Curing Update

The meat from The Weekend's Curing a couple of weeks ago, is coming along fine. They've been in a fridge at around 6 - 7°C, a little higher than you'd normally run a domestic fridge but ideal for the saltpetre in the curing mix. The Cider Ham brine cure's got a little while yet before it will be ready and I'm going to leave the Lomo Curado until the weekend before I start drying it, just to make sure that it's cured throughout.

The Hunt Beef's now in the second stage of curing. The aromatic ingredients have been added and it will now have a further 20 days to absorb all the lovely flavours from them:

The cure's been rinsed off the pancetta and after drying overnight, it's been rubbed lightly with 'red wine and balsamic vinegar' and had a dusting of black pepper. I would have preferred to use a true balsamic vinegar, but hadn't realised that we'd run out:

The French version of Pancetta, Ventrèche has had a heavier dusting of black pepper and has been rolled and tied:

The drying fridge in which they've been curing has now been put back to it's proper use and they'll hang at 12°C and about 75% relative humidity. You can see from the red lights on the left of the read-outs in this photo that the fridge (right hand control) is working to get down to temperature, and that the humidifier inside the fridge is doing the same to increase the humidity (left hand control):