Wheels' Ham Recipe Question

[Glaven]

Hi Phil

My last two hams (HFW's 3 litres of water to 1 kilo of salt recipe) have been far too salty so I would like to try your recipe below (once I have bought a meat pump!).

If I use a smaller piece of meat (say 1 kilo) would 7 - 10 days in the brine still be OK or would I need to deduct a few days? Also, roughly how many injections do you make per kilo.

Thanks in advance

We like a fairly low salt, fairly sweet cure.
Ham Recipe using Cure #1

Water 1000 gm (ml)
Salt 130 gm
Sugar 110 gm
Cure #1 32 gm

Total 1272 gm

I use half white sugar and half demerara or dark brown sugar.
Flavourings - In the last ham for example, to a 3 litre of water mix we added 10 Juniper Berries, 4 Cloves, 10 Black Pepper Corns, 4 Parsley Stalks, 1 sprig Thyme, 2 Bay Leaves and 6 Coriander seeds.

Method
Find a container that the meat fits in closely, but not tightly. Work out how much brine you need - if the meat is vac packed you can use water to find out! Calculate your brine.

Weigh your ingredients out and after bashing the spices about a bit, weigh them.
Bring the Water (or some of it), Salt, Sugar and spices to a boil and leave to cool.
When cold, weigh and add water to make it up. That is, add up the weight of the water, salt, sugar and spices and make up the brine with water to this amount. Mix in the cure #1.

Weigh your meat and measure out 10% of its weight in brine. Inject this into the meat in lots of different places (That's different places in the meat, not different places around the house or country - although that would be more fun. ) So if, for example, your meat is 3172 gm you would inject 317 gm of brine, in total, into the meat.
Put the meat into your container with the remaining brine. Leave, in the fridge, for 7 - 10 days (longer won't hurt) turning the meat over every day or so - or in my case when I remember.
Rinse in cold water, and cook. I poach mine in a large pan with the water at 75 to 80C until the internal temperature of the meat is 68C. I hold it at this temperature for 1/2 to 1 hour.

This brine should comply with the new legislation.

The brine can be amended to include saltpetre as well as the cure #1 if you are not going to sell the ham (some say that this gives a deeper flavour). You would add 3.8 gm of saltpetre per litre of water to do this.

I hope that this is clear. It's hard to write down the procedure so that it can't be misunderstood, if you have any doubts about any of it just ask.

Phil

[wheels]

Hi Glaven

This cure is really not time dependent. In theory the level of salt in the cure is the same as you want in the meat - so it can't get too salty. I'd stick with 7 to 10 days for this reason - although it will probably be OK in 3.

You inject 10% of whatever the meat weighs - so 1kg - inject 100ml. I can't say how many injections I give - I've never counted - but try and get the cure evenly spread throught the meat - I push the needle to the middle and inject as I withdraw the needle to spread the cure around.

Please be aware that this is a mild cure and won't be to everyone's taste as it has a fairly low salt level.

Good luck - and let us know how you get on.

Phil

[Glaven]

Thanks Phil

I'll be away for a few weeks but I will let you know how I get on towards the end of February.

[Glaven]

Hi Phil

For the trial, I used a 1.5kg piece of shoulder. I mixed the above ingredients (including the saltpeter) to make up 3 litres and put the pork in the fridge for 7 days (as the piece of meat was so small, I didn�t bother to inject it). To my surprise, I still found it to be too salty.

However, I liked the idea of a cure that is not strictly time dependent and so for my forth attempt, I slightly altered the following recipe from Michael Ruhlman�s Charcuterie:

For each litre of water:
Salt���������..77g
Dark brown sugar�.80g
Cure #1�������9.3g
Wheels� flavourings

I mixed up the above to make 3 litres. For this attempt, I used a small, 1.5kg, slice of leg on the bone (didn't inject) and left it in the fridge for 5 days (MR recommends half a day per 450g). I then washed it and put it back in the fridge uncovered for a further day and cooked it using your method.

The result: perfection!

Next time I will try the same method with a much bigger piece of meat together with your injection technique and time-line. Fingers crossed!

[wheels]

Glaven

I am pleased you have found a recipe to your liking.

