Status check, 27 December

News on the "Salt" front:
   The basturma/pastirma is coated in its chaman, and hanging in the "bacon box".  Thoughts:

1. I should probably have made the meat pieces a little thinner.
2. I really need to press the next batch much more--boards and 'c'-clamps.
3. Puree the garlic for the chaman, next time.
4. Maybe try mixing all of the spices together, *then* the fenugreek; the stick blender didn't do as much to the fenugreek "gelatin" as I might have liked, so it's kind of lumpy.  Alternative: spend a *lot* more time working it with some forks.

   The "bacon box" has a stronger fan than I had initially installed, but that doesn't seem to be doing so much.  I also "cleaned up" the fan opening, and widened the air-intake hole.  The intake filter is catching a striking amount of dust...

   The smokehouse is built, complete with hanging hooks inside.  I need to build the "hot-box" (for starters, just a cardboard box with a hot-plate, cast-iron pan with perforated pie plate, and an inward-blowing fan for positive pressure; later, I'll probably build something a little more permanent), and to attach the smoke-hose connection to both ends, but those are minor details.

   The "lambcetta" are cured and air-drying; they'll get rolled this evening and hung in the bacon box.  I plan on reserving one of them (the "mangled" one, looks like it was, well, butchered in the butchering process) to be smoked lightly.  I may set aside one of the other three to be "tesa" (flat) rather than "arrotolata" (rolled), but we'll see.

   Tomorrow, I intend to pick up a pork tenderloin and some red wine, to start making the lountza.  Pics and recipe to follow.  Duck breasts have been ordered; pink salt #2 is on its way, and I'm planning things for a pig belly in the (hopefully) not too distant future.

News on the "Beer" front:
   The Altbier I brewed back in November is probably ready for kegging.  I may move the Decemberfest down into the cellar for a little extended aging and maturing--probably no longer than March.  I'm undecided just yet as to whether to rack it first.

News on the "Bread" front:
   Not much to report here...  I'd like to pick up a Dutch Oven and try doing a boule in that, whether I go with "fresh" bread or using my sourdough.  Which reminds me, I need to feed it...

Origins

Welcome to Bread and Salt and Beer!  Here, I'll be documenting my experimentation with charcuterie/salumi, with bread and baking, and (a bit) with modern brewing.  (My other blog - Misha's Brewing - covers the same things mostly, but with an emphasis on the historical aspects.  Since I spend much more time in the present-day lately, I hope to be able to keep this version going more consistently!

Where am I in the whole process?  Well, I'm a serious brewer (20 years or so of homebrewing; all-grain, hopefully soon moving to 10-gallon batches and an electric brewhouse; I'm in the process of growing my own grain, and hope to have enough hops to use in a batch next year).  I greatly enjoy bread and baking (and food and cooking, generally); I've got a nice sourdough culture that I "caught" from my homestead (a 130-year-old farm), and I hope to build a wood-fired oven in the next year or two, the better to 'play' more with all aspects of that.  And perhaps the driving aspect for starting this, charcuterie--I'm an almost complete novice, with a number of duck prosciuttos and a few slabs of bacon under my belt (literally, at least in part.)  I'm working on some more advanced stuff, and (as I will do) have voraciously read everything I can find on the subject.

Going right now, I have a pair of eye-of-round roasts (beef), which have been salted and pressed (about 2 weeks on the salt, one week under weights), and are currently hanging in my makeshift "bacon box" (a 2'x2'x2' 4" cube of 2" rigid foam insulation).  In about 2 weeks, if they haven't grown any sort of fuzz, I'll mix up some chaman paste (fenugreek, garlic, and paprika, mostly--I'll post my recipe when I get to that point) and cover the meat, then let it hang for another two weeks or so.  This is a mediterranean/middle-eastern cured meat called "basturma" or "pastirma," and it's an ancestor to pastrami, both linguistically and stylistically.  Photos will be forthcoming.

Upcoming other curing experiments: lountza (Cypriot/Greek cured pork loin, marinated in wine and smoked) and Bak Kwa (a type of Chinese pork jerky).  Also more duck prosciutto.  Time and space permitting, I'd like to do more bacon, and maybe a pancetta.  I'm also salivating to do a capocollo (pork shoulder), and I'd like to do an actual ham prosciutto, but that may wait until next winter.  Sausages and salumi will hopefully be forthcoming, as well.

So, that's where we're starting.  At present, aside from my "bacon box," I don't have anything built for any of this.  I hope you'll stick around for the adventures!