Making charcuterie is a hobby of mine. I have a couple hops plants growing in my garden and haven’t tried brewing beer yet so I tried to use them as a spice in my charcuterie. Here is my 3rd and 4th attempts. The first two (another coppa and a salami) were extremely overpowering and unpalatable, they had to be tossed. The lonza I cured in the fall of 2016 and it was slightly too bitter but edible at least. The coppa I cured this past fall and used just about 25% less hops and it ended up that the hops is barely noticeable at all! Maybe it’s the higher fat content? Not entirely sure. This has been a challenging multi year experiment!
To back up a bit, a lonza is a dry cured pork loin and a coppa is a dry cured pork shoulder (also known as capicola, which for those of you who like pop culture references and know The Sopranos a coppa is also known as “gabagool”).
Once properly salted, spiced and hung to dry in the proper aging conditions the meat becomes cured and is shelf stable. That is it will not rot. When a product is finished (dried to a certain texture) I seal it in a vacuum pack to trap the humidity exactly as I want it and I can save it for years if I really wanted to. That’s how I’m able to slice into a product from 2016 and another from 2017 right now in 2018. In the vacuum pack the meat will no longer dry but there will be some minor aging and flavour development or loss. As in the case of the lonza which I remember as being a bit too hoppy a year and a half ago it has mellowed and is at quite a pleasant level right now. Maybe I need to slightly over spice with the hops and then let the long term aging let it mellow out. It’s still a work in progress!
![image showing [Homemade] Hops Cured Lonza and Coppa](6537af7f-b643-5dcc-862e-5be4067e4879.jpg)
dannywizkid on March 5th, 2018 at 13:00 UTC »
Fuckin hell, that looks gooooood
HFXGeo on March 5th, 2018 at 13:07 UTC »
Making charcuterie is a hobby of mine. I have a couple hops plants growing in my garden and haven’t tried brewing beer yet so I tried to use them as a spice in my charcuterie. Here is my 3rd and 4th attempts. The first two (another coppa and a salami) were extremely overpowering and unpalatable, they had to be tossed. The lonza I cured in the fall of 2016 and it was slightly too bitter but edible at least. The coppa I cured this past fall and used just about 25% less hops and it ended up that the hops is barely noticeable at all! Maybe it’s the higher fat content? Not entirely sure. This has been a challenging multi year experiment!
To back up a bit, a lonza is a dry cured pork loin and a coppa is a dry cured pork shoulder (also known as capicola, which for those of you who like pop culture references and know The Sopranos a coppa is also known as “gabagool”).
Once properly salted, spiced and hung to dry in the proper aging conditions the meat becomes cured and is shelf stable. That is it will not rot. When a product is finished (dried to a certain texture) I seal it in a vacuum pack to trap the humidity exactly as I want it and I can save it for years if I really wanted to. That’s how I’m able to slice into a product from 2016 and another from 2017 right now in 2018. In the vacuum pack the meat will no longer dry but there will be some minor aging and flavour development or loss. As in the case of the lonza which I remember as being a bit too hoppy a year and a half ago it has mellowed and is at quite a pleasant level right now. Maybe I need to slightly over spice with the hops and then let the long term aging let it mellow out. It’s still a work in progress!
LucyKendrick on March 5th, 2018 at 14:18 UTC »
Also, have you tried your hand at Prosciutto yet?