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Make Pancetta Arrotolata

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A good primer for those delving into charcuterie is to make pancetta. There are several styles and “arrotolata” simply means rolled. This to me is the more familiar style and the one I chose because I like trussing up the meat. Here, I’m just adding to the many articles on the internet on making pancetta. I’ve looked all over at the many possibilities, but settled on the one from Kyle Hildebrant at Our Daily Brine. Kyle does a really nice job on his pictures (which really mean a lot to me) and since I’m a visual guy, I appreciated seeing the detailed pics. He also provides a nice little chart to use for your logging of ingredients, weights and when you did what. I have to admit, I printed it out and used it too. The same article gives a nice example of how to use weights for the ingredients instead of measurements like teaspoons and ounces, etc. Kyle and I met on the Salumi, Charcuterie, Wurst FB forum where everyone shares their updates on their latest salumi  projects. The man who started the forum, Francois Vecchio, is also passionately involved in mentoring all of us. I bought his book and DVD, and have been able to reach out to him with questions. In short, if you are learning the art of Salumi and Charcuterie, this is a great, interactive place for learning from the masters.

Back to the meat… pancetta can be done without a lot of fancy equipment and doesn’t take an absurd amount of time. Here is the general process along with my pictures.

Spices and cure, measured and vac sealed in a bag headed for the fridge.
Spices and cure, measured and vac sealed in a bag headed for the fridge.

1. Prepare a pork belly. In any charcuterie project, the quality of your pork is key. I have been sourcing forest-finished pork that is fed a natural diet and the pigs pastured. This all contributes to better fat and tastier meat.

2. Mix your spices based on the weight of the meat. Again, the spices are unlimited, but I tried Kyle’s recipe this time around. Sometimes, less is more, but the basics are usually pepper, garlic… and when I need wine, I use my own homemade wine.

3. I vacuum seal the belly with the cure and spices in a bag to hold it and any brine that is released against the belly. Put it in the fridge and flip it over every other day. The nice thing about adding ingredients based on the original meat weight is that you could leave it in the fridge indefinitely without worrying about it getting too salty or overpowered–because everything is added proportionally. This is called the equilibrium method. Everything you have in the bag, will make it in to the belly in just the right way.

4. When it’s time to roll it up, remove the belly from the vac bag, and wash it off. Don’t worry if all the spices don’t come off. Just wash it off good and lay it flat on some paper towels. Use more towels to dry the top and get it as dry as you can.

5. Now, we’ll add a thick layer of cracked pepper on the top (belly side, not the fat side) and I mean thick. I buy my peppercorns in bulk from Amazon (along with most of my other spices) as I use a lot of it. The pepper acts as an antibacterial agent inside the pancetta… and apparently, flies don’t like it either.

6. Roll the belly up tight and tie it. There’s many videos on the net on trussing (and you can watch for one here soon!). There’s really nothing to it and it’s one of my favorite parts to do. I’m not sure why.

Trussing.
Trussing.

7. Cut the ends to square them up a bit. In any charcuterie project, you will find it’s recommended to trim rough ends to make the surface of the meat as smooth as possible. The idea is reducing crevices that bacteria can otherwise get a foothold. Of course, we have our cure II/prague powder that time-releases nitrites to further protect the meat, but doing all we can to reduce bacterial possibility is just a best-practice.

8. Now, we’ll weigh the final product! This is important so that you can understand how much weight loss has occurred over the drying period. This will tell us how much drying has occurred, and whether or not the pancetta is partially or fully dried. Now, hang the pancetta up to begin the drying process and mark the date next to your weight.

The ideal environment is temperatures between 60-65F and humidity 40-50%. This is flexible. Many people hang it above their kitchen sink, where it gets some extra humidity. However, remember that light is what turns fat rancid. You can wrap the pancetta in several layers of cheese cloth to help keep the light off, but still allow the moisture to escape. I hang mine in my wine cellar where it remains between 60 and 65F and the humidity is higher than in the rest of the house. You can also put a pan of salt and water to add humidity to a room.

Pancetta can be party or fully dried. Fully dried pancetta can be eaten without cooking and here, you will be looking for a 20-25% water/weight loss. This is art of any charcuterie project… allowing the meat to dry out before it rots and providing an environment that is conducive to allowing the meat to dry from the inside out without the outside hardening to a point that prevents it.

Enjoy a few pictures below on where I’m at with this one… and I’ll be sure to post some pics of the slicing in a couple of months.

