Canadian Bacon: the Final Chapter

Yesterday morning, the Canadian bacon was to go into the smoker.  But before that I had to let the smoker heat up to 225F and in the meantime, let the pieces of cured loin rest at room temperature for an hour.

When the hour was up, into the smoker my little babies went.  I had water in the pan of the smoker and left the vents open half way.  After closing the smoker I turned on the smoke and the wood I used was maple.  I didn't touch the temperature control.

My plan was to apply 2 hours of maple smoke but my little chunks of loin reached an internal temperature of 145F before the smoke session completed.  So, I pulled them out. From all that I am reading, cured pork loin is best if you let it go between 140F and 150F, beyond that, it will dry out because it is so lean.  One of the gentlemen that helped me on the Bradley Smoker Forum pulls his at 140F.

 

They came out really pretty, the color made you want to eat them!  I tented them with fold and let them cool down enough to handle them so I would wrap them and let them cool down completely before taking a sample, it wasn't easy to wait!  Later in the evening we all took a taste test and were very pleased with the results.  Cannot wait to make another one and I'm already eyeballing another recipe but this time I want to work with entire loin.

Canadian Bacon Update

Well, 9 days into curing I started thinking and worrying about my Canadian bacon's 21 day cure.  I wasn't worried about the safety of it but more concerned about the how salty it would end up.  So, I posted my concerns on the Bradley Smoker Forum and got some great guidance.

Some of the forum members were not quite sure about the 21 day cure either so it was nice to know I wasn't completely crazy.  One member told me to slice into the meat to see if it cured all the way through.  What he said was that if it was a nice pink color all the way through, it was completely cured to the core.  As you can see it was.

 

Now I knew that it had cured safely, I could rinse off the pieces of loin under cold water.  This washed off any extra cure and maple syrup.

The other quality I was to check for was its saltiness.  By taking a bit off and cooking it, I could taste the level of salt.  I took off three bits for each family member to taste and get their opinion.  Don't those pieces look a lot like regular pork belly bacon?  Our meat processor left a fat-laden strip of meat along the length of the loin which I'm not sure is usually on a pork loin but I don't care because I'm a big fan of pork fat!

Fried up these three pieces and they really tasted GOOD but were a bit saltier than we like.

 

To draw out a little of the salt, I soaked the loins for an hour in 3 gallons of cold water.

After the soaking, I dried them off and tied them with string to keep them together.  They will dry overnight, uncovered in the fridge on a rack.  Tomorrow they go into the smoker. Stay tuned!

Home-Cured Easter Ham: Part 2

Tomorrow is the big day so today the Easter ham was removed from the curing brine and rinsed with cold water.  It's beautifully cured with a nice pink tone and is much firmer to the touch than an uncured piece of pork.

 

After thoroughly rinsing the brine from the ham, it was dried off using a paper towel and then placed in the  fridge on a roasting pan to dry.  The recipe I'm following recommends letting it dry in the fridge for 12-24 hours.  My will rest for the entire 24 hours.

Tomorrow morning it will be going into my little smoker bright and early so it won't be late for Easter dinner.

Home-Cured Easter Ham: Part I

My ham and its detached hock defrosted so the prepping and brining have begun.  This is only the fourth ham that I ever cured and smoked on my own.  I am still very much working my way through the apprentice level of ham crafting but I want to encourage you to try one sometime, too.  

On the first three hams, I used the method described by Rytek Kutas in his book Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing...a wonderful must-have book.  This recipe requires dextrose amongst its ingredients which I normally keep on hand and for some reason I forgot to replenish my supply.  Luckily my friend pointed me in the direction of this recipe, and it doesn't require dextrose of which I have none. The recipe which I will be doing is in two parts since the brining time is for a week:

American-style Brown-Sugar-Glazed Holiday Ham

The Brine (this week):

• 1 gallon/4 liters water
• 1 ½ cups/350 grams kosher salt
• 2 packed cups/360 grams dark brown sugar
• 1 ½ ounces/42 grams pink salt (8 teaspoons)
• One 12- to 15-pound/5.5 to 6.75-kilogram fresh ham, skin and aitch-bone removed

The Glaze (next week when I smoke/cook it):

• 1 ½ packed cups/270 grams dark brown sugar
• ¾ cup/185 milliliters Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon/20 grams minced garlic

Since it came from the butcher with the skin removed, I trimmed the excess fat from my fresh pork ham and ham hock.  1/4 inch of outer fat was left on.

 

The brine was made with chilled water and stirred until all the ingredients dissolved.

Though the recipe that I provided the link to does not mention injecting cure into the ham, I did it and recommend that you do it, too.  There is a lot of meat between the outside of the ham and the bone so I inject straight in from the outside to the bone just to make sure that cure in getting inside meat. I set the ham in a non-reactive rimmed container and inject about 2 cup of the brine into it.  What ever drains out of the ham is caught in the container and you can add it to the brining container along with the ham.

Now I like to use ZipLoc 2 gallon reseal-able bags to brine my hams but you can use any non-reactive bucket or container.  Just make sure you put the bag in another container in case of leaks.  Brining time is 6 to 8 days, the recipe recommends "half a day per pound).  Mine will be in for 7 days.

Next week I will be smoking, glazing and cooking my ham.  Looking forward to showing you he technique and the results.

A Little Smoked Trout

While my daughter and I were at the butcher's getting our bacon sliced she noticed these lovely smoked trout behind the glass counter. I have to admit, they were really pretty to look at, golden-bronze in color and heads on still, all neatly wrapped in cellophane plastic. The only thing unattractive was the price tag: $7.49 a piece!! At most they were 14 inches long.

