Truly Naturally cured bacon...coming soon

Amongst all the other tests we are working on, one in particular has quite a few customers sitting at the edge of their seats...  BACON!

Bacon has to be one of america's favorites foods.  Its popularity is unparalleled  both in health food circles and without. Those afraid of saturated fats see it as the one guilty pleasure they allow themselves. Those embracing the healthy saturated fats in their diets see bacon as the ultimate taste of a healthy fatty food... EXCEPT...

both camps (pro and anti fat)  see a united problem with bacon, chemical nitrates. While there are those that feel comfortable with consuming a steady diet of chemical nitrates, banking on the belief that our bodies can neutralize this chemical and the derivatives  produced in cooking.  Most people, the vast majority,  see nitrates as the one worst aspect in bacon.

Our first answer to this dilemma was to produce "natural nitrate"  bacon. This is bacon like that you commonly see cured with "nitrates naturally occurring in celery powder".  There is solid evidence that suggests this type of nitrate is in fact not as dangerous as chemically pure nitrates so often blamed for cancer causing.  We call this bacon option "natural nitrates" because it uses mother natures nitrates, just in larger quantities than occurring in nature.

The second answer was to produce bacon with NO nitrates... using only salt, spices, and sugar to cure it. This bacon has a decidedly different flavor, and relies on the sugars to offset the saltiness of the cure.  BUT there are zero nitrates. Unfortunately there s also a lot of sweetener in this type of bacon to make it palatable.

So, we are are a mission to overcome that. We are exploring a way to cure bacon the truly old fashioned way, with ZERO nitrates, and little to NO sugar. Our own family is sugar free so this is a personal as well as a business venture.

the trick, we think, is in using dry curing instead of wet curing. In wet curing  you inject the meat with liquids (salt, sugar, etc) to speed up the process. This is the method used in virtually all meat curing today to avoid the long waits of dry curing.  However, it infiltrates the meat so deeply and completely that the saltiness is overwhelming. The meat is similarly flavored through the cut.  With dry curing, the spices and salt are rubbed on the outside of hte cut, to draw the internal juices out while slightly infiltrating the meat from the outside in.  In theory this leaves the meat with a less salty overall disposition, allowing for lower sugar content throughout.

What about preservation of the meat? Well, traditionally salt cures were used to preserve meat  for long voyages (ocean crossings). Here's a reality, meat spoils from the outside in, never the inside out as long as there are no bones in it. Bacon of course has no bones, so it only spoils on the surface. It is the surface the interacts with teh outside world of bacteria, and other microbes.  If the outside is salted and smoked properly, it is protected from spoilage. In addition, the salt draws the liquids from the inside of the meat, drying it to a point. This drying effect further reduces the ability of pathogens from growing inside the meat. So you end up with a protective shell around fairly dry meat... in other words.. preserved.

So.. now have a few slabs of bacon covered in salt and spices slowly curing in the fridge. Within another week we should know how the flavor comes out in the end.  Let's all wish for the best.. so that we can all enjoy flavorful and healthy bacon!

Natural curing experiment is a success!

As you may recall, a while ago we experimented with truly natural ham and bacon curing.  Before I get to the news, lets review a bit:

There are currently four ways to purchase "cured" cuts of pork. Each is explained here.

1. Conventional curing - sodium nitrate: This is how the hams and bacon on the shelves today are predominately processed. Sodium nitrate (along with some other flavorings) is injected into the meat, allowed to sit for some period of time, and then smoked at low temperatures. The resulting product has the common "pink" color and taste of hams, bacon, lunch meats, hot dogs, etc.  Sodium nitrate reduces the chances of botulism bacteria growing during storage, improving the shelf life. Critics state evidence that sodium nitrates changes into cancer causing chemicals during cooking and body metabolism and increases the chance for many cancers. The government does not support this claim.

2. Natural Nitrate curing - also called nitrate free curing, celery cure, etc: This method is fairly new and little understood by most people. Instead of the chemical sodium nitrate,  the meat is injected with condensed celery juice or reconstituted celery juice, mixed with other flavors and salts. The effect on the meat (if done properly) is identical to conventional nitrate curing. In fact, it is the exact same chemical process that utilizes nitrates to perform the magic of curing. Celery happens to be high in nitrates occurring naturally. Using a high concentration of celery juice in one form or another is a source of sodium nitrate.  The benefits of this approach is that the nitrates are at least naturally occurring, instead of being chemically produced pure. Celery juice carries with the nitrates all the vitamins and minerals of celery, which proponents say counteract the cancer causing effects of the nitrates, making it a safe alternative. These products are NOT usually clearly labeled, and the only way to tell for sure if your "no nitrate" product has celery based nitrates is to look at the ingredients. the list will often include "celery juice or powder". The package will often say "no nitrates added (except those naturally occurring)". This is because celery juice itself is a flavor not a additive according to government rules, so it is treated differently on labeling.

