Dry-Curing & Aging Prosciutto-Style Tenderloins

[iratherfly]

DeejayDebi's recipe or mine?

[reg]

Thought I might post this info after reading all the posts in this thread. For brine curing I like to use a solution of 3% salt, that would include the weight of the protein and the weight of the water. To calculate lets say you were going to brine cure 5lbs of loin for instance. Put the loins into your container (five gallon bucket) and add water to cover by three inches, you will need aprox 3 gals of water. Water weighs 8.33lbs so 3 gals weighs about 25lbs so you now have this 25lbs plus the 5lbs of loin that contains aprox 3 lbs of water so in all reality you have 28lbs water. Multiply the 28lbs of water by the .03% salt you want and you end up with .84lbs of salt or 13.5oz. You can offset the salt content by equal amounts of sweetner or less using the same formula as above.

Now if we are going to calculate the amount of nitrite we would look at a sample that would look like this. Guidelines suggest 200PPM for immersion cured meats and we know that we have a total brine weight of 25lbs plus the combined weight of the salt and sugars to be a total of 26.68lbs plus the weight of the protein so you have the total of 31.68lbs. So if you multiply 200ppm x 31.68 over 1,000,000 you will end up with .oo6 pure nitrate.

We do know from the lable that the blend contains 6.25% nitrite and we know we need .006 pure nitrite we have a situation like this .006/.0625=.096lbs curing mix. Because that is such a small amount we convert to grams. 16oz in a lb and 28g in an oz so the formula goes like this .096x16x28g=43g curing mix

Pretty simple stuff eh. It sounds complicated but it really isn't and once you get use to it you know for sure you have the exact amounts of salt and cure in your brine

Hope this helps some. BTW there is another great book out there by Paul Bertolli called Cooking by Hand, lot of great info

Reg

[DeejayDebi]

Sounds like a winner Reg

[iratherfly]

Actually Debi, (and reg and everyone else on this thread) I've been meaning to ask you a couple of questions about this:

I tried the formula of 1tbs Morton TenderQuick + 1tbs brown sugar per 1 lb. meat in dry curing for 24 hours, then washing it off and spicing the meat with pepper, pimenton and Sherry (should I have added more salt because I washed off the cure?) I wrapped it with cheesecloth and tightened with a thread. I then hung in the cheese cave for 3-6 weeks.
My "saucisson" ended up dry at the ends and way too moist/soft in the center. The dry ends were eatable but they seemed not as salty as I have expected and I could feel the sugar too much. Most of the sausage was covered with some white mold (uneven density) and I found blue-ish green mold in the moist creases of the meat. It smelled very yeasty-sweet. I was too afraid to eat it beyond the dry, un-moldy edges

I realize some of this mold came from cheese that was in the cave (yeast and geo, but not the blue thing, there was nothing blue in that cave for months) but I really don't know how to measure its safety.

Should I just double the salt? Maybe keep the salt as is but don't wash it off after the 24 hours and just blot it with paper towel? Maybe the sugar messed it up?  I also know from cheese that aging anything in cheesecloth would rind it with bacteria. I personally hate cheese cloth (it sticks to the meat and leaves lint when you try taking it off a few weeks later) and would prever some natural rind or casing.

What do you think about actually spraying some cheese geo/yeast/pc onto the meat to coat it with intentional bacteria so that it prevents competing bacteria from growing? I know that some sausages are coated with geo or PC.  I also assume that it can give it some interesting characteristics in flavor/aroma as well as controlled accelerated breakdown of protein/fat (Proteolysis/lipolysis). I know this is a totally different style of dry sausage; I am just trying to get to a consistently good one. Right now I seem to have 50% success and 50% throwaway batches from reasons I cannot understand.

[DeejayDebi]

I generally wrap loins in a large casing to prevent cross contamination from the cheeses. Luckily for me I close off a room in the winter and just hang it all in there then I don't really have to worry.

I don't use tender quick. If I am reading this right sound like you had green mold in the crevases. That happens sometimes and I just cut it off. The white mold (similar to geo) on the surface of the sausages can sometimes be a blessing - it helps ferment the sausage like a dry aged pepperoni (my favorite).  I hesitate to offer any advice without a full desclosure of the make as a simple change to have devastating effects.

My first thought is that for a dry aged meat 24 hours is not much time for the salt to extract the internal fluids. You might also try adding a presssing weight of some sort durig that time to help squeze out the fliuds.

