Hi,
I've done a few rounds of meathead's bacon curing, and it's always been good. I recently made some mistakes in prep ( entirely my own ), but before I threw meat out, I wanted to understand the consequences of my mistakes.
My major mistake:
* I did not wet cure with an adequate enough time according to the calculator ( about 1/2 the time, 1.5 days rather than 2.8 for my desired cuts, these were smaller cuts ~ 1.25 lb, 1.5in )
When I realized my mistake, it seemed that throwing it out would likely be excessive because 1.5 days of fridge time would still be an entirely reasonable amount of time for me to just cook and eat the pork belly itself without any real fear of contamination. Furthermore, if I intended to store the bacon for any real amount of time, the cure time would be more important, but in my case, if I intend to store anything not eaten quickly in sub 38F temperatures, I would achieve some of the same botulism resistance that would have been imparted by the cure. ( Presuming that the cure is primarily targeted at botulism growth resistance and not botulism elimination )
That said, fully acknowledge that "when in doubt throw it out" is safest and the ability to string facts together from disparate articles does not make me a food scientist. Does it seem like my interpretation of safety there is correct?
( If you are wondering how I made my mistake, it is because I failed to read the instructions I wrote for myself on the bag. I m dum )
I've done a few rounds of meathead's bacon curing, and it's always been good. I recently made some mistakes in prep ( entirely my own ), but before I threw meat out, I wanted to understand the consequences of my mistakes.
My major mistake:
* I did not wet cure with an adequate enough time according to the calculator ( about 1/2 the time, 1.5 days rather than 2.8 for my desired cuts, these were smaller cuts ~ 1.25 lb, 1.5in )
When I realized my mistake, it seemed that throwing it out would likely be excessive because 1.5 days of fridge time would still be an entirely reasonable amount of time for me to just cook and eat the pork belly itself without any real fear of contamination. Furthermore, if I intended to store the bacon for any real amount of time, the cure time would be more important, but in my case, if I intend to store anything not eaten quickly in sub 38F temperatures, I would achieve some of the same botulism resistance that would have been imparted by the cure. ( Presuming that the cure is primarily targeted at botulism growth resistance and not botulism elimination )
That said, fully acknowledge that "when in doubt throw it out" is safest and the ability to string facts together from disparate articles does not make me a food scientist. Does it seem like my interpretation of safety there is correct?
( If you are wondering how I made my mistake, it is because I failed to read the instructions I wrote for myself on the bag. I m dum )
Much appreciated.
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