<![CDATA[Deli Meats 104 - Basics For Making Fresh Deli Meats]]>

Deli Meats 104 - Basics For Making Fresh Deli Meats

Attend this entry-level class from Meatgistics University by watching the video, reading the article and post any questions you have!

What Is Deli Meat?

Deli meat can be made a few different ways, it can be fresh, which will be a whole muscle cut that has been cooked and then sliced like a roast or some turkey. Or it can be reformed from smaller cuts or even an emulsified product that is then sliced and sold by weight for sandwiches and subs.

Meat Block

Equipment

Process

The first thing you need to do is decide if you want to remove the fat cap before or after you cook this. I like to remove it first when making deli meat. Cut off as much of the fat as you can without cutting too far into the meat. Remove any silver skin or membrane still attached to the meat.

Choose a marinade that includes phosphates of some sort, phosphates allow the meat to retain more moisture through the cooking process and since we aren’t going to cure this we can’t step it up in slow stages so moisture loss can be a major problem. Mix your seasoning into your water, making sure everything is fully dissolved. Inject your meat evenly with as much of the seasoning as the meat will accept. You will know that your meat is fully seasoned when the marinade start shooting back out the injection holes.

Vacuum Sealing

Hold the product overnight (or at least for a few hours) to allow the seasoning to more evenly disperse in the meat. My favorite way to do this is to put the meat in a vacuum bag and seal it. It does not need to be a perfect vacuum, simply remove as much of the air as you can from the bag, this will allow more of the marinade to stay inside the meat and will keep anything that leaks out to stay in contact with the meat, adding to the flavor.

Topical Seasoning

Before you put your meat in the smoker or oven you might want to rub the outside with an additional seasoning. I like to try to choose something that will either compliment the marinade I used or something that will juxtapose it strongly enough to be easily noticebale. Rub as much as you want on the outside of the meat, since we are going to slice this so thin and this seasoning will only stay on the outside it is almost impossible to overseason a topical rub when making deli meat.

Note

The cook schedule will be very simple for this type of meat. If you are using a smoker an important decision is to add smoke or not. When I made this I used our PK-100 Smoker but did not add any additional smoke to it.

Thermal Processing & Smoking

Cooling

Remove from the smoker and cover in tin foil for at least 20 minutes. This will continue the cooking process for a few minutes and let the juice and blood absorb back into the meat. If you slice it too soon the juice will leak right out of the meat.

Slicing

For sandwiches, it is preferable to slice your meat as thin as you can. This will depend on your slicer, trying to slice at the thinnest setting might not give you full pieces, select the lowest setting you can that will still produce full slices.

Wrap up

Making homemade Fresh Deli Meat is really very simple. You have probably made roasts in the oven before and this is the same process, just make sure you are marinating with a seasoning that contains phosphates and you slice it as thin as you can.

Additional Tips

Other Notes

An important note is that once we have sliced it we have exposed the entire area to bacteria, this means we need to treat it like a ground product now and it needs to be refrigerated and consumed within 3-5 days.