[iratherfly]

Hmmm... they did come out rather dry in previous batches that just used more salt. In fact I got them quite dry in as little as 12 hours!

What kind of casing do you use? Does it give it enough air like a cheesecloth? Is there a way to develop rind like with cheese brining?

I have had mold that was red white and blue. I thought of making a flag out of it. I think the red was just white mold that was affected by the strong pimenton (Spanish sweet paprika) color. What scared me though was the smell of yeast and the fact that after weeks of hanging the center was still so soft.

So you are suggesting to cure this away from the cheese then? and you aren't sure if cheese cultures can work on it? This is fascinating stuff

[reg]

iratherfly. Likely you did not let the product cure enough, can't see that 24hrs would be nearly enough time to cure through to the center. As for salt content we always go by weight of the protein then decide the weight of the salt needed. 5lbs of product will need about 4 oz of salt to do the job correctly

As far as casings go for pork tenderloins you could get away using hog middles, they are about 2" in diameter and I do recommend a casing. The easiest way to stuff is to get a plastic tube about that size then put the casing over the tube, tie the one end then push the protein tightly into the casing then tie off the end. Also make sure you pick all the air holes with a pin.

In the proper enviroment (55* with about 70% humidity) I would say it should take aprox 30 days to cure. If you weigh the sausage and tag it will be ready for consumption after it has lost 35% of the original weight. You don't want a rind to develop on your sausage, that will create case hardening similar to what you just went through, hard exterior with a soft interior that may start to spoil

Yes cure away from your cheeses. If you want to purchase the proper mold culture Butcher and Packer has a product called RM600, pretty sure that is the right number but you can check on their website

Reg

[iratherfly]

Thanks for the great tips Reg!

These tenderloins were rather thin, maybe the shape of a 1"-1.5" diameter log, maybe 13" long.  By the time 24 hours past, the brining bag was filled up with blood and the loins were slim and stiff and rather dry from the osmosis. It seemed to me that they were quite cured. I used the same method before on tenderloins and they came out really dry and salty after 12 hours only - I just used more salt then. That's what I got with the original Jacques Pepin recipe and I needed to fix that.  Debi had suggested that I follow the prescribed measurement on the Morton TenderQuick package: 1tb salt per 1lb meat. I weighed the meat and added quantities accordingly. Worth mentioning that this is dry curing. Also, I am using TenderQuick and not Prague powder.  I am trying to understand why this worked in previous times and not now. My assumptions are that:
1. maybe I shouldn't have washed it after curing? or that if I washed the cure off the surface, I should have at least put some salt on it with the spices?
2. I added too much sugar and it reduced acidity to the point where it was hospitable to pathogens, instead of working like a preserver.

What do you think?

As for casing - I am not sure how they work. I am trying to dry the meat. Will a casing that can trap air bubbles facilitate drying the meat?  I like the speed of drying with proper salting and cheese cloth, I just don't like the pathogens/mold that cheesecloth bring and the lint it leaves behind.  What about putting a net for a good firm shape and not using casing at all? Maybe coating with some oil to prevent it from drying too quickly?

My temp and humidity seems right. I got you loud and clear about not doing this with the cheese though. I will look into the RM600.

[reg]

OK lets look at this with clear minds. We are going to cure using our mix whether it be TQ or PP#2 with the proper amount of salt. We apply our curing mix to the tenderloins, bag and refrigerate until the tenders are firm ALL the way through. I have never cured tenders only loins but they must have a firm feel all the way through. We take the tenders out of the bag and rinse under cool water just a bit then we pat dry. NO additional salt is required, the product has already taken up the amount needed to finish the drying process. We now put our finish spice mixture on the tenders (no salt) and we are going to pack them into our casing using the process I had mentioned in a previous post. When I say to stuff them I mean to push them in and make a cylinder that is all the same diameter that way they will dry evenly. If you have to twist them a few times to make the cylinder then that is what we need to do, nice and even all the way. The 13" tender that you started with will be about 9" long at this point. Any air holes you see should be pricked with a pin otherwise you are leaving a void where bacteria and molds could begin to form, not what we want

I have found over the years that natural casings are the best way to go. They only allow so much moisture to escape at a time allowing the tenders to cure evenly without case hardening. This is the one most critical stage when dry curing either whole muscle cuts or ground product. The density of the meat has to always be the same constant inside and out. Fi you find that you don't have enough moisture in the cabinet spray clean water on the walls and that will do the job for you. After they have lost 35% of their original weight they are ready to eat or they can be vac packed and frozen until needed. This way your drying area is free for other use. To remove the casing just run warm tap water over the sausage and peel away the casing, done deal. Easy eh

Experience is what we need to become good at it, just like cheese making

[iratherfly]

Thanks for clearing this up for me!  I think you have answered all of my questions since I began making this.  I just need to figure out how much salt and sugar per lb is right and how firm is firm. I think it reaches the mazimum in 24 hours. Will it be overly salty if I do longer?

