Ok. I’ll be the first to admit that I can rush into a new project unprepared when I get excited. I read the two following articles:
https://elevatedwild.com/elevatedwildblog/venison-prosciutto-recipe
https://foragerchef.com/smoked-lamb-goat-or-venison-country-ham/. (I disregarded this one, as the methods were fairly different from the other two)
and decided to go get a deer and make something mocetta/prosciutto-esque. I liked the sound of the elevated wild recipe better, as it seemed a bit more intuitive. So I took my leg, and put a lot of salt on it. The leg was about 6
5.75kg to start, and I probably added 6-700g to my container, working the salt into all crevices and massaging it into the meat.
I shot the deer the evening of the 25th, hung it between 35-45 degrees for three days, then into the salt. Every day I’ve pulled the leg out, washed and dried the Tupperware, and added fresh salt. It’s now down to about 5.3kg.
What have I done wrong, and is there anything I can do at this point to salvage my meat? Is the brown I’m seeing normal? Did I add way too much salt?
by Purple_Perception_95
4 Comments
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I can’t edit my post, so I just add a photo description here. Photo one is the ham. Photo two is a closeup of an area of exposed meat that is turning brown. Everything still smells good. Thanks for reading!
I have never cured venison prosciutto before but 700g of salt seems low. When I cure prosciutto it is fully submerged in the salt for 1.5 days for every pound. So for a 6kg(13lb) leg it would be submerged in salt for 20 days.
Brown is not bad, no reason to change salt, as others have sad, bury it in salt for x days, I’d let it ride