madbaker | Smoke on the Water

I succumbed to temptation and picked up Charcuterie, a new-ish book on meat curing that's gotten good reviews online and (more importantly) from people I know. It just arrived yesterday and I glanced through it quickly.

It looks like bacon is relatively easy to make - I already have a hot smoker, albeit a manual one that can't be programmed to a particular temperature. This means that I can't cold smoke, so some types of cured meats are out. Products like ham that require four to eight months of hanging are probably out, too, since we don't have a good clean space for them. (Unless I take over the upstairs neighbors' fridge in the garage... hmm...)

I'll have to pick up nitrite salt before I start playing with serious curing. I'm not sure if the local German deli/sausage shop carries it; they might, since that's where I buy my sausage casings. I'll have to check.

In any case, I need to read the book first. Then maybe I can try curing bacon. If I work quickly enough, I might be able to get a batch done before our tomatoes fruit and ripen up. If we plant lettuce I could make BLTs with everything produced on our property...