3. Natural or Traditional Curing :  This method is totally different from the nitrate cures of #1 and #2. In this method salt and sugar are the only preservatives in the meat. Spices are added to impart flavor but the operative ingredient is plain salt. This is how people have preserved meat for ages.Salt slows bacteria growth when in high enough concentrations. Natural curing means salt, sugar, and spices are injected into the meat and it sits for some time, then smoked just like above. (smoking itself is a bit of a preservative, since smoke also contains natural nitrates in small quantities).  The resulting product is truly NO NITRATE (except for hte tiny amount added in the outer layer by smoke) and hence is not truly "cured", does not have the "pink" color nor true ham taste. The shelf life is also reduced (more on this later). The flavors of this type of meat are endless, as any combination of spices can be added to produce a distinctive flavor.  These meats are also often aged for long periods of time, producing a bit of "fermentation" internal and adding further flavor.

4. Fresh or Uncured: This represents truly untouched meat, sold fresh just like a pork chop or plain roast would be. It has no specific flavor other than that of pure pork, and no coloring at all other than that of pure pork. When cooked this way without further processing the end result is the flavor of pork chops or roasts with no flavor. The shelf life of this meat is identical to any raw pork.

So that's the options today for hams and bacon (along with lunch meats and hot dogs). Anytime you see meat with a red color, and tastes like ham instead of pork chops, be assured it probably has been treated with nitrates in one form or another. If it has no color, and tastes like plain pork chops or roasts, it is probably truly fresh, and it if has other exotic flavors, it is probably salt and sugar cured.

A word about meat shelf life: In the distant past, this was a very important aspect. A large animal was butchered and if it could not be consumed within a day or two, the meat would go bad, just like raw meat left out on the counter today. With no refrigeration, there were few options to preserve the meat. That is when salt and sugar cures (along with fermentation) was introduced, specifically to preserve meats for later consumption without refrigeration. Fast forward to today and the question is... do we need a long shelf life at room temperature? Kept frozen, raw meat as a seemingly indefinite shelf life (months to years). So the original reason for curing no longer exists. Today, the only reason for sodium nitrate curing is the flavor, color, texture of ham. I suppose one could make the argument that the food delivery system has an interest in preserving meat for sale much later, but that's a scary thought in itself.

So, with the background done.. here is our news!

Our experiment in natural curing (salt and sugar based) is a huge success! We produced four types of cures, all of which can be offered through little sprouts  as well as conventional curing:

1. Celery and Honey cure: This recipe uses celery juice and honey as the primary flavor and curing agent, producing a flavor just like conventional hams and bacon, without the chemical nitrates.

2. Mustard and Spice Cure: This is a completely natural nitrate free cure, relying on salt, sugar, and spices. The predominate flavor is that of mustard seed mixed with onion, garlic, and other spices. It is a slightly salty, slightly sweet, slight mustard seed flavor that produces a well balanced and appetizing flavor. It is my personal favorite!

3. Holiday Ham: This is also a completely nitrate free salt and sugar cure relying on cloves and holiday type spices to produce a bright festive flavor. It is somewhat similar to the honey hams sold in stores without the strong sweetness. This ham would go well baked as a holiday ham in a sweet sauce to complete the flavor, but is absolutely delicious on it's own.

4. Molasses and Pepper: This is more for bacon than ham, but could apply to either, another completely natural nitrate free cure. It has the sweetest of the above flavors, but the sweetness comes from molasses not raw sugar, which fits well with the pepper and bacon flavor. Be careful when cooking as the sugar in the molasses will caramelize easily! Cooked right, this is a fabulous breakfast meat to wake up the pallet and start your day.

Little Sprouts Farm is proud to announce availability of these cures (plus the option to buy "fresh" and do it yourself) on future orders or pork. When placing your order just choose which cures you wish for which cuts of meat, and in a couple weeks you will have the most unique flavored hams and bacon available anywhere! Our recipes are our own secret and so will not be available anywhere else. We wish to keep these great cures matched to the extreme flavor of the Red Wattle Pork.

Hurray and place your order today! Supplies are some what limited, and not available elsewhere!

We have a Winner in the Bacon Taste Test!

We did our first informal taste test of the "heritage cured" bacon today! You may remember a blog post about 2 weeks ago about producing some old fashioned "heritage" brine's without nitrates, and running them through the smoker at the local butcher shop.  Well we can proclaim that the experiment was a grand success!

We taste tested three flavors today with our immediate family. I was the only one that knew which flavor was which so its a "blind taste test", thought informal. The flavors tested were:

1. Molasses and Pepper brine (no nitrates at all)
2. Celery and Honey cure (natural nitrates)
3. Standard bacon nitrate cure

I am glad to announce that our family unanimously chose the no nitrates cure for flavor and aroma. This is very good news because one of our goals was to find a true no nitrate cure for bacon and ham that is as good or better in flavor than even the celery cure with natural nitrates.  For us, we have found it!

Next we have 3 flavors of ham to test and choose.  Yum!

