge (basically plugging it in) until it hits 44 degrees. Once there, the controller takes away power to the fridge (Unplugs it). Pretty simple. Likewise, I plug a humidifier into the Humidity controller. I tell the Humidity controller I want a range of between 65-70% humidity. When the humidity dips below 65, the controller gives power to the humidifier until reaches 70%, then it shuts of the power.
Our controllers were not plug and play, so some wiring was needed. I kind of geek out on this type of stuff, and decided I would make our components into a plug and play type configuration. The box has one power source coming in, and supplies power to both controllers, the humidifier and fridge.
I came up with a wiring diagram –
Built a box from some scraps of hardwood and mocked it all together
Put a couple coats of finish on it and wired it up
Sliding top for access
It Works!
While I was doing this, Chris was working on a rail system to hang out meat from. He JB welded aluminum tubing to both sides of Richard and leveled them out. This proved to be quite a challenge, but he figured out a great solution to keep them in place while the JB Weld dried. The wood kept the side bars tight to the sides of the fridge
all set
Put the humidifier in place, drilled holes to run sensors into the fridge and plugs out of the fridge.
We let it run a few days to make sure everything was as it should be. In the mean time, I made some Lonzino. The cut is a whole pork loin. Here is the recipe I used –
http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/2008/06/lonzino.html
The fennel and Juniper seemed a little high, so I cut those %s back just a smidge, but otherwise that is what I used.
After a 14 day cure, I put my loin in Richard. We weighed each one and tagged them so we could keep track of their progress. 30 % weight loss is your target area.
A week later, Chris made some coppa. He stuck his pork in Richard too.
Now we have a small hiccup. Maybe we shouldn't have cared or bothered, but we did. With all this wet meat inside Richard, the humidity level was around 92%. Is that an issue? I dunno. All we knew is people on the "internet" were saying 70% range. Since Richard was in the basement, he was staying cool enough that he never really cycled on much. Without his cycling, the air was staying stagnant and humid. Chris came up with a brilliant solution for this.
A small heat lamp on a dimmer. He turned it down to its lowest setter and put it in Richard. Now the fridge turns on for a couple minutes every hour. Just enough to cycle the air and pull out a little of the humidity. Richard immediately jumped back in his groove
About 2 weeks later, we had a run in with some mold. They say white mold is good, green bad, black really bad. The lonzino had mostly white, but there were a few other colors in there to, so I took it all off.. Just a little rag damped with vinegar did the trick. No mold came back after I wiped it off once
Fast forward a couple weeks. Chris texts me that the Lonzino is at 30% and 40% weight loss (it hasn't even been a month yet!) I come over and check em out… Yep time to slice. The 40% is definitely too long/dry, but most of it is still really farking good if shaved thin.
Lonzino-
Coppa –
It is really delicious. I can't wait to try some more!
Hopefully this helps lead a few more victims down the path to home cured meats, bigger pants, and maybe gout. A big thanks to Bluetang, who put up with my questions as were getting going on this. Thanks for lookin'
Sure enough, in no time I was making bacon 50lbs at a time, bought a grinder and a stuffer and was making and smoking sausages. What's next? Dry curing, of course..
So… Through the brethren I met a couple more guys with the same addiction I have, who also happen to live within 5 minutes of me. ChicagoKP (Kirk) and OIFMarine2003(Chris) We were sitting around one night and Chris brought up wanting to try dry curing. We realized if we all went in on it together, it would defray the costs a bit, and it would be a fun project to work on together. We were off to the races. We immediately began research on what we were doing, how to do, and why it worked etc. I can honestly say, we still don't have all of those answers, but we know enough to be dangerous now..
Here's how it works. The overall objective is to very slowly dry the meat so that it loses around 30% of its moisture. Very slow is necessary because you want the meat to dry uniformly from center to edge. To do this you want an environment with a cool temperature and high humidity. Steady levels of both are preferred.
We started out with finding an old fridge on Craigslist for 40 bucks. A harvest gold beauty. The fridge was immediately named Richard.
