Love Capicola? Pancetta? Bresaola? Want to Make it Yourself?
Here are the simple basic steps for creating charcuterie with UMAi Dry:
1) Select the right cut of meat for your home charcuterie project (Pancetta = pork belly or a pork Capicola "gabagool" = pork shoulder or pork butt Lonzino = pork tenderloin).
2) Prepare your Charcuterie base cure using a digital scale to measure salt:
Kosher Salt - 3% of meat weight or 66 g per 5 lbs (2.2 kg)
Instacure #2 - 0.25% of meat weight or about 1 teaspoon per 5 lbs (2.2 kg)
Alternatively, use UMAi Dry Premixed Curing Salts Blend for 5 lb Recipe and any UMAi Dry Charcuterie Spice Blend: Capicola, Bresaola, Lonzino (also for just 5 lb of meat).
3) Coat the meat with cure and spices and refrigerate it in a ziplock bag for two weeks to cure.
4) Remove from vacuum bag, and rinse off cure.
5) Seal the moist cured piece of meat into UMAi Dry. Use either the vacuum method or immersion method.
6) Capture a Start Weight for the meat, calculate a Finish Weight of 35-45% weight loss (= start weight x 0.6)
7) Place on an open wire rack in your fridge for anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks. Yes... good things take time. A duck prosciutto or Guanciale will take about 2-3 three weeks to reach target weight, but a rolled pancetta can take three months or more.
8) When the meat has reached Target Weight, remove UMAi Dry, and seal in a regular laminated vacuum storage bag to allow the moisture to equalize from edge-to-edge.
9) By now that pork belly or pork shoulder has transformed into delectable meat candy. Slice thin, share and knock your friends socks off!