Ham: forgot to add cure#1! Recovery, and avoiding this mess up ;)
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Messed up, forgot to add cure#1, fixed without too much workā¦ maybe someone else can learn from my mistake
So I was making 11 lbs of bacon from a pork belly, and 8 lbs of Canadian bacon from a loin. I decided to do an Equilibrium Cure, EC, but do it using 20% of the meat weight in water. That lets me inject 10%, about what meat will hold, and have another 10% to pour into brine bag allowing brine cure to contact entire surface area of meat plus injection for fast 3 or 4 day cure.I boil the water, add salt and sugar and dissolve, then chill down to 35f or so, to let me keep meat cold during injection. I PLANNED on adding the cure#1 just before injecting, so that I didnāt have any nitric oxide offgassing during 3 hrs brine cooling. So I thought to myself there was a risk I would forget to add the cure, and that I should leave the cure jar on work island as a reminder.
But then I went, āNaaahhh, that would be a complete dumbazz move, Iāll never forget !āSo yeah, I injected half litre brine into a full loin, cut in half and bagged with remaining half litre. I squeezed air out of ziplocā¦ wee leak near top. Rebagged it all in another 1 gal ziploc, remembered cure! DOH!
So I had to mix up 200ml of brine with correct salt and sugar for increased EQ volume, plus all the cure#1, inject loin with small squirts and pour rest into bag.
Now I will end up leaving it all for 8 to 10 days to ensure it all equalizes, making me wish I had just dry EC cured it with no liquid.
Next time, I will either just add cure1 to hot brine, or leave jar on island. It was a pretty big mess lol.
On the bright side, the Waltonās yellow injector with source hose works outstandingly!! And my 11 lbs of pork belly bacon I did next went fine too
P.s. 2% salt, 2% sugar for ham. 3% salt, 2% sugar for bacon.
Dave in AZ how ya gonna learn w/o making mistakes. I have done similar DA mistakes. I have an old round face scale and it has two scales on it, metric and the US. I have many lessons learned from not paying attention to the scale. Gone digital now and keep it around to remind me to pay attention to details.
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Messed up, forgot to add cure#1, fixed without too much workā¦ maybe someone else can learn from my mistake
So I was making 11 lbs of bacon from a pork belly, and 8 lbs of Canadian bacon from a loin. I decided to do an Equilibrium Cure, EC, but do it using 20% of the meat weight in water. That lets me inject 10%, about what meat will hold, and have another 10% to pour into brine bag allowing brine cure to contact entire surface area of meat plus injection for fast 3 or 4 day cure.I boil the water, add salt and sugar and dissolve, then chill down to 35f or so, to let me keep meat cold during injection. I PLANNED on adding the cure#1 just before injecting, so that I didnāt have any nitric oxide offgassing during 3 hrs brine cooling. So I thought to myself there was a risk I would forget to add the cure, and that I should leave the cure jar on work island as a reminder.
But then I went, āNaaahhh, that would be a complete dumbazz move, Iāll never forget !āSo yeah, I injected half litre brine into a full loin, cut in half and bagged with remaining half litre. I squeezed air out of ziplocā¦ wee leak near top. Rebagged it all in another 1 gal ziploc, remembered cure! DOH!
So I had to mix up 200ml of brine with correct salt and sugar for increased EQ volume, plus all the cure#1, inject loin with small squirts and pour rest into bag.
Now I will end up leaving it all for 8 to 10 days to ensure it all equalizes, making me wish I had just dry EC cured it with no liquid.
Next time, I will either just add cure1 to hot brine, or leave jar on island. It was a pretty big mess lol.
On the bright side, the Waltonās yellow injector with source hose works outstandingly!! And my 11 lbs of pork belly bacon I did next went fine too
P.s. 2% salt, 2% sugar for ham. 3% salt, 2% sugar for bacon.
Dave in AZ Probably not the worst mistake you could of made and sounds like you recovered well.
Distractions are the worst enemy of any involved process and I would be lying if I said it never happened to me.
As you know, the best thing you can do is have all the ingredients out in front of you so they are kind of a constant reminder that they need to be added.
This is why I have a rule of no adult beverages until all the ingredients have been measured, batched, and added together. -
Messed up, forgot to add cure#1, fixed without too much workā¦ maybe someone else can learn from my mistake
So I was making 11 lbs of bacon from a pork belly, and 8 lbs of Canadian bacon from a loin. I decided to do an Equilibrium Cure, EC, but do it using 20% of the meat weight in water. That lets me inject 10%, about what meat will hold, and have another 10% to pour into brine bag allowing brine cure to contact entire surface area of meat plus injection for fast 3 or 4 day cure.I boil the water, add salt and sugar and dissolve, then chill down to 35f or so, to let me keep meat cold during injection. I PLANNED on adding the cure#1 just before injecting, so that I didnāt have any nitric oxide offgassing during 3 hrs brine cooling. So I thought to myself there was a risk I would forget to add the cure, and that I should leave the cure jar on work island as a reminder.