Build a meat curing and drying chamber

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After enough years of cooking and smoking meat, it’s natural for one to venture into the world of curing and drying meat. The art of charcuterie has been around for ages. In Roman law, there were regulations that governed the trade of charcuterie and the French had a profound impact on perfecting it. Charcuterie was a way to preserve meat and give a longer shelf-life before refrigeration. Charcuterie often utilizes the offal of animal products in the form of pâtés, terrines, sausages, bacon, rillettes, trotters, head cheese, and more. I have to admit, some of the things sound pretty crazy, but I’ll try about anything once and I’m a believer in leaving no waste when I take any animal.

Today, hobbyists like myself and others take up the art of charcuterie to attain the flavors derived from this old preservation process. In the coming years, I plan to be processing many of my own animals and so one thing I needed was a drying chamber. In the proper climate, meat drying can be done in a variety of locations. However, my location requires that I set up the ideal climate, and the one I’ll be showing you today uses a modified, frost-free refrigerator to control the two most important factors in meat drying… temperature and humidity. It’s important that the refrigerator is a frost-free model. I have read that if the shelving is coated (vs. bare metal) that they are usually frost-free, but you will want to check to be sure.

There’s plenty of information that can be found on the internet on how to do it… and here’s my take. After a little bartering with a friend, I found what I think may be the perfect type of fridge for the chamber. A fridge with the freezer on the bottom, and the bottom being a door and not a drawer. I suspect a drawer-type could work, but being able to situate things in the bottom (below the meat) and having clear access is the plus.

Frost-free refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom.
Frost-free refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom.

Step one:

Clean your refrigerator with bleach and water. Get scrub brushes, toothbrushes and anything else to clean in all the tight spots. I took every piece out of the refrigerator, including the metal brackets on the walls that hold the shelves and I cleaned everything. After all, we’ll be hanging meat in here for long periods of time, so it makes sense that we should clean every inch of it. I also cleaned behind and underneath… where I discovered a mouse once lived.

Also, remember that when a fridge turns on and cools, it condenses moisture out of the fridge. So, it drips out a tube behind into a tray. I took this tube and extended it and ran it to a drain so that I wouldn’t have to worry about any water overflows.

Slowly cutting through the wall and removing the foam one piece at a time.
Slowly cutting through the wall and removing the foam one piece at a time.

Step 2:

Once clean, we’ll make the modifications. The first step is to cut a hole through the wall of the upper and lower chambers to join the two into one. This is the most tedious part of the process. Do know that there are things in this wall that you do not want to cut and damage. I had a friend over for the weekend and the two of us took care to do it right. We traced the size of the opening we needed with a pencil. Then, I took a Dremel tool with my whiz-wheel attachment and cut just through the plastic shell… being careful not to go too deep just yet. Just beneath this plastic layer is thick foam. Embedded in the foam are wires, and in my case, copper tubing. By getting the plastic shell off, we used a razor knife to slowly cut down through the foam. Using a metal putty knife, we were able to pop pieces of the foam out a little at a time making sure not to disturb the inner workings.

Hole is cut and I used food grade silicone to coat the exposed foam.
Hole is cut and I used food grade silicone to coat the exposed foam.

Step three:

Time to clean out the debris and give it another good cleaning before we mount the needed equipment and hang our top rack where we’ll hang things to dry. I went around the sides and trimmed off any sloppy cuts and scraped the foam off the copper tube and the exposed wires.

Once cleaned up, there are many ways to cover the foam. I have seen people who have access to stainless steel to dress it out real nice, but I just ordered some white food grade silicone and covered it over. (More pics at bottom) I also covered the exposed wires with the silicone. The hole is to turn both chambers into one. Below, we will be placing a fan, some electrical outlets, and an ultrasonic humidifier. Having all this in the smaller space below the meat is what we want.

4-gang electric box with cord, bought as one usit from Lowes and modified.
4-gang electric box with cord bought as one unit from Lowes and modified.

Step 4:

Next, we need some power in the box so that we can plug things in. Many solutions I found on the net ran all the wires out the fridge (many through the gasket of the door). The one requirement I had was to not disturb the door gasket since I want to control the climate inside as best as possible. I wanted just one wire coming out to keep things simple and neat. So, I bought a 4-gang electrical box with a cord at Lowes. I cut the plug end off so that I could run it through a smaller hole out the back of the fridge. Conveniently, this fridge had a hole in it already (covered by a sticker and ready for the installation of an ice-maker in the bottom freezer area. Worked perfectly. I mounted the box in the bottom part of the fridge, ran the cord out the hole in the back, then, I mounted a new plug end on the cord. (More pics at bottom)

Humidity controller is used to maintain the proper humidity during the drying process.
Humidity controller is used to maintaining the proper humidity during the drying process.