First thing we needed was to figure out how we were going to control the temp and humidity levels. After some research, we settled on these controllers.
https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-All-...pID=41qoIapm7VL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
https://www.amazon.com/AGPtek%C2%AE-WH8040-Digital-Humidity-Controller/dp/B009VXXBCQ/ref=pd_sim_328_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=B5HQVN5S4G2A0ZAS9RDW
To do the actual humidifying, you need an ultrasonic humidifier. It puts out cool (not heated) air. We decided on this one for its increased capacity (less opening the fridge to refill) Seemed like a solid plan, but honestly, it’s a small box. The humidifier doesn't run that much. In a month, Chris refilled it once and it wasn't empty.
Here's what we bought –
301 Moved Permanently
Now to the nitty gritty.
The controllers work like this – There's a sensor for the temp controller I put in the fridge. I plug the fridge in to the temp controller. I tell the temperature controller I want my temp to be between 44 and 46 degrees. When the fridge gets above 46 degrees, the controller gives power to the fridge (basically plugging it in) until it hits 44 degrees. Once there, the controller takes away power to the fridge (Unplugs it). Pretty simple. Likewise, I plug a humidifier into the Humidity controller. I tell the Humidity controller I want a range of between 65-70% humidity. When the humidity dips below 65, the controller gives power to the humidifier until reaches 70%, then it shuts of the power.
Our controllers were not plug and play, so some wiring was needed. I kind of geek out on this type of stuff, and decided I would make our components into a plug and play type configuration. The box has one power source coming in, and supplies power to both controllers, the humidifier and fridge.
I came up with a wiring diagram –
Built a box from some scraps of hardwood and mocked it all together
Put a couple coats of finish on it and wired it up
Sliding top for access
It Works!
While I was doing this, Chris was working on a rail system to hang out meat from. He JB welded aluminum tubing to both sides of Richard and leveled them out. This proved to be quite a challenge, but he figured out a great solution to keep them in place while the JB Weld dried. The wood kept the side bars tight to the sides of the fridge
all set
Put the humidifier in place, drilled holes to run sensors into the fridge and plugs out of the fridge.
We let it run a few days to make sure everything was as it should be. In the mean time, I made some Lonzino. The cut is a whole pork loin. Here is the recipe I used –
http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/2008/06/lonzino.html
The fennel and Juniper seemed a little high, so I cut those %s back just a smidge, but otherwise that is what I used.
After a 14 day cure, I put my loin in Richard. We weighed each one and tagged them so we could keep track of their progress. 30 % weight loss is your target area.
A week later, Chris made some coppa. He stuck his pork in Richard too.
Now we have a small hiccup. Maybe we shouldn't have cared or bothered, but we did. With all this wet meat inside Richard, the humidity level was around 92%. Is that an issue? I dunno. All we knew is people on the "internet" were saying 70% range. Since Richard was in the basement, he was staying cool enough that he never really cycled on much. Without his cycling, the air was staying stagnant and humid. Chris came up with a brilliant solution for this.
A small heat lamp on a dimmer. He turned it down to its lowest setter and put it in Richard. Now the fridge turns on for a couple minutes every hour. Just enough to cycle the air and pull out a little of the humidity. Richard immediately jumped back in his groove
About 2 weeks later, we had a run in with some mold. They say white mold is good, green bad, black really bad. The lonzino had mostly white, but there were a few other colors in there to, so I took it all off.. Just a little rag damped with vinegar did the trick. No mold came back after I wiped it off once
Fast forward a couple weeks. Chris texts me that the Lonzino is at 30% and 40% weight loss (it hasn't even been a month yet!) I come over and check em out… Yep time to slice. The 40% is definitely too long/dry, but most of it is still really farking good if shaved thin.
Lonzino-
Coppa –
It is really delicious. I can't wait to try some more!
Hopefully this helps lead a few more victims down the path to home cured meats, bigger pants, and maybe gout. A big thanks to Bluetang, who put up with my questions as were getting going on this. Thanks for lookin'
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