Salt coverage is the traditional way to cure a prosciutto: bury the leg in coarse salt mixed with cure #2, packing it hardest into the exposed muscle and the bone seams, and let the meat draw in what it needs over roughly one day per kilogram at 1 to 4°C. Coverage gives a firm, classic […]
Curing a whole ham at home means dry-curing an intact bone-in pork leg with salt and cure #2, salting it cold at 1 to 4°C for roughly a day per kilogram, equalising, then drying it at 12 to 15°C and 70 to 80% humidity for 12 to 18 months until it has shed at least […]
To make prosciutto at home, weigh a trimmed pork leg, apply 3% salt plus 0.25% cure #2, cold-cure it at 2 to 4°C until the cure is fully absorbed, then hang it in a 12 to 15°C chamber at 70 to 80% humidity until it has lost at least 30% of its starting weight. For […]
Making prosciutto at home means dry-curing a whole pork leg with salt, cure #2, cold, and patience until it loses at least 30% of its green weight and drops below a water activity of 0.91. Done right, a bone-in leg takes 12 to 18 months; a boned-and-rolled leg can finish in 5 to 9. There […]
A coppa you waited three months for can be let down in thirty seconds by a bad knife and a warm board. Slicing is the last skill in whole-muscle charcuterie, and it matters more than people expect: cured meat eaten thick is dense and chewy, while the same piece sliced translucent melts on the tongue. […]
The single question that separates people who finish good charcuterie from people who ruin it is “is it done yet,” and there are only two ways to answer it: the scale and the squeeze. After years of logging every piece across the chambers I run, my answer is unambiguous, weight loss is the honest signal […]
Duck breast prosciutto is the famous beginner cure, the two-week project that hooks people on charcuterie, and for good reason. But once you have a few duck breasts under your belt the obvious next question is the goose: a bigger, fattier breast that promises more of everything. I have cured both across the chambers I […]
Lomo embuchado is cured pork loin, the Spanish whole-muscle cure, and it is the one I push beginners toward after they have done a pancetta. The loin is a single clean muscle, easy to source, evenly shaped, and the cure is simple: salt, the smoky-sweet pimentón rub that defines it, and a casing. It is […]
Coppa, called capocollo or capicola depending on where you stand, is cured pork collar, and it might be the most rewarding whole-muscle cure there is. The collar, the muscle running from the neck into the shoulder, is threaded with seams of fat in a way no other cut is, so a finished coppa slices into […]
Pancetta is salt-cured pork belly, dry-cured rather than smoked, and it splits into two builds the moment you decide how to shape it: arrotolata, rolled into a tight cylinder, or tesa, left flat as a slab. They use the same cure and the same chemistry. They behave completely differently in the chamber, and after years […]