Step 5: I opted for the Titan EOS-1 humidity controller. I mounted it in the top chamber where the meat will be hanging and used clips to keep the cord in place as I ran it down to the bottom chamber. The plug end has another outlet on it that allows me to plug in the humidifier. The controller will turn on and off the humidifier as necessary. The ultrasonic humidifier is important as it will immediately add humidity into the air when the controller turns it on. It will also use the water much slower than a regular humidifier. Note, use distilled water in the humidifier to reduce buildup and keep things more maintenance-free. I have heard feedback about non-digital controllers being difficult to dial in properly. That is probably true. I spent a good amount of time with the knob setting it to be right. I also realize that once we hang the product in the fridge, it will add humidity quite a bit. Keep in mind, you will be adjusting things later on depending on how much is hanging in the chamber.

Temperature controller to turn the fridge on and off keeping temperature consistent.
Temperature controller to turn the fridge on and off keeping the temperature consistent.

Step 6:

Next up is a temperature controller. I opted for this basic Johnson Controls temperature controller and cost about $60. It’s been working very reliably. It has a cord that plugs in, and just like the humidity controller, it also has another outlet on the plug end that the refrigerator plugs in to. I mounted the temperature control unit on the outside of the fridge and only the probe runs inside via the same hole that the power cord from my electrical box comes out. Set the refrigerator on its lowest temperature setting. If you have two different dials (one for the fridge and one for the freezer) set them both on their lowest setting. Not, when you adjust the temperature on the controller, it will cycle the fridge on and off keeping the temperature constant. I have burned this in for a month while I was messing with the humidity control, and the temperature has been spot on. The fridge does not even need to turn on and off very often. Literally, no problems thus far with temperature control. Now, humidity control is another story.

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Digital temperature and humidity readings. I opted for an alarm if mine gets out of range.

Step 7:

Finally, I drilled a hole through the front door that allowed me to fit the probe in from the digital display on the front of the fridge. I used this Extech Hygro-Thermometer for my purposes.

It’s so important that temperature and humidity are monitored during the meat drying process. Depending on what you are drying, whole muscle or meat stuffed into casings, it’s important to make sure the outside of the casing does not dry and harden. This effectively seals off the only area where the moisture inside the product can escape. Here is where the harmful bacteria come in and can not only spoil the product… but kill you. Let’s avoid botulism and other unwanted nasty’s by considering all we need to consider ahead of time.

I spent a good deal reading before venturing into curing meats and you should too. There were a few good books I’ve read, and these two Charcuterie and Salumi by Ruhlman & Polcyn are very good.

Top rack for hanging meats. Notice the analog hygrometer on the back wall.
Top rack for hanging meats. Notice the analog hygrometer on the back wall and the regular thermometer at left.

Step 7:

Here we’ve hung a rack up top that will be used to hang various products in the chamber to dry. I chose a rack so that I had a lot of options when fitting different products inside.

Also, notice the temperature probe coming out the top of the center bar running vertically up the back of the fridge.  Above and to the right is an analog hygrometer on the back wall. It’s great that we have a digital reading on the front of the fridge, but it makes so much sense to have another reading that we can look at when we open the door. I can say that both the digital reading and the analog dial inside have dramatically different readings from each other. So, I bought a cheap calibration kit to test the readings.

Humidity calibration of both instruments.
Humidity calibration of both instruments.

Calibrating humidity instruments

The Boveda humidity calibration kit was like $7-8. It has a wet-nap looking pouch that you place in the provided bag and guarantees a humidity of 75% in the pouch. I placed the analog dial, and the probe of the digital instrument in the bag and let them sit for 48 hours.

At 75% humidity, the analog dial read 82% and the digital instrument read 71%. It’s kind of sad really… so, I have to note those differences and take them into consideration when taking humidity readings from either one.

So, that’s about it. I let this setup “burn in” for about a month. During that time, I have made small adjustments to the humidity controller to get it to where I need. Again, I realize that once a product is inside, there will need to be other arbitrary adjustments. As I also mentioned, temperature control is perfect so far. I attribute this to leaving the gasket of the doors intact. Keeping some circulation in the fridge is also important so I put a small fan in the bottom of the fridge that will kick on and off by a timer. The rest is just tweaking things as they come.

I will report back after I have a product in the chamber. See the pics below for more detailed pics of and explanations of the process.

