Coppa...

[ExpatCanadian]

Decided that along with some salami, the inaugural use of my new drying chamber would be to cure and dry some coppa.  I looked at a couple of recipes and methods and decided on Len Poli's, found here: http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/coppa.pdf.  To get the right cut for the coppa, I bought a whole bone-in neck end shoulder cut from my butcher, and tried to follow the instructions on the Cured Meats website the same site that BuyLowSellHigh has posted about recently.  I found it slightly confusing...  but persevered and took some photos of my own to supplement...

Coppa muscle bundle circled....


Slightly different aspect...  rough path of the coppa noted...


Spine and rib ends peeled back to expose coppa bundle


One "coppa" ready for cure!  Weighed in at roughly 3lbs (1.35 kg)


This photo was taken 8 days into the cure, just after I had added the second half of the cure mix and re-sealed it.  Another 7 days or so, and I'll be stuffing it into a casing....

[SouthernSmoked]

Heck Yeah...

Looking good - I will be watching this.

[3rensho]

You're gonna love that stuff.  I use Poli's recipe too.

[Tenpoint5]

Looks like a fun project.

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Oh that's looking fantastic!

[oakville smoker]

Looking good there
You will love this stuff
I used the same recipe and got great results !

I still have some left in a vac pac in the fridge
Soon it will be time to transform the garage back into a dying room and more salami and coppa will emerge

[ronbeaux]

Very nice!

[ExpatCanadian]

So, decided it was time to get this thing stuffed into it's final resting place today.  I was actually around 48 hours short of the prescribed curing time, but it just looked, felt and smelled right....  can't really say much more than that about it, but I just had a "feeling" it was ready to go.  To summarise, removed it from it's vac seal bag.... rinsed and dried at room temperature for around 3 hours.  Soaked the beef bung, stuffed, trussed and hung the sucker.

Photos:

Rinsed and drying:


One beef bung...  soaking:


Rolled in some spice mix a la Len Poli and stuffed:


Tying it up for support:


All done, ready to hang:


Hanging from a kitchen cupboard for a few hours....  not sure why Len recommends drying the casing for 12 hours, when we're all supposed to be super wary of "case hardening"...  but I'm the amateur and he's not, so:


Since my drying chamber is currently sans heater, I can't get up to 60^oF in my conservatory at the moment, so I'm using my wine fridge for the initial few days (BTW, that wrinkly old sausage next to it is a "Bamberska", I posted a few weeks back about a recipe for it...  going to attempt to reverse engineer it soon):


Enjoy!  I'll update this one more time in about 3-4 weeks when it's ready!

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Wow!

So how long do you expect it to be drying?

[ExpatCanadian]

So how long do you expect it to be drying?

Len says at least another 17 days.  Why 17? Who knows...?  Well, actually I suspect it has something to do with the USDA regs for killing Trichinae cysts, he does reference this document on his site and it makes for an interesting read, well, once anyway  ;).  Bottom line is a hunk 'o meat that size wrapped in just about the thickest piece of bovine innards available means it'll probably take a heck of lot longer than 17 more days to dry it down.  As this is my first, I've got no idea just how long....  but I'll keep you posted!

[Tenpoint5]

Expat This is looking like a really fun project for you. I cant wait for it to all come together.

[Habanero Smoker]

When I am dry curing whole meats or sausage I go by weight loss. You should be looking for a 30% loss in weight. I generally go for 35% because I like that texture better, commercial operators tend to use 30% because the don't want too much weight loss. Too much loss would meat they have to charge more per pound or take a loss.

So 17 days is probably the average time under his environmental conditions at which he achieve that weight loss. Also; and although the risk is small with U.S. commercial pork, when I am making dry cured sausage with pork I freeze the pork first using the guidelines that 10.5 posted. As far as my understanding, cures, salt or lack of water will not destroy the trichinae parasite.

[ExpatCanadian]

As far as my understanding, cures, salt or lack of water will not destroy the trichinae parasite.

I was of the same understanding, but having now read through the USDA doc referenced above, my interpretation is that they recommend treatment to destroy trichinae by one of 3 methods: Heating (obvious!), Refrigerating (freezing) or curing.  It then describes each one.... time and temperature relationships etc. for heating and freezing, and then goes into 6 different methods to destroy them in the curing process specifying salt percentage, curing time, smoking time and drying room time for different products.  It's quite detailed...  and one does start to go cross-eyed after a while  :D.

I also tend to freeze my pork before use, but it's usually because I buy bulk in advance from Costco.  However, this Coppa is from a fresh shoulder from my local butcher.  I wanted free range and decent quality for it...  BUT...  I just read this from the above referenced USDA document  :o:

(iii) Coppa. Boneless pork butts for coppa shall be cured in a dry-curing mixture containing not less than 41/2pounds of salt per hundredweight of meat for a period of not less than 18 days at a temperature not lower than 36 °F. If the curing mixture is applied to the butts by the process known as churning, a small quantity of pickle may be added. During the curing period the butts may be overhauled according to any of the usual processes of overhauling, including the addition of pickle or dry salt if desired. The butts shall not be subjected during or after curing to any treatment designed to remove salt from the meat, except that superficial washing may be allowed. After being stuffed, the product shall be held in a drying room not less than 35 days at a temperature not lower than 45 °F.

Oops!!  I only cured for 16 days! So much for my "use the force" method.  I followed Len's recipe, and my salt content was 4.5%...  I'm sure it will be fine...  but I just might do a little cheeky research on the prevalence of trichinae in UK free-range pork.

[Habanero Smoker]

OK. I'll read it again, I went through rather fasts this morning.

A few reports I read on trichinae, was that it was mainly spread among herds by feeding hogs commercial feed that contained processed animal parts from hogs that had been infected. That practice was stopped some time ago, and commercial farms no longer use feed that has animal protein in it. So in the U.S. with that practice stopped and the use of antibiotic in the meat (that sure if that is a good thing), the trichinae parasite if pretty much under control.

[SamuelG]

Expat,

How is the coppa?  It sure looks like it will turn out great!  I'm about to start one myself once it is all cured up.


Thanks. 
SamuelG

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk