The best sausages in Europe were made in years 1950-1990. Raw meat materials were cured first with salt and potassium nitrate or sodium nitrite and then ground, stuffed into casings and sausages were smoked and cooked. Whole meats such as loins, butts, hams and bellies were cured whole and then smoked. Meat processing plant had a curing department where meat trimmings of different grades were mixed with salt and nitrite, labeled and cured. In countries such as Germany, Poland or Russia the majority of processed meats have been of smoked variety.
Vacuum curing ;
CURING – INFORMATION & INSTRUCTIONS FOR DO-IT-YOURSELF
Salting is a great way to preserve meat and to make different types of sausage yourself. In this post, I'll show you everything you need to know about curing. It is about dry curing as well as wet curing and a hybrid solution of the two methods.
What is curing actually?
Wet curing
Production of brine for wet curing
Wet curing with injection (quick curing)
Dry curing
Curing in self-brine / curing in a vacuum
Container / vessel
Vacuum bag
Zip lock bag
Water
Run away
The right salt for curing (nitrite curing salt or sea salt?)
-
WHAT ACTUALLY IS CURING?
Curing is a special form of salting
and helps you to preserve your meat or to prepare it for different
types of sausage.
Since table salt alone is not enough
to preserve meat over a longer period of time AND to maintain
the natural meat color, nitrite curing salt is used for curing.
You can also add spices and herbs
when curing and thus adjust the taste to your liking.
Now let's start with the first
curing method...
WET Curing
First of all, you need a
sufficiently large container for wet curing.
It does not matter whether it is a
saucepan, curing barrel, plastic bowl or glass. It should be acid
resistant
The second step is to make a
pickling liquid (see making brine).
The brine must be completely cooled
down before further processing.
Then you fill your brine in the
vessel of your choice and add your pieces of meat.
IMPORTANT: The meat must be
completely covered by the brine. You can put a suitable board or
something heavy on the meat to weigh it down to make sure it does not
get into the air. The pressure also helps drain the meat.
Seal your jar with a lid, cloth, or
plastic wrap. Now the first part is done. Now it's time to wait...i
know this is a tough time!
The curing time is 2-3 weeks,
depending on the size of the meat. Your to be cured meat should be
stored in a cool place (max. 8 degrees) for the entire duration. A
refrigerator is ideal here.
PRODUCTION OF A BRINE FOR WET PICKLING
Curing Brine
To make the brine you need nitrite
curing salt, sugar, water and spices of your choice.
The sharpness of the brine is
measured in%. A brine of 10% contains 111 grams of nitrite curing
salt per liter of water.
If you're wondering why it's not 100
g, here's the answer:
1 liter of water corresponds to
approx. 1000 g.
If you were to add 100 g (10%) you
would have 1100 g of liquid. But only 100 g of nitrite curing salt in
it.
That would mean that your brine is
now only 9.09%.
So, to get the right percentage,
subtract the target sharpness:
100% - 10% = 90%
This means that the water should
only make up 90% of the total amount.
1000g water = 90% -> 1% of the
brine = 11.11g (1000 g / 90)
To make 10% brine, you need 111g
nitrite curing salt.
Usually the sharpness is between 8%
and 20%. It is stated in most of the recipes
So you need 10% brine for 1 liter
1 liter of water
111 g curing salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
Spices to taste
Bring all ingredients to the boil
once and then let them cool down. The lake is ready.
WET CURING WITH INJECTION (QUICK CURING)
Poekeln – splash ham
With different types of meats
(Kassler or boiled ham), the brine is injected into the meat in
addition to bring the brine inside. The amount of brine injected is
approx. 15-20% of the weight of the meat.
This process has two advantages:
The meat usually loses a lot of
liquid when cooked. The injected brine keeps your products juicy.
The curing time is greatly reduced
depending on the size of the meat, as the curing process is more
even. The curing process can be completed within 3-4 days.
This method is not suitable for the
production of raw sausage or similar types of sausage.
Since the meat is cooked after quick
curing, it is a method in which normal salt can be used instead of
nitrite curing salt. Note, however, that the meat will then not
retain its color and will turn gray.
DRY CURING
Curing – add salt
There are different uses of the
terms in dry curing.
The meat is rubbed with the curing
salt and placed in a container. During the curing period, the salt
removes liquid from the meat. You can let this "own juice"
run off or let the meat in it.
First of all I will explain to you
the method in which really “everything stays dry” (meat juice
runs off). And in the next chapter something about curing in your own
brine.
For 1 kg that would be 40 grams of
nitrite curing salt and 5 grams of sugar. You can also add the spices
of your choice here.
Now rub your meat with the mixture.
The liquid must be able to drain off the meat.
After a day the meat has already
lost some of its liquid and you can pour it again with your mixture.
You repeat this step until you have
used up everything. After the last rub, let your pieces of meat hang
for about 1 day per cm of meat.
Then wash the meat with water and hang
it up again. Once it has dried again, you can continue to air dry or
smoke it.
CURING IN OWN LAKE / CURING IN VACUUM
Poekeln – ham foil
In principle, curing in your own
brine or in a vacuum works in the same way as the dry curing
mentioned above. The difference is that the withdrawn water cannot
run off and the meat remains in its own brine.
It is, so to speak, a dry / wet
curing hybrid.
You make a curing salt mixture again. Approx. 4% of the meat
weight of nitrite curing salt and 0.05% of sugar (optional).
Then rub the meat with it and put it with the rest of the mixture
in a container / jar / vacuum bag / zip-lock bag.
And depending on where you store it, the next steps change...
CONTAINER / VESSEL
Pack the meat in a suitable container on top of each other,
leaving as little space as possible. For example, plastic vessels
with tightly closable lids are suitable.
Important: Your container must be tightly salable and absolutely
clean.
The salt removes moisture from the meat and forms a natural brine
at the bottom; it should be shifted every other day (from bottom to
top).
If after the 3rd day not all pieces of meat are covered with the
brine, you can add some brine.
VACUUM BAG
Poekeln – ham vacuum
The safest method for me personally. Since there is no more oxygen
after vacuuming, there is practically no chance for bacteria. Rub the
meat with the mixture, put everything together in a vacuum bag and
vacuum seal the whole thing.
Then you put the bags in the refrigerator and turn them every 1-2
days.
The curing time changes again depending on the thickness of the
meat. I would roughly plan half a week per cm.
ZIP-LOCK BAG
The process is the same as for the vacuum bag, only this time you have to get the air out of the bag yourself. The easiest way is to hold the zip-lock bag in a pot of water after filling it. The water pressure pushes the air outwards and you can close it.
WATER
In the methods I have presented, the salt is weighed exactly to
the amount of meat and the watering is eliminated.
However, there are recipes in which your meat is packed in as much
salt as possible in order to remove the water more quickly.
As a result, however, the meat becomes over-salted and initially
no longer edible.
In order to “wash” the salt out of the meat, it is watered.
The process is relatively simple... you put the meat in water.
How long depends on the dosage of the salt and is usually included
in the recipes. Unfortunately, in addition to the salt, some of the
spices are also extracted during this process. So if you want to get
around this, you should weigh the salt carefully and use one of the
methods in this post.
BURNING THROUGH
Another process that doesn't always have to be done. Burning
through is especially important if you want to make cold-smoked or
air-dried sausages (e.g. ham)
After your meat has been cured, hang it (or place it on a rack, as
with dry curing) in a cold place. You can also use the refrigerator
for this. But make sure that enough fresh air comes in.
The burn-through time is specified exactly in most recipes. As a
rule of thumb, you can use half the thickness of meat as days.
On the one hand, the salt can spread over the course of time, and
on the other hand, the meat can redden evenly.
THE RIGHT SALT FOR CURING (NITRITE CURING SALT OR SEA SALT?)
Poekeln – Curing/Pink Salt
A question that comes up again and again: Can I cure without
nitrite curing salt? Yes, as you could already read above, it works
in some cases.
Nitrite curing salt is a mix of salt and 0.4-0.5% potassium or
sodium nitrite. It is added to improve shelf life and maintain the
red color of the meat.
You can only cure with nitrite curing salt. If you use normal
salt, it is more like salting.
Your curing method and the further processing of the meat are
decisive for which salt you can use.
If your meat is cooked through after curing, you can also use
normal salt. IMPORTANT: Your meat will lose its reddish color and
turn gray.
If it is raw sausage, then this is only possible with dry curing
without own brine.
No comments:
Post a Comment