I am sorry you found my recipe too salty. I'm surprised, as others find it too mild! In fact, I had increased the salt in a curing tutorial I am writing - oops, i guess I'd better rethink that one.

I won't go into the detailed reasons why it was too salty for you, save to say, that this is an injection brine, not an immersion one. It should not be used other than for injection. Also, with a piece of meat of the size you used, it should be used in a smaller quantity than 3 litres - hence the instruction to use a close fitting container. Immersion cures for small pieces of meat have a completely different dynamic to injection cures hence the problem. This is covered in the US meat inspectors handbook (.pdf) on page 22 (which just to confuse is page 27 of the .pdf file).

Likewise although Ruhlman's recipe worked for you, his recipe is for a 4 litre cure on a 5.5kg to 6.75kg piece of meat. You can't just alter it or change the amount of meat, particularly to a very small piece, and know that it will be safe. For example, in your brine the level of Nitrite is potentially double that allowed in the EU in commercial products. The level of salt though could do with increasing slightly to ensure protection during curing (a 10% brine is recommended).

For smaller pieces of meat, I would recommend Oddley's combination cure. It neatly side-steps the problem with smaller pieces of meat detailed above.

It was remiss of me not to mention in the original recipe I posted, that when using saltpetre curing times need to be extended - 10 days minimum is recommended. Personally, I'd leave it out.

Good luck with your next ham.

Phil

[Glaven]

Hi Phil

Many thanks for your reply. I clearly have a lot to learn!

In the meantime, if I were to stick with the immersion method, I wonder if you could tell me how I could alter my brine to make it safe? For example, if I repeated what I did (1.5 - 2kg piece of leg in 3 litres of water), would something like the following be nearer the mark?

For each litre of water:
Salt���������..100g
Dark brown sugar�.80g
Cure #1������..�5g

Thanks in advance

[wheels]

Glaven

You said:

However, I liked the idea of a cure that is not strictly time dependent and so for my forth attempt, I slightly altered the following recipe from Michael Ruhlman�s Charcuterie:

However, the cure you have settled on is very time crucial. You have only got low salt levels in it by the short (for an immersion cure) curing times.

The problem with this is that there are two methods of calculating immersion cures and we cannot tell with any certainty which this would fit into. Whilst you are obviously achieving the salt levels you now want I cannot calculate the nitrite levels with any accuracy.

An easy way around this would be to use a cure similar to the one you used before but to inject the meat with an amount of brine equal to 10% of the meat's weight.

Water 1000 gm
Salt 83 gm
Sugar 80 gm
Cure #1 - 30 gm

This must only be used as a 10% Injection Cure

Cure the size piece you are talking about for 5-7 days in the brine afterwards.

This gives
Salt 0.93%
Sugar 0.67%
Nitrite 148 Parts Per Million

Furthermore the brine concentration of more than 10% offers protection during the curing period.

A further tip is to cook it in a large amount of water (with the usual flavourings). Taste the water after 20 minutes or so, and if it is too salty renew it.

I hope this helps.

Phil

[Glaven]

Hi Phil

I took your advice and cured a small (shoulder) using Oddley�s combination cure. It tasted delicious. Today our local supermarket had leg of pork at 2.5 Euros a kilo and so I bought a 5-kilo piece and cured it using the same method.

The only minor concern that I have centres on injecting the brine. Once it was boned, I was left with around 4 kilos. But injecting the 400 grams of brine into the meat took around half an hour! The main problem was that a lot of the brine kept oozing back out. I did the injecting on a plastic tray and so it wasn�t a problem to do several refills; and I did manage to get most of it in, eventually.

I wonder if injecting is just a bit messy (especially in boned meat) or if I might be doing something wrong?

NB: <a href="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/STAINLESS-MEAT-MARINADE-INJECTOR-SYRINGE-MCINJSS_W0QQitemZ260377031382QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Kitchen_Accessories?hash=item260377031382&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318"> This </a> is the syringe that I used.

[wheels]

I can't think of what the reason may be, unless the tip of the needle was pushing against the meat stopping injection.

If your needle has the hole at the end rather than the sides, you could try injecting as you gradually withdraw the needle.

Phil