Our plan is to offer our own recipes for our customers that order ham, bacon, and hocks cured. We will of course offer the standard nitrate cure, but now we can also offer the extra health benefits and outstanding flavor of "heritage cures" that are completely nitrate free.

Where there's Smoke... there's pork!

I spent most of the day cleaning and scrubbing that seemed to me to be the world's biggest oven! This is the smoker oven we are investigating. It is used and has been in storage for a few years. Apparently it is best for the smoker when putting on in storage to NOT clean it. That way the layer of grease on the metal actually protects it from rust. That means, as you can imaging, that to place the oven back in operation takes a fair amount of elbow grease!

So we scrubbed, dismantled, scrubbed, washed, scrubbed, scraped, scrubbed... until shiny metal appeared! It was hard work but in the end, we have a usable smoker oven to use for our experiment in natural cures.

The fun part comes tomorrow... when the ham and bacon is hung and smoked to perfection! I can't wait to try the flavor of our homemade cures on the Red Wattle ham and bacon. We have a variety of 4 flavors to smoke and try, 3 with NO nitrates and 1 with natural nitrates.

Tomorrow is smoking day!

Experimenting with Brining and Curing

It is an exciting day here at Little Sprouts. The time has come to experiment with curing and brining hams and bacon. Our goal is two fold...

1) To explore a way to do smoking and curing locally, giving faster turnaround as well as more control over the process

2) To experiment with recipes to see if we can produce our own "Little Sprouts Flavor" in hams and bacon without using chemical nitrates.

As you may know, there is suspicion that nitrates used to cure processed meats today may cause health problems. In keeping with our mission of providing only the tastiest AND healthiest products, we want to see if we can produce a tasty alternative.

There are 2 approaches being experimented with:

1) Natural nitrate curing using celery juice instead of chemical nitrates

2) No nitrate salt and sugar based curing - technically brining instead of curing

The latter is the more traditional method, but there is a problem. Most recipes take too long to be practical for us today. In the future it would be great to offer dry cured hams and bacon, aged 6 months to a year, but for now we don't have the facilities available to do that. So, wet curing or "brining" is the next best thing. Using this method we can produce hams and bacon in as little as a week.

Meat processed without nitrates will not have the shelf life of nitrate cured meat, but today with refrigeration and freezing in every house, its really not that important to most people. So the main purpose today in curing is really the flavor and color. We will see soon how these match up between brining, celery cure, and nitrate cure.

Celery juice used as a cure is actually nitrates, but it is the natural form of nitrates, accompanied by many other compounds as nature intended. Celery cure is also accompanied by a bacteria culture that helps to cure the meat in a sort of internal fermentation. The flavor and color is supposed to be similar to nitrate cured meat, but with lower health risk.

The final step in curing is smoking. Smoking itself has much the same function as nitrate curing, which is why the smoked portions turn pink or red. Smoking imparts flavor as well as extending shelf life.
I should mention that Little Sprouts will not own the smoker and curing facility. We are not a slaughterhouse nor butcher shop nor smokehouse. Nevertheless, having our own recipe with no-nitrate options and natural nitrate options will be a great asset and a unique offering. The butcher / smokehouse we are working with will process meat raised at Little Sprouts Farm to our specs with our recipes in their facility.

Why go to all this trouble? We want to ensure that our unique pork (Red Wattle) is processed in a way complimentary to the manner in which it is raised. We want to go the extra mile to ensure you the best product available. So STAY TUNED to see the results of our experiment!

Naturally cured bacon recipe submitted by a customer

Here is another customer submitted recipe

Home-made bacon


I found this one online somewhere.

Make a mixture of Redmond's Real Salt and unrefined sugar crystals, and add fresh ground peppercorns, oregano, sage, bay leaf, or any other spice you might like to experiment with.

Lay the sliced side pork (which is the cut bacon is made from) in a single layer on a big cutting board, plate or baking pan.

Thoroughly sprinkle both sides of the meat with the salt/sugar/spice mixture, massaging it in.

Put the slices into a plastic zip-lok bag and place in the refrigerator.

Massage the bacon each day through the bag, for up to 3 days, turning bag over in rotation.

Remove pork, rinse well, blot dry with paper towels, and bake at 200 degrees to dry and lightly cure the bacon.

It is now ready for storage as bacon, ready to be fully cooked to eat. I didn't bother with the low temperature baking, but went right to a 350 degree cooking. I figured it would store better fully cooked, though I'm told the lighter-baked meat will last up to a week in refrigerator. But why cook it twice? I just warm up the cold cooked meat in a toaster oven when I'm ready to eat more of it.

No smoking involved, which adds flavor and lengthens storage time, but also adds complexity and infrastructure.

I found this simple bacon quite tasty enough and easy to make. It was a bit too salty, and I was surprised that more of the saltiness didn't rinse out. Next time I'll use less salt and perhaps more sugar.
 
 
NOTE: views, opinions and procedures expressed by customers do not necessarily reflect the views of Little Sprouts Farm and we urge the reader to do their own research into food safety before attempting to reproduce these recipes.