 

 

Making sausage at home

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Sausage… they say everyone loves it until they see how it’s made. When I saw how it was made commercially, I cringed. There’s a lot going on in commercial sausage-making and in the end, it’s jacked with a lot of things we can’t pronounce. Things that are probably worse than the original meat and fat content. But when I make it at home, it’s something of a small miracle. I realize not everyone is making sausage at home… but those of us who have the inclination to do things our own way. We can be creative about the things we add to our sausage and in the end, we know exactly what’s in it. That to me is the incentive to make it myself. Everything I eat is intentional. If I know it’s not good for me, I try not to put it in my body, or at worse, use it in moderation.

Spice mixes for various sausages.
Spice mixes for various sausages.

I don’t consider myself a carnivore and I’ll enjoy a vegetarian dish just as much as a dish with meat. I believe a diet of mostly plants is good for you but I also believe a diet absent of animal protein is not good for you. Most of us have wondered once or twice how our elders have lived long lives eating bacon for breakfast, and adding lard in their pie crusts. Could half the reason be that at the same time, they weren’t stuffing their face with processed foods? When they woke, they didn’t have toaster treats, baked goods and other things made of aspartame, MSG and HFCS. They had good ole’ fashioned eggs and bacon… then they went outside and worked it off during the day. Like them, our family tries to eat a diverse diet and in moderation.

So where does sausage fit into all of this? Sausage is something that is questionably bad for you. However, I submit that a little of everything that is unprocessed is OK for you… in moderation. Having been made by our own hand and knowing the ingredients is even greater.

So to the point of this article, I’ve made sausages from rabbit, chicken, venison, and most recently pork. I’ve smoked it, froze it fresh, and I’m just completing a curing/drying chamber to get into the wonderful world of Charcuterie. In my quest of trying to make great sausage, I failed the first few times, because I lacked knowing the basics. My sausages turned out dry and crumbly, or tough and with weird textures. However, since understanding a few key things and changing my process to accommodate, I’ve never looked back. I wish these requisites for good sausage were more clear to me from the beginning.

  • Clean your tools and your area really good… we’re working with raw meat. It’s obvious, right?
  • Everything needs to be kept COLD. Your meat, your spices, your water, the grinder attachments, the tray you will be grinding in to. Everything. Cold!
  • Your meat and fat (previously cut into cubes) should be almost frozen. It’s just thawed enough for you to work with it, mix in your spices and grind it. But otherwise, as close to frozen as possible.
  • I’ve always added my spices to the frozen meat and then added whatever cold liquids I’m using to distribute the seasonings before I ground it. Some believe you should add the seasonings first, grind it, then mix in the liquids to form the pellicle just before stuffing. I have experimented both ways and cannot say I’ve found a difference yet.
  • The meat should come out of the grinder into a tray or bowl set in ice. I use aluminum trays that I pull out of my deep freeze. They stay cold enough for the short time it’s in the tray before I load it into my stuffer.
  • While I’m waiting for the pellicle, I fry up a bit of the farce before I stuff it into the casings. If it needs any adjustments to the flavor, now, of course, is the time to do it. This is known as the quenelle test.
Grinding sausage.
Grinding sausage.

The reason for keeping everything cold is so that the fat doesn’t separate from the meat when cooked. If it does, it makes the sausage seem tougher… and have an unpleasant texture. Over-handling the meat doesn’t help it either. Working with it warm, or working it too much will cause what’s called “smear” and it signifies a “broken forcemeat” among sausage geeks. Many will say to give it to the dogs. I haven’t done that yet, but my first batches of sausage were certainly worthy of the dogs. From then on, I took keeping the meat cold very seriously. It does make a difference. Another deficit of my set-up was that my grinder dueled as my stuffer. I’d grind the meat through once, then I’d remove the dies and replace with the stuffing attachments to stuff into the casings. Again, the problem here was over-working the meat. Because it had to go through the auger again as it was stuffed into the casings, I believe it caused a broken forcemeat. I splurged for a separate stuffer, one where you would load the meat into the canister, and crank it down, effectively squirting the meat into the casings. You can see it in the pictures below. This also made a huge difference. Having the right tools for the job certainly helps, but also knowing a little of the science behind it will let you make a perfect sausage.

A quick note on casings. I prefer natural casings over any others. Casings are sold in hanks. A hank will stuff 100-125 lbs of sausage and they are pretty cheap, but not all butchers will sell them to you. I got in good with my local butcher and pick them up anytime I need them. While it may seem a little awkward handing slimy casings, once you have meat in it, there really is nothing better. They are easier to work with over the collagen casings or others that you have to soak before using. Natural casings are also more sheer, but strong enough to stand up to accidental over-stuffing, to a degree.

Oh, a quick note about clean-up. Don’t wash aluminum parts in your dishwasher. After years of washing my grinder parts by hand, just after I made the batch of sausage you see below, I decided to put the parts in the dishwasher only to my demise.

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