Meat Club Charcuterie

random posts about our meatings

Prosciutto Harvest

It has been almost exactly 18 months since our prosciutto were born on the Big Pig Day in February, 2010.

Since Jamie recently harvested his own Jamon (not prosciutto) of a slightly longer age with a good deal of success, I deemed it was time to do the same with ours. They weighed in at 21.5 lbs. and 25 lbs. at harvest – essentially no weight change since late 2010. One difference is that his did not have lard layered on the cut end, and ours did.

Jamie chose the Jamon (Spanish) approach to harvesting his using the stand the I threw together from stuff in my shop. He did not have to worry about dividing his beast into shares – opting to consume it slowly (and sharing as he did) by carving thin slices along the way. I had to take the Italian route whereby deboning is done. The Italians usually then leave the deboned leg intact and slice it thinly across the grain of the meat for consumption. I had to divide these into shares.

I really had no idea how to proceed with deboning. Jamie provided me with some you tube links demonstrating the process:

Looks simple and straight forward doesn’t it. Not having quite all the parts laying around in my shop to duplicate the device seen in the videos, I decided to wing it without one.

My first task of course was to remove the lard, and I decided to do this on the picnic table on our back deck. I spread an old bath towel on the table. This turned out to work quite well since it provided at large non-skid surface. Here is how they looked:

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I first scraped the large amounts of lard off with my hands collecting it on paper towels. I actually though about saving some of it, but the outer layers of it appeared to be a little oxidized or rancid. It turns out that working out in the sun was a good idea as the heat loosened and liquefied the remaining lard which I removed with more paper towels and repeated wiping. It took at least 45 minutes to complete this whole process.

Here is how they looked at that point – a nice golden hue to them:

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Closer views of the smaller one:

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And the larger one:

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Now to the deboning. I attacked the smaller one first by attempting to make a cut from the end of the femur bone sticking out in the cut end of the leg and following the bone down toward the shank. What I did not realize is that following that bone is not as easy as it sounds. Remember that there is a knee joint in there somewhere leading to another bone that comes out the shank end. So, after making a deep cut along the “bone line” and realizing I was no longer hitting bone, I tried spreading the cut open to see what was going on. No bone to be seen where I though it would be. I hacked around and found the bone again and eventually the knee/joint, and with more cutting was starting to get the femur to release from the meet and move in the joint. More cutting/hacking along the other bone (tibia-fibula?) coming out of the joint took place. It took me about 30-45 minutes before I finally got both of the bones out and ended up with two large pieces of meat – one in pretty good shape and the other rather hacked up and looking like this (bones in the background):

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On to the other leg. This time I cut the main/larger half of the leg off straight away thinking I could at least preserve it fairly well leaving the other half with the bones in it to be hacked on resulting in two pieces looking like this after the bone removal – another 30 minutes at least (more bones in the background):

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Here are closer looks at the two halves of the second and larger leg after deboning. First the half I cut away right off:

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And the other half where the bones were:

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At this point, I had been at it over two and half hours. I decided to put the cut halves back into the fridge where they had lived for 18 months and attack trimming and cutting into shares in the evening after dinner.

At least now I knew that there were no maggots or other signs of spoilage. Of course I had been tasting scraps resulting from the hacking. They were quite salty, but the underlying flavor was quite good. I knew that when chilled and thinly sliced we had a good product.

Here are the four halves on our kitchen counter that evening (color rendering under the fluorescent lights is not great):

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And closer looks of the smaller leg:

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And the larger leg:

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I trimmed obviously unusable stuff (too dry or funky looking) and cut into pieces (essentially dividing each of these four longitudinally, then into smaller pieces) that could be divided for shares:

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More cutting and dividing into shares by shape and weight as best possible to be equitable led to these piles:

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And finally wrapped in heavy duty foil and back into the fridge in plastic bags/shares:

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I tried to provide each share with one well blocked piece of meat easily suitable for a slicer and two more oddly shaped pieces. I forgot to weigh the net product result, but I estimate it to be between 30 and 35 lbs.  There was weight lost from the lard, bones, trim and just plain waste pieces. Keep in mind that the skin is still on. Before attempting any thin slicing either by hand or machine, trim some of the skin back from the edge of the side that is to be sliced – unless your really want to try eating it along with the slice.

I believe these prosciuttos are more moist that the jamon leg that Jaimie produced. Difference is probably attributable to the lard that was applied as advised way back when by an industry professional that shall remain nameless. In fact, some of you will notice that there are small portions of the blocked cuts (and others) that are not totally dried out or firm. I don’t think that means they are not cured. There is so much salt in this meat that it has to be cured. I doubt that aging for any more time would have made a difference since I could not detect any weight/water loss for many months. So, I am not sure about the wisdom of the lard application. Jamie’s leg had no lard on it, more weight loss, and turned out fine.

I sliced some of a blocked piece of meat on my deli slicer and served it with some Manchego cheese and some Manzanilla sherry before dinner last night. Even thinly sliced, this stuff is mighty salty, but enjoyable. I intend to try some of the oddly shaped stuff cut into small pieces in a frittata with some potatoes and mushrooms for breakfast Sunday morning to see how that works.

This brings to a close our prosciutto journey. Not sure that I would do this again if I ever had a leg at my disposal. A little of this product goes a long way.

Basic Prosciutto Carving Stand

Jamie is going to attack his prosciutto in the next couple of weeks. It has been aging/curing in Peter’s facilities for the last eighteen months or more. He is planning to use the Spanish method of putting it on a stand and carving off thin slices. He mentioned that he was going to shop around for a carving stand. I did some searching on the web and found several widely differing designs and examples of stands:

Some of these are VERY expensive – like $400 dollars.

The wooden examples in the first link above looked rather basic and pretty simple to construct if you have the materials and a few tools. So, I decided to make the the stand you see here:

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with another view here:

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and another view here:

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The base of the stand is an old solid oak chopping block that we had laying around. It measures 20x9x2 inches and has four rubber feet on the bottom at the corners. The vertical piece of wood is another piece of solid oak and measures 12.5x5.75x.75 inches. I used a good circle cutter attachment on my drill press to cut a 4 inch diameter hole in one end and then used a band saw to complete the U shaped opening where the shank of the ham will go. The vertical piece of wood is attached to the base with four 3x3 inch corner irons – two on each side (staggered so that the screws from either side don’t smack into each other). The eye bolts in the vertical piece are to hold the shank of the ham. They are 1/4x20 bolts about 3 inches long. Not visible are two threaded brass inserts in the holes where the eye bolts go through the wood so that there is something for them to bite on. The round device on the surface of the base is a 2.5 inch hole saw that has had its back side (the side that normally goes toward the drill when it is mounted to make holes) cut off with a hack saw. I made four cuts about 3/8 inch deep in the base surface where the cutoff hole saw can be moved/adjusted to act as a non-slip grip on the bottom of the ham.

Here is a picture of Jamie’s baby mounted on the stand:

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And another view longitudinally:

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The ham seems stable enough to allow for carving with a good sharp knife. If it is not, I have a couple of ideas for additions to add stabilization.

I had most of the stuff in my precious piles of saved miscellany in my workshop (Can you say packrat?) – wood, corner irons, brass inserts. Just had to buy the eye bolts and the hole saw. The hardest part of the project was cutting the back off of the hole saw after making the four semi-holes in the top of the base. I went through a couple of hacksaw blades doing this.

It remains to be seen how well this will work. Jamie tells me he will probably attack a couple of weeks from now.

Stay tuned.

Proscuitto Larded

Jamie, Peter and I received some guidance in the last few days from a well known and credentialed culinary professional (who shall go unnamed by me on this web site) about what should happen at this point to our beloved proscuitti after said person perused our web site.   The advice was to get lard into the cavities and onto the cut side of the beasts as soon as possible. I had difficulty envisioning how much lard would be needed. Jamie volunteered his stock, but I eyeballed it and decided it might not be enough. I was fortunate to snag a freshly rendered batch (five pounds worth) from the Café Rouge Meat Market in the Fourth Street area of Berkeley. As you will see from the following pictures, the stuff is gorgeous...and even tastes great. I was seriously trying to figure out what kind of sandwich to make with it! Since it was a very fresh batch, it was quite soft and easily workable into the cavities.   So, here are the hams on the kitchen counter before larding:  
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  The hopefully former problem cavities are still moist, but still smell meaty....which I take as a good sign.   Here is the five pound hunk of lard:  
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  Here are the hams after being well lubricated:  
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  And another view:  
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  Leftover lard (yum!):  
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  And back into the aging fridge:  
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  Clearly, I can no longer consider flipping these things periodically in the future since the lard would make a mess and may even drip/fall off. So, I think they are pretty much in position for the rest of their aging lives (except perhaps for being weighed every couple of months).   Speaking of weight, with lard applied the small one now weights 23.5 lbs. and the large one is 26.5 lbs. So, I used about four pounds of the lard (less what I licked off of my fingers at the end of the process).   Let's hope this actually does some good in the long run.

Prosciutto Update

It has now been almost five weeks since the scare about possible spoilage involving the two prosciutto hams that are under my care.   As a reminder, as of the last post they were in my old kitchen fridge laying down with the cut side up and the suspect cavities stuffed with salt. The conditions in the fridge have been at around 50 degrees and 70% RH a great majority of the time (MAX 54 degrees & 80% RH - MIN 46 degrees & 40% RH) These variations are mainly due to the fridge cycling on and off, which is not very often. The ambient temperature in my basement where the fridge is located is high 60s. I am still using three pans of water to maintain the moisture level.   Today I took them outside, pulled and brushed and hosed the salt out, and then let them dry off. There is now a "meaty" smell in the cavities as opposed to the "off" smell that was there before. The interior of the cavities is moist, but I believe this is because the salt was packed into them quite firmly and had hardened. They will probably dry out and skin over/harden now. They both seem pretty firm all over now. But, they are "moist" in the sense that picking them up leaves a film of fat on your hands no matter where they are touched.   Their weights are now 21.5 lbs. for the small one (down a pound) and 25 lbs. for the larger one (no change) with the salt in the cavities removed. This seems a little strange. But it may be explained by the fact that I weigh them by stepping onto my bathroom digital scale while holding them. The scale only measures in half pound increments and undoubtedly does some kind of rounding.   I put them back into the fridge with the skin up (cut side down). And, I plan to flip them once a month.   Here is a picture of both after the salt had been washed out:  
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  Here is a closer view of the smaller one and its cavity:  
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And, here is the larger one;
 
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And the two of them back into the fridge:
 
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With a closer view:
 
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I am greatly relieved that this seems to have worked!

Prosciutto at 3 Months

Well, I thought this would be just a routine update to the Big Pig Class (February 27, 2010) participants on the status of their hams that are aging in my care. So, I will start with the routine part beginning last Saturday (May 29,2010).   Just as a reminder - after curing in salt for about 5 weeks, they have been hanging in the wine storage part of my basement for the last couple of months. The conditions there have been 60 degrees plus or minus 2 degrees (mostly minus) and 60% RH plus or minus 5% (mostly plus).  

Weighed the two hams – small one is 22.5 lbs. (18% loss) – large one is 25 lbs. (18%) loss. Took them outside to take pictures.

Here is how they look - first the smaller one - skin side:

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And the cut side of the smaller one:

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There is very little loose salt on it - the white part you see is meat crusted with salt.

Here is the larger one on the skin side:

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And the cut side of the larger one:

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Poked around the cut end. Discovered soft, moist, smelly pockets on both of them.

Note the dark areas in the lower portion of this picture of the large one:

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And here is a closer view of that area:

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The rest of the hams seemed quite fine. They are quite firm all over, yet there is some "give" everywhere.

I admit that I started to panic thinking that this might portend bad things going on in the interior parts of the hams. I called Jamie, sent email and pictures to him and Peter and waited for a reply....which did not come from Peter until the next day...after a restless night for me..."what had I done wrong?"....."what can we salvage (cut them up now or cut out the bad parts)?..."how am I going to tell the others about this?"..."will I be hated and ostracized from the group?"....etc.

Peter replied via email on Sunday (30th) with some somewhat soothing words. I immediately called him. We discussed options and the whole philosophy of curing prosciutto from the traditional Italians to the the recent Italians to the modern Italians (Bertolli). And, concluded this was not the end of the end of the world...

I was going to wait until Jamie could come over to take a look at the situation before I did anything (Memorial Day weekend...and he had other things to do) except that I decided to pull the hams from the wine cellar and stick them in my old full sized refrigerator at 40 degrees thinking that the higher temperature might have been the cause (the discussion with Peter actually had elements in it that argued against this theory).

I kept going down to the basement (where the old fridge is) and looking at the hams, poking a little, and smelling my finger. I finally pulled them out and REALLY poked into the suspect cavities....and started pulling out some material that stunk. But, it was clearly not rotting meat/muscle. It was a tan, mealy, moist substance I can best describe as like Fancy Feast minced fish cat food (we have four cats!). WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?  It could also be described as being similar to cooked sweetbreads that had been crushed with a fork only more moist...and had a definite organ/glandular smell...not really like rotten meat. I also noticed that there was a symmetry to the location of these cavities between the two hams - allowing for the mirror image of the right versus the left leg.

Let's see....glandular, mealy, tanish/gray...then it dawned on me. This was some kind of gland (lymph nodes?) that had not been excised during the trimming process at the class, had broken down, left the cavity and was smelling. I was somewhat relieved that this meant there probably was not a general problem with the whole ham and started formulating a plan.

The next day (Monday, 31st) I took them outside again on my deck.

Here they are again - note the dark red areas to the side of the bone - the larger one:

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The smaller one:

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I then poked deeply into the cavities to pull out as much of this material as I could get with my fingers:

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I then used the garden hose with a stiff stream to flush out (a couple of times) the cavities and propped the hams up to drain and air dry:

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Then, they went back into the fridge laying down with the cut side up. I packed the cavities with salt since the meat behind the glands (whatever they were) had obviously not been exposed to salt in the initial curing...and thinking that the salt should help negate anything bad going on in there:

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I plan to let them sit like this for at least a month to allow the salt to act.

The temperature target range for the refrigerator is 50-55 degrees (per Peter's recommendation) with an RH of at least 50% (getting around 68% now...probably from some moisture still coming off the the hams from their bath).

I am going to keep them in the fridge for at least the next five months (through October) since the wine cellar temp is creeping up now that the weather is finally acting more like spring. Then, they may go back into the wine cellar.

I think that they are now in good shape....and I am sleeping better!

DEFINITELY NOT ROUTINE!

Class Coppa Finished

Today (April 24, 2010), I harvested the Coppa that came from the class on February 27.
 
When it came home it was in the spice mix in a Ziploc (weighing in at 1062 grams) where it was to spend the next 20 days in the refrigerator being turned over once a day.
 
At that point it was pulled from the Ziploc, rinsed off, and put on a rack to dry in the refrigerator for one day. It was in three pieces - one large and two small:
 
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The next day it was stuffed into a beef middle:
 
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This proved to be a challenge. The two small pieces fit into the middle, but it took some concerted manipulation to get them to work down through the casing:
 
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The larger piece would obviously not fit into the casing:
 
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So, it was cut in half:
 
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It was still a struggle to get the halves into the casing:
 
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And, the struggle produced a tear in the casing:
 
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Which was repaired using the little bit of extra casing that was left by cutting it off and working it into the hole.
 
You can clearly see that the casing and meat did not come together in many places leaving air pockets:
 
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It was impossible to pack the meat into the casing any more tightly without risking more tears. The casing was pricked all over to allow for easier drying/curing.
 
This went into the kitchen oven to "ferment" at about 75 degrees (plus or minus 10) for one day:
 
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Pulled the coppa from the oven the next day (weighing in at 961 grams). The specimen looked like this hanging:
 
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And, you can see that the tear and repair looked pretty good:
 
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Note the air pockets were quite prevalent. So, I decided that the curing/drying process would be done with it laying on the same rack/pan you saw in the oven. This would reduce the gravitational pull on the casing and allow it to conform to the meat as it dried more readily.
 
I put it into the wine storage area (where the prosciutto are now) at around 60 degrees and 60% RH. After 5 days in these conditions it lost %17 weight (798 grams). After 5 more days it was getting rather dry on the outside (with some white mold developing). I was worried about case hardening. So, I moved it into my compact fridge with the Genoa salami at mid 50s
for temperature and mid 70s RH. This seemed to slow things down little. I turned the coppa over on the rack each day through the whole drying process. I did have some doubts about the aroma of the meat a few times. But, the end product seems to be quite good.
 
It remained in those conditions until I harvested it today looking like this on one side:
 
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And like this on the other:
 
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The divisions between the pieces of meat were obvious through the casing, so that is where I cut it into pieces and you can see evidence of some white mold inside the casing where there were air gaps. I am sure this is good mold:
 
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Here is a cleaner cut into solid meat:
 
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And here are thin slices:
 
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As I mentioned above, I rinsed off the spice mix before stuffing. The instructions did not call for this. In fact, they said to add coarse black pepper to the outside of the meat before stuffing. Our pallets like pepper flavors on the mild side (we used to be able to get GREAT mild coppa from Ratto's in Oakland many years ago that matched our taste). Thus, the rinsing and skipping the black pepper.
 
In tasting the thicker slices that came off as I was trimming, it is plenty spicy anyway. The thin slices tone this down and make it a very appealing product. The flavor underlying the spice is quite good.
 
The final weight before cutting was 546 grams - 43% weight loss from coming out of the oven. This product will obviously keep for a long time....and that's the whole point....right ancestors??
 

Proscuitti - Unsalted

Today the two prosciuttos from the Big Pig Day class on February 24 came out of the salt boxes where they have spent the past five weeks.

They were pulled out of the salt looking like this:

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Then into the basement utility sink to have the salt brushed off with a whisk broom.

Here is the smaller one:

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And the other side of it:

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And the larger one:

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And the other side of it:

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What they looked like before a wine sponge bath - note the size/length of the shank/bone protruding from them:

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After the bath with some everyday Dago red (Vino da Tavola, if  you want it to sound continental):

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And the other side after the bath:

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I had envisioned just looping some 1/4 inch nylon rope around the end of the shank to hang them.

Here you can see what I had to work with on both of them to do this:

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After several futile futile attempts with various combinations of Boy Scout Knot Tying merit badge artistry, it became obvious there was no way to get something external to the object to successfully hang the 25-30 lbs. of weight. Everything I tried just slipped off of the skin.

So, I resorted to punching some holes in the skin and minimal meat about an inch and a half from the edge of the skin with an awl and using a doubled up length of 20 gauge galvanized steel wire threaded through the holes to fashion a hanging loop. NOT easily done - sort of like trying to sew linoleum. This worked rather well. Here is what the loop looks like:

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Suggestion - leave more bone/shank to use for hanging in the future.

Another view of the whole hanging loop:

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Here is the larger one hanging from a hook in a floor joist in my wine cellar:

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And the smaller one in another part of the cellar:

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Right now the the conditions are 57 degrees and low 60s for the RH, and they weigh in at 25.5 lbs. and 30 lbs.

There is no artificial air conditioning in this cellar. It is completely dark (except when I am groveling around for a dinner libation) with minimal air flow. And, it is well insulated and only approaches 70 degrees in the later, hottest times of summer/fall. There is a vent hole to the outside that I can open (at night) to let cooler air in if that becomes necessary. And, I am monitoring the conditions with the thermometer/hygrometer that you can see in the bottom of this last picture. If worse comes to worse, I can transfer them into the old refrigerator where they were stored in salt with an appropriate temperature setting on the external controller.

