Monday, November 16, 2015

Basic Dry Cure Master Recipe

225g kosher salt
112.5g sugar
25g pink salt (curing salt #1)

Use 50g/5#

From Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie.

15 November 2015

Bacon is done curing, now to smoke.

Hickory biscuits, an hour and twenty minutes (roughly) of smoke, 3 hours (total) heat at 200*F.

Tasty!

Update: This one was much better than our previous attempt, due in part to the better meat, and in part to measuring out the cure. Last time we dredged it, and it was a little harsh.

8 November 2015

Started some bacon today.

3# pork belly
30g Basic Dry Cure from Charcuterie

Thursday, September 10, 2015

6 September 2015

Sweet Garlic Dills (The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving)

1c sugar
4c vinegar
2c water
1/4tsp tumeric
4T pickling salt
Combine and bring to a boil.

4.6# pickling cucumbers ($5, farmer's market)

Per pint jar:
1/2-1 clove garlic (55g total (1 head, $1, farmer's market) medium Germen hardneck garlic)
1 head dill
1/8tsp celery seed

Yielded 8 pints. Seven were canned (JSP/RWB10(16oz)15(32oz), one was left as refrigerator pickles.

Hmmm. Not quite sweet enough.

23 August 2015

Blackberry Preserves

1# 6oz blackberries (1qt at $0.99/half-pint, yielded 3c juice & berries)
1 1/2tsp calcium water
1c sugar
1 1/2tsp Pomona's Pectin

Yielded (7) 4oz jars. A little on the sweet side; we'll probably cut the sugar a bit next time.

22 August 2015

Chokecherry Syrup

4c juice
3c sugar

Cooked this a little too long, it's more jelly than syrup. It also has very little chokecherry flavour.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Pectin Test

Stir together equal parts cooked cooled (room temp) juice and grain or denatured alcohol. The larger the pectin lumps that form, the higher the pectin content. Small lumps that cannot be picked up with a fork indicate pectin levels too low to use as is. Reduce the juice and test again, use apple stock, or use commercial pectin.