Salt Cured Lamb, Continued

The weather is not cooperating with our hopes and dreams, these days.

We had originally been planning on butchering our big Meishan barrow (“Bacon”) this coming weekend, but the weather is going to be over 40 degrees all night, several nights in a row. In fact, last weekend was likely our last night below 40 degrees. We got a couple of inches of snow over night, which the kids thought was amazing. Unfortunately, while it might have been an adequate weekend for butchering, we had too much else going on, so we didn’t get to it. So now we will have to outsource that to professionals.

But our sauerkraut was so yummy I ate almost a pint of it with a fork.

Last Saturday (3/14) was three weeks into the lamb salt curing process. The leg of fenalar after one week of hanging is 3 Lbs, 11 oz. Starting weight 76 ounces, current weight 59 ounces, down 22%.

Leg two is finished salting. Starting weight 74 ounces, Current weight 61 ounces. Down 18%.

Leg three, Starting weight 86 ounces, current weight 65 ounces. Down to 76% of starting weight.

Wrapped all of them in cheesecloth, but unfortunately, I put too much flour in the strutto so it wouldn’t stick to the leg, so we had to put it aside. I’ll mix more later, if these start getting case hardened.

With the snow on the ground, humidity in the basement is down to 46%, which is a bit low for this. We’ll check back in a few days.

Well, it’s a few days later, and the humidity has gone back up over 60%.

And the texture is firm, but even all the way through. No trace of case-hardening. We’ll let her ride for now.

I want to let these legs cure all the way until September, maybe cut into them on Michaelmas. We will see how it goes.