Your post looks a lot like the tips I give people about cheesemaking. Way more confidence there...  Thank you!!!

Now I will go look for casings! The whole project sounds easy!

[DeejayDebi]

Keep in mind Tender quick is mostly salt. Sounds like you are using those tiny little tenderloin about the diameter of a silver dollar that come in a cryopac in a 10% brine solution. I'm think around here someone like Hormel or some other big company makes them.

I use the big whole loins about 3 feet long about 4 to 5 inches in diameter. If you can't find casings locally there a nice young couple in NH I buy a lot of supplies from:

http://www.sausagesource.com/catalog/7.html

they usually get here in a few days.

[iratherfly]

Oh no Debi, the size is right but these are organic acorn-fed pork from Upstate New York which I get from one of NYC's top butchers.  I don't buy that pre-packaged stuff.

Thanks for the links. I spoke to another friend of mine which is a French butcher and he said to me "I can give you casings, but why on earth do you want them? Just hang these in high air-circulation room and eat them in 2-3 weeks; no casings, no cheesecloth. Interesting.

[reg]

" Just hang these in high air-circulation room and eat them in 2-3 weeks; no casings, no cheesecloth. Interesting."

iratherfly, I guess the best thing to do would be to try that method and see how it turns out.

DJD, like yourself I use whole loins for my curing projects and one of my favourites is the coppa recipe out of Ruhlmans book but using the whole muscle instead of the pieces called for in the book.

Need to find and learn about a recipe for Black Forest Ham that apparently uses centre cut loin meat that is cured and smoked intermittently over a week or two then hung to dry for 60-90 days. They say this is the true Black Forest Ham and not even close to the semi dry hams we see in the stores. Have you ever heard of that ?

Reg

[DeejayDebi]

Glad to hear you don't get those nasty little tenderloins from the supermarket! As far as open air drying it will work if you have a dedicated clean room area or cave to hang them free from dirt dust etc. for 3 weeks. Just hang them on a hook and watch. They will be much more likely however to pickup bacteria, yeast and molds from you cheeses. If you wrap them this will stay on the casing and not on the sausage. Butchters don't make cheese and don't have the same cross contamination problems we do. That is the difference.

Reg -

I experimented with making Black Forrest ham about a year or two ago. I think I posted it here somewhere. I thought it was on my website or forum but I couldn't find it. Might have been before my computer crashed. I will ty to find it.

[FRANCOIS]

I tried dry curing some beef a few months back.  I couldn't bring myself to eat it, it smelled aweful.  Our day time temps were about 55 and night time was about 45.  I gave it a salt/sugar/spice rub in the fridge for a week before hanging.  I won't try it again unless I get a dedicated fridge.

I used to live in the Black Forest and I can attest that real ham, or schinken, is nothing like what they pass for it in the US.  It is fantastically wonderful.  Back before Sept 11 I took a trip over to visit some friends and brought back a suitcase full of hams, that's how much I love them.  The best schinken comes from small farmsteads where they have cheese production.  They feed the whey to the pigs and butcher right there on the farm.  The breed of pig is different too, they look kind of like wild boar, very scruffy. The ham is heavily smoked, but I'm not sure what their regime is or what wood they use.

The farm I used to buy it from is in the high forest and the farmer said it was essential that the pigs are completely relaxed before slaughter, apparently any adreneline will put the meat off.  When that happens it doesn't get used for schinken, but a lesser grade.  Only the best loins go for schinken.  Just writing this is making me drool.

They also made fresh, raw milk cheeses on the farm.  Some where on a disk I have photos of the cheese shop in the bottom of their barn.  They had a cheese case filled with fresh cheeses and big slabs of schinken hanging form kooks behind the counter.  Come to think of it I can't remeber why in the world I moved away from there....and don't get me started on the beer...