Homemade Bacon using the Equilibrium Immersion cure, Easy and Correct!
Тәжірибелік нұсқаулар және стиль
Several ways exist to cure bacon, this one is the easiest for home producers and makes a fantastic bacon!
Awesome plastic bags shown, waay better than Ziplock, seals without leaks:
First Street Jumbo 2-Gallon... www.amazon.com/dp/B008M1H8HM
I am using the fat-cap from a pork shoulder or "pork butt", to get a piece of meat with close to the fat/meat ratio, and the hard fat, as pork belly. However, you can get pork shoulder for a quarter the price as belly! This is often called "buckboard bacon" as opposed to normal "belly" bacon.
The internet is filled with misinformation on curing meats and making bacon, but there is one source you can trust the numbers absolutely that I am using, and you should too!
There is one single undisputed final source for all government requirements and information on meat cures, nitrite and nitrate amounts, accelerator amounts, etc, and that is the USDA FSIS Processing Inspectors Calculation Handbook, here it is, download a copy to avoid all internet meat myths now:
www.fsis.usda.gov/policy/fsis...
We are making a brine/pickle/immersion-cured ham, page 19, and I am going to further limit myself and treat it like Bacon since I’m frying it, page 27.
And we are going to do some ppm nitrite calculations, of which two non-pumped methods, formula, and example is shown on page 22: Method One- Weight Pickup, fast; and Method Two- Equilibrium method, slower to allow actual Equilibrium to be reached. We’re gonna use Method Two, Equilibrium.
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Here are the numbers from this “Buckboard bacon”:
3200g meat start
1800g water, 1.8 Liters
= 5000g meat+water, to calculate next 3 items.
150g salt (3%)
120g sugar (2.4%)
= 5270g total pickle
1.9 g cure1 per kg meat gives just under 120ppm, I used 9.5g total.
Cross check:
Accounting for fact cure1 is only 6.25% nitrite:
9.5g cure1 x 6.25% nitrite = 0.59375g nitrite in pickle.
**FSIS Handbook nitrite ppm calc:
**
(0.59375g nitrite × 1,000,000) / (5270g meat+pickle) =112.6ppm
So, upon equalization after 2 weeks, each part of the meat and pickle will have 112.6 ppm nitrite. This is the INGOING NITRITE, AND IT IS THE NUMBER THAT IS REGULATED, and what FSIS cares about. Here are the limits:
200 ppm --Immersion or pumped HAMS, which is what my product actually is, a shoulder ham
156ppm - ground meat, sausage
120ppm - bacon, expected to be fried so lower limit to avoid nitrosamine formation.
Analysis
At 112.6 ppm, I am well under the actual 200ppm immersion ham limit.
I am ALSO under my own self-imposed 120ppm bacon limit, which I use because despite not being a belly, I do intend to fry this up to eat, thus subjecting it to the bacon heat environment that drives the lower 120ppm FSIS limit
Cooking times for Pathogen Lethality come from the FSIS Cooking Guideline for Meat and Poultry Products, Revised Appendix A. This is the U.S. guide that gives cooking methods and time/temperature tables needed to ensure germs are all killed. Used by Inspectors and Health departments for all commercial operations. Available here:
www.fsis.usda.gov/guidelines/...
Пікірлер: 8
You directed me here from the curing forums. Thank you ...From your new subscriber!!
@ArtisanCook
11 күн бұрын
Thanks for subbing! I hope this will work for you. Sometimes I just do the dry Equilibrium method, and do all calculations just on meat weight. But I never feel the salt etc gets evenly into meat. So I like to add a bit of water and put it all in a bag, feels like more even distribution. Buckboard bacon is, IMO, even better than belly bacon. You can get good fat, bit still get more meat on a strip. And of course $1.49 a pound for pork butts is better than the $5 I see bellies go for. Feel free to hit me up with questions, and I look forward to you posting some good results on that forum!
@frankpeter6851
11 күн бұрын
@@ArtisanCook I definitely can see myself wanting more of your guidance!
@ArtisanCook
11 күн бұрын
👍
What do you do with the rest of the pork Butt after cutting the fat cap off?
@ArtisanCook
7 күн бұрын
Browse around my channel and look at all the other videos of making sausage ;)
Excellent information, as always. Have you considered using a briner bucket for your bacon?
@ArtisanCook
28 минут бұрын
Yes I have. I am assuming you mean the ones with a submersible lid that goes on to keep meat underwater. I did this before with a 5gal bucket, a plate and weight. I feel the large 2 gal ziplock in a 2gal bucket has numerous advantages. 1. the briner buckets are large, more than I want to fit in a fridge. The 2 gal bag fits inside 2gal bucket, keeps it from splashing or leaking, very compact. 2. The sealed bag keeps splashes down, odors from escaping, meat is always submerged, easy to toss around to reposition meat daily, and NO gas is kept inside brine in solution instead of off-gassing. 3. I like to put enough brine to easily cover all meat without jamming it together which inhibits curing. However, I still want to minimize the brine and not waste space. The bag lets me jostle meat around, cover it all, and still use just 1 or 2 L of brine. Hope that covers my reasoning :) Folks who do more at once may like the briner buckets too.