Curing Bacon

Curing bacon is one of those things I've always wanted to try but never got round to. 

After the pig butchery weekend I decided it was time to take some of that lovely Berkshire pig to the next level and make bacon! 

I chose three joints that I thought would make nice streaky and back bacon. 

 I made things a little harder for myself by making my own cure, I brought the salt, saltpeter and brown sugar to do the mix.

Unfortunately the book I have only has imperial measurements in and my brain wasn't working well that night so I was really struggling to work out how much cure I needed per lb of meat! I got there in the end but metric or cup measures are so much easier! Funny because I'll quite happily use feet and inches for measurements. 

 I made a salt brine to start with to clean the meat.

The Joints only floating in this for ten minutes then dried off on some chopping boards. 

I then got the salt cure ready and weighed out enough for each joint. 

The joints with the cure rubbed all over then get placed in a freezer bag in the fridge. I think it could have happily gone just in the shed to be honest as it was plenty cool enough when I did it. 

After five days these came out, got washed off and then got hung in the shed for a couple of weeks to let the cure penetrate further in.

I tried them with some trepidation.

 I'd always heard that home cured bacon was far too salty and horrible. Not this though! This was lovely, it certainly had a more meaty taste than we've had for a while and there is a fair amount of fat on it as well (as you can see in the picture!) but it fried up a treat!

So far we've eaten one and a half of the bacon joints. They've only been in the fridge for five days, whilst in the bags curing, and the rest of the time just hanging there with no refrigeration, well over a month old now from when they were butchered out of the pig.

We're so dependant on our fridges and freezers I find it amazing to have meat out like this and it still be completely edible after this time. No dates on this meat, just my senses to tell me if it's okay or not.

Skills like this are useful to learn for off grid living and food preservation is one of the key skills to self sufficiency. I think to read about it is fine but it's far better to put it into practice. I'll be doing this again even if I have to buy belly pork to do it with, I've also been reading about lamb bacon....

Anyone else cure their own meat?

Have any recipes you think I should try?

Lamb Stock/Bone Broth

Last night my good friend Kirsty (From rural retreat restoration) came over and we spent the evening canning lamb stock. 

I'd set a number of bones that had been taking up freezer space in a large saucepan along with some carrots and shallots to simmer for a good few hours.

 Then when Kristy turned up we strained it and sterilised the canning jars. Carefully filling them as far as the book said, we used half pints because it's going to be a fairly strong tasting stock.

 Then after messing around with the electric hob and it not getting to temperature we used my little camping stove that did it in no time!

 Then under 10 lb of pressure for 25 minutes they were ready to start cooling down.

Only one can didn't seal so not too bad.
We're determined to practice more with this canner as it hasn't been used to the fullest yet! I've got lots of chicken carcasses in the freezer so I think a more useful chicken stock next week.

What would you do with the lamb stock?

I'm thinking of a broth with pearl barley and chunks of fresh granary bread!

More Meat Canning

This is a post I should have written a few weeks ago, but I didn't get round to it.

I recently came into some very cheap beef (but still from a trustworthy source).

I had to process it fairly quick though as I had a fair amount to get through. 

I decide to eat some, freeze most of it and can some. 

I called Kirsty and she came round to help with the canning (and took some for some eating as well!). 

We tackled it in the usual way, although this time we were doing it at my house and it must be said that my kitchen is nowhere near as good as Kirstys for this type of thing.  In fact I learnt a very important canning lesson on that Monday night - don't start too late.

The meat took a while to prepare, then it took ages for my hob to get the canner boiling to sterilise the jars, then at about 10.30 at night I said to Kirsty to go home as everything was taking so long. The pressure canner took ages to vent the steam, then ages to get up to pressure. I then had to wait the hour and twenty minutes it said in the canning book for it to process and then another half hour for the pressure to reduce enough for me to remove the cans out of the canner. 

I managed to get to bed just after two! 

And for what?

Some jars of dog food by the look of it! 

I have to admit the meat looks less than appetising sat on the shelf  but I'm sure it will taste fine when added to a stew or something. Still interesting to can more meat, I wonder how much we would all have to do if we didn't have freezers as our main way of long term meat storage. 

Anyone else done raw pack meat canning? What does it taste like or shall that be another surprise I've got in store!?

Canning Night

All week I'd been excited about Friday night. 

I wasn't going out, I was going canning! 

A friend, Sarah, and me were going round to Kirsty's   house to try out her new pressure canner that she'd had for Christmas. 

We were going to be adventurous and try canning meat for the first time. We'd decided on a spaghetti sauce with mince beef in it, Kirsty had found a recipe we like the look of a few weeks before hand, so we all brought some ingredients with us and we set to it. 

Things went well, the only slight hitch we had was the fact that the electric hob wouldn't get the canner hot enough, so Kirsty had a brain wave and got her gas BBQ dragged inside. Propped up with a chair this was perfect to keep the cans at 11 pounds of pressure for the 60 minutes needed. We did leave a window open so we didn't die from poisonous gas as well! 

In the end we had ten jars, with only one that failed to seal properly. 

I can see this being a very addictive hobby! 

Anyone else been canning meat or does using a pressure canner put you off?