Lord of the Bacon

Do you remember that story of a funny Iberian pig, cut by lots of small and big pieces by a cruel Ruso-Spanish man? We keep the memory of that pig deep in our hearts … and stomachs.
4 months past from «Bloody Thursday» and those pork cuts finally turned into nice-looking ones.

Let’s start with bacon.

I decided to make 2 rolls, one with skin, another without. Honestly, I thought the mold is unlikely to appear on the bacon with skin. I was mistaken. But first the ingredients used:

• Meat — 3000 gr.
• Salt — 2,2%
• Cur #2 — 0,25%
• Sugar — 0,8%
• Black pepper — 0,5%
• Nutmeg — 1 gr.
• Juniper — 5 gr.
• Bay leaf — 3 gr.
• Sichuan pepper — 5 gr.

The product had been salted for 10 days. After that it was rubbed thoroughly with paprika with a bit of rosemary and thyme, and then rolled into a tight roll. The bacon with skin was placed into the chamber without any casing, the one without skin was rolled into a collagen casing. They both hung 4 months.

The weight loss was 32%.

Funny colorful mold didn’t care about tight roll, pork’s skin and collagen casing. It perfectly penetrated everywhere, even inside the roll.

Surely, that didn’t scare my inner charcuterie idol at all. I only had to wash the pieces thoroughly first with wine vinegar and later to kill strong smell and to open its noble aromas I used white wine. Then I had to dry it. The conclusion is there’s no difference whether to leave the skin on the fat or not. It’s all about visual difference.

The bacon was safe to consume.

During the aging period the spices perfectly spread all over the product. You could distinguish their taste and the general balanced taste of the product.