But then I went, āNaaahhh, that would be a complete dumbazz move, Iāll never forget !āSo yeah, I injected half litre brine into a full loin, cut in half and bagged with remaining half litre. I squeezed air out of ziplocā¦ wee leak near top. Rebagged it all in another 1 gal ziploc, remembered cure! DOH!
So I had to mix up 200ml of brine with correct salt and sugar for increased EQ volume, plus all the cure#1, inject loin with small squirts and pour rest into bag.
Now I will end up leaving it all for 8 to 10 days to ensure it all equalizes, making me wish I had just dry EC cured it with no liquid.
Next time, I will either just add cure1 to hot brine, or leave jar on island. It was a pretty big mess lol.
On the bright side, the Waltonās yellow injector with source hose works outstandingly!! And my 11 lbs of pork belly bacon I did next went fine too
P.s. 2% salt, 2% sugar for ham. 3% salt, 2% sugar for bacon.
Dave in AZ
Am I correct in saying that yaāll inject to shorten the cure time?Lessons learned are the best coming from the school of mistakes! (as long as you learn and remember from them, that is.
)Denny Oās-Smokey Bones
Iād rather be sitāin in a boat and thinking about God,
Than sitān in church and thinking about fishāin! -
Dave in AZ
Am I correct in saying that yaāll inject to shorten the cure time?Lessons learned are the best coming from the school of mistakes! (as long as you learn and remember from them, that is.
)Denny O said in Ham: forgot to add cure#1! Recovery, and avoiding this mess up
:Dave in AZ
Am I correct in saying that yaāll inject to shorten the cure time?Lessons learned are the best coming from the school of mistakes! (as long as you learn and remember from them, that is.
)lol Its that whole ālearningā thing that has proven to be a challenge.
Paul
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Denny O said in Ham: forgot to add cure#1! Recovery, and avoiding this mess up
:Dave in AZ
Am I correct in saying that yaāll inject to shorten the cure time?Lessons learned are the best coming from the school of mistakes! (as long as you learn and remember from them, that is.
)lol Its that whole ālearningā thing that has proven to be a challenge.
processhead How true!
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Dave in AZ
Am I correct in saying that yaāll inject to shorten the cure time?Lessons learned are the best coming from the school of mistakes! (as long as you learn and remember from them, that is.
)Denny O Denny, yes to the cure time. I wanted to smoke all this in 3 or 4 days before I have to go out of town. Also, for a ham like this loin, it really adds to the juiciness vs dry rub cure.
I actually searched Bacon and read like 120 threads yesterday, of which yours were at the top for helpfulness, thx so much for those posts! I donāt have room for a bucket in the fridge, but did like your brining and comments, so went with this less volume in a bag with injection method
This is my first belly bacon, I didnāt want to wait 10 days lol.processhead I wish I could blame a beverage but canātā¦ worse, I forecast the exact error ahead of time, then decided not to even set myself a flag like ingredients on counter
Youāre spot on about distraction! -
Dave in AZ how ya gonna learn w/o making mistakes. I have done similar DA mistakes. I have an old round face scale and it has two scales on it, metric and the US. I have many lessons learned from not paying attention to the scale. Gone digital now and keep it around to remind me to pay attention to details.
YooperDog I dang near did a measurement mistake too, doing this loin and belly at same time, and almost switched the cooled brines lol! I have that round scale issue too heh.
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Denny O Denny, yes to the cure time. I wanted to smoke all this in 3 or 4 days before I have to go out of town. Also, for a ham like this loin, it really adds to the juiciness vs dry rub cure.
I actually searched Bacon and read like 120 threads yesterday, of which yours were at the top for helpfulness, thx so much for those posts! I donāt have room for a bucket in the fridge, but did like your brining and comments, so went with this less volume in a bag with injection method
This is my first belly bacon, I didnāt want to wait 10 days lol.processhead I wish I could blame a beverage but canātā¦ worse, I forecast the exact error ahead of time, then decided not to even set myself a flag like ingredients on counter
Youāre spot on about distraction!Dave in AZ Thanks Dave, I wet brine in a 5 gal bucket because I have a large over under fridge in the basement. Plus when I brine pork bellies I want to smoke at least 5 pieces to get the most bang for my time and fill my vertical smoker.
I learned the wet brine over 15 to pushing 20 years ago from a butcher (Pops) whose father taught him curing and smoking hams and bacon.
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Dave in AZ I canāt think of anything else you could do to recover and while not perfectly ideal Iād imagine you will still be okay. Thanks for sharing, I think sharing the mistakes and recovery ideas we make are at least as important to sharing the successes.
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YooperDog I dang near did a measurement mistake too, doing this loin and belly at same time, and almost switched the cooled brines lol! I have that round scale issue too heh.
Dave in AZ sounds like you recovered well. Thanks for sharing
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