They are supposed to be in this condition for at least the next 6 months after which I will be conferring with Peter on the next step. Bertolli says to coat them with a mixture of leaf fat and rice flour for 6 months more. I am not sure if this is what Peter has in mind.

Tune in half a year from now!

Prosciutto - Second Week

The two prosciuttos (proscuitti?) from the Big Pig Day class on the 27th have been in my fridge for a week. Today I pulled them for flipping, massaging, weighing, and repacking in salt.   Here is the larger one after being pulled from the salt and put into a "working" tub for massaging:  
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  Here is the other side of it (the side that was down):  
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  Here is the tub it was in. Some water has collected in the salt:  
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  Here it is repacked in salt (topping of with new salt) to go back into fridge:  
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  Here is the smaller one showing the side that was down:  
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  Here is the other side of it:  
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  And the salt that it came out of:  
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  And repacked to go back into fridge:  
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  The weights are now 27.5 lbs. and 31.5 lbs.   This weight for the smaller one is about the same as what we got when we weighed it at the class - water coming out, salt going in, and some residual salt on the surface.   The weight for the larger one is actually one pound more than what we got at the class (I think).  
When massaging the meat, there is still quite a lot of "give". But, the coloration change is quite noticeable - much darker red.
 
This whole process will be repeated at least two more times on a weekly basis. The reporting of it on this web site will not.
 
The next step you will see will be pulling, washing off, weighing, and into drying chambers/rooms.

Prosciuttos Underway

Here is the story of the birth of the two prosciutto from the class at Peter's brewery yesterday.   One weights about 27.5 pounds and the other about 30.5 lbs. They were transported to my house both packed into one container with surrounding salt after being massaged with salt at the class for 15-20 minutes. I have an old refrigerator that will be used to keep them at about 40 degrees for the next three to four weeks. I moved each of them into smaller containers for ease of handling.   Here is one of them sitting in the new container which is in a utility tub in my basement conveniently located right across from the fridge in which it will reside. It has been totally immersed in granulated salt:  
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  Here they are in the fridge:  
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  Here weights (concrete stepping stone and floor tiles - wrapped) have been placed on them. The bag of granulated salt (donated to the cause by Jamie) will be used to top off when the hams are pulled, flipped, and massaged approximately once a week:  
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  A closer view with the weights in place:  
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  After the salting period, one of these will hang in a dark sealed off corner of my basement which maintains a 60-70 degree temperature range throughout the year with very slow changes from winter through summer. The other will go into a space to be provided by Oliver at his home.   Stay tuned!

Genoa Salami - Second Harvest

We cut into the second Genoa salami that we had curing on Super Bowl Weekend (February 7, 2010). You may remember that surprisingly, we found that the weight loss on the first Genoa salami (created at the same class as the second one) was quick enough that we harvested it in late December at 31% weight loss. However, it was definitely not ready. The interior was not totally firm, and slicing produced delicate slices that sort of fell apart. This first salami continued to age in the fridge even after cutting into it - became firmer and tasted better. Perhaps I recorded the weight incorrectly at the beginning. But, I really do not think so. Can't explain the rapid weight loss.

The second one continued to lose weight at a slower and slower rate. At the end it was losing about .01 lbs. per week in an environment in the mid to high 50s degrees of temp and 50-60% RH. I finally decided 3.5 months was enough. It had lost exactly 30% of its weight and was very firm to the squeeze test.

Here it is before cutting:

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Another view:

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With and end cut off:

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On a plate (top left) with other salumi destined to be consumed during the game, accompanied by (clockwise) dry cured pork belly, saucisson sec, peperone, Tuscan salami, and Genoa salami from Fatted Calf (for comparison purposes).

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The final presentation:

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Note how thinly the slicer can work on the slices of pork belly. Can actually see the bread sticks through them. I really like having a good slicer around. Use it at least once a week on something.

Bottom line - our Genoa salami beat Fatted Calf's hands down. Much more interesting flavors. Perhaps a little high on the fat content. This second one was definitely ready. Very firm inside and easily sliced. I have no doubt that it could have aged quite a bit longer. But, to what advantage I do not know. It is very good as it is.