My daughter was looking at the trout intently then looked up at me and said "We should make some of those." God bless her! She's gone beyond asking me to actually buy stuff like that and knows that I will say "yes" to attempting to making some ourselves. She's no dummy, she knows the project would include a fishing trip, too!

We came back with 10 rather small rainbow trout and set aside the 5 largest ones for our first try at smoking trout. The Smoked Trout recipe we used was from the Bradley Recipe Site which was designed for large trout filets. Since we were smoking a small amount of whole trout we did half the amount of brine we prepared and shortened the brine time a bit. Here's what you'll need:

Ingredients

• up to 2 1/2 pounds of whole, cleaned trout
• 2 1/2 cups cold water
• 1/2 kosher salt
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup cognac
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 1/2 of small sweet onion chopped
• 1 clove of garlic minced

Combine all the ingredients, mix until salt and sugar is completely dissolved. Put your trout in a ziploc bag or other non-reactive container. Pour the prepared brine over the trout making sure the fish is fully submerged. Place in the refrigerator for 10 hours turning a few times.

After 10 hours remove the fish and rinse under cold water and pat dry with a paper towel. With either tooth picks or pieces of wooden skewers to open the cavities of the fish for good air and smoke exposure. Place on a pan or cookie sheet and return to the frig for 2 hours to air dry.

Place your trout in a 135F preheated smoker. With the vent half open and water in the pan, smoke with 2 hours of cherry smoke. Alder and apple will work equally well.

After the 2 hours of smoking, increase the smoker temperature to 150F and continue cooking the trout until they reach an internal temperature of 140F. It took a cook time of approximately 6 hours of smoking and cooking to reach this temperature with our trout.

After the trout are complete, let them rest in the frig for 24 hours before eating them. It allows the flavors, especially the smoke flavor to marry and mellow. Enjoy!

Our First Smoked Salmon

Our friend has been visiting us this week and he is a new Bradley owner. Thinking that I know what I'm doing ( yeah, right! ), he wanted to learn to smoke salmon. I have never smoked salmon before but what a great opportunity to try it out with a fellow Bradley Buddy!

We basically followed Kummock's method but we modified the brine a little.
For our 5 pounds of salmon we used this:

Brine
1 quart water
1 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup pickling salt
1/2 pound of brown sugar
2 TBS pickling spice

We used 3 pounds of Coho (silver) salmon and 2 pounds of Sockeye (red) salmon. The skin-on fillets were 1" thick. We made sure that they were free of bones.

We marinaded this in the fridge for 8 hours turning about every two hours. It looks nice sitting there in the Pyrex pan but I ending up putting it in a 2 gallon ziploc bag when I saw how full the pan got.

After marinading, we reaching the glazing stage. The salmon pieces were placed on smoking racks and placed in the fridge for 15 hours. I didn't know what exactly they should look like when the pellicle was formed but now I understand. They came out very glossy but not wet just sticky to the touch.

We smoked them using 2 1/2 hours of alder.

2 hours at 100F
3 hours at 140F
1 hour at 175F

They came out fantastic! The sockeye's were richer because of their higher oil content but they were both delicious. My Bradley Smoker never ceases to amaze me. I could not have imagined making a smoked salmon on my own of such high quality.

Jerky Times Three

I had not done a batch of jerky for a while so I thought I'd try some new recipes that I had found. Usually I like using the jerky kits by High Mountain but I wanted to try something new and truly homemade.

My big worry with making homemade jerky is that it's going to turn out too salty. So, when I tried these recipes I alimented any added salt to the soy sauce-based recipes. I just do not see how they could use any more salt.

A 1/2 teaspoon of liquid smoke could be added to any of these recipes. I cooked mine in a smoker so I did not add any to mine. Venison or elk could be used instead of beef, too.

Teriyaki Jerky
1 cup Yoshida's cooking sauce
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground blk pepper
2 pounds of beef strips

Grandpa's Jerky
1 1/2 cup soy sauce
2 TB brown sugar
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp freshly ground blk pepper
2 pounds of beef strips

Spicy Jerky
1 cup soy sauce
2 tsp hot pepper flakes
1 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp minced fresh garlic
3 TB real maple syrup
2 pounds of beef strips

The steps are the same for each of these recipes:

You can use just about any cut of lean meat. Slice it about 1/4" thick preferably with the grain. It's easier to control your slicing if the meat is still partially frozen. Trim off any excess fat.

Make the marinade and let it rest for 20 minutes before add the meat. This give the ingredients a chance to marry. Add the meat strips to a ziploc bag then pour in the marinade. Close the bag with as little air left behind as possible. Mix the meat with the marinade and place in the fridge for 2 to 12 hours.

After marinading, I did mine at about 11 hours, place them on jerky racks lightly sprayed with Pam.

I placed mine in a preheated smoker using no water and the top vent open all the way. After the smoker's temperature recovered to 150F the smoke was applied for 3 hours. I used Bradley's Special Blend but use any type of wood that you like. I allowed the smoker to reach a temperature of about 170F and maintained it there until the meat was done.

Jerky should cook to an internal temperature of 160F to be safe. I've never tried sticking it with a thermometer though. My test is that it is flexible but there is no give when I pinch it between my fingers.

Since there is no cure used in this recipe, I store it in a ziploc bag in my freezer. Jerky has practically zero water content so it does not really freeze solid and is pretty much ready to eat right out of the freezer without having to defrost it.