Cured Meat Podcast: How does temperature play a role in the curing process?

edwards virginia smokehouse presents the cured meat podcast today's question is how does temperature play a role in the curing process so temperature from beginning to the end is critical and years ago before they use temperature control rooms to cure meat on the farm still people do in the farm you would end up with an edible product at the end of the curing process but some years would be better than others and people would refer to i don't know yeah 1927 was a great year for curing meat because the temperatures during the winter spring and summer were conducive to to making a better flavored hand so the good news about the the modern techniques that we use is we've kind of over the course of in our case 94 years figured out what temperatures work the best from beginning to end and it starts with the fresh meat itself when it comes in it needs to be the right temperature not too cold not too hot these you know the 36 to 39 degree range is perfect um whereas on the farm you had issues with it could actually be too cold and the meat get frozen in the first couple of steps of the process and it won't take salt very fast or it could in virginia you can have a especially today you can have a 70 degree day you know a week after you harvested the animals which might have been perfect you know 20 to 30 degree weather and then mother nature throws you a 70 degree day that'll ruin the batch potentially depending on how long it's hot but after that you start off with the right temperature fresh hams you you salt the hams like i say at the we like 38 39 degrees and then wash the excess salt off move into a springtime room which we liked 50 degrees and 80 humidity and by the way the salt room is 80 humidity also and then we would um gradually raise the temperature from the springtime room to uh to smoking over a three day period which is from 50 to 60 to 70 85 degrees uh we found that jumping from 50 to 85 and one overnight you would it causes we don't know why but would cause some some off flavor spoilage issues so that gradual rise of temperatures is important then we smoke them at 85 degrees and ultimately cake them into an aging room where we hold them the rest of the time at around 85 with a 65 humidity now some people would argue that 65 humidity is too dry but that keeps the mold from forming because people today freak out when they see mold on meat but there is a benefit to mold on the surface of a ham and in my opinion enhances the flavor but it was a trade-off some of the longer hands we have we still get mold on them because of the amount of time and age that they're there but that's i think one of the other things that impacts the flavor of those longer aged hams if you deviate from those temperatures from room to room each aging room is different yeah you could have different flavor profiles and inconsistencies and flavors so it's it's critical that you stay within those ranges on temperature because at the end of the day and i think most people don't get that they cure meat sometimes they don't understand consistency is so important yeah and as sam said i mean the key really is consistency and i think that's one thing that you know we see we deal with a lot of chefs and work with a lot of chefs that are doing curing in their own restaurants which is great i applaud the effort but if they're just doing it in say their walk-in refrigerator and try to keep it towards the back the coldest place that door is still opening and closing all the time so they're you know they're their units they're gonna see up and down in temperature and humidity and you know while the product may be okay uh it's they're not gonna be able to get that consistent flavor profile that they're looking for they're curing their own meat they're great you know whether it's hams bacon salamis whatever the case but it's not going to be that consistent product every single time and that's where it's you know certainly flavor profile one of the big issues and sam hit on it is is making sure you got a safe product to eat so that it's a matter of maintaining those temperatures and humidities in every step of the process as best you can got a cured meat question let us know in the comments below thanks for watching

Channel: Edwards Virginia Smokehouse

Views: 932

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Id: lvtM9KFFV4A

Length: 4min 47sec (287 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020