This is the second Bresaola we’ve made.  Here’s a link to the first one.

02/22/2014 – Trimmed the meat of fat, added cure

Made a spice blend cure mixture as follows, the same recipe as for the first bresaola, but with less than half the rosemary (the cure, which should have been white, was green last time, and the rosemary flavor overpowered other flavors).

100 g – Salt
100 g – Sugar
5 g – Fresh ground black pepper
2 g – Thyme
3 g – Dried juniper berries
3 g – Fresh rosemary (3 sprigs)
5 g – Cure #2

403 g – Elk leg roast (single muscle)
680 g (approx) – Elk leg roast (not a single muscle)

Trimmed meat.
Chopped spices (Juniper berries in food processor).
Sealed meat and spices in a chamber vacuum bag.
Curing in fridge.  Forgot to tie the mean into cylinders at this phase, so we ended up with bresaola pancakes.

03/16/2014 – Start drying

Starting weight: 379 g, 638 g

Target 30% loss: 265 g, 447 g

Lots of juice in the bags after curing in the fridge 3 weeks

Rinsed in cold water to remove cure and spices

Vacuum sealed in UMAi dry aging bags and put in the fridge

03/17/2014 – 366 g, 617 g
03/18/2014 – 356 g, 598 g
03/19/2014 – 346 g, 580 g
03/20/2014 – 338 g, 570 g
03/21/2014 – 334 g, 556 g
03/22/2014 – 330 g, 544 g
03/23/2014 – 325 g, 539 g
03/24/2014 – 320 g, 528 g
03/26/2014 – 310 g, 503 g
03/28/2014 – 300 g, 482 g
03/30/2014 – 294 g, 468 g
03/31/2014 – 290 g, 456 g
04/03/2014 – 281 g, 437 g

The larger piece had a better seal in the UMAi bag and therefore had a better interface with the meat for drying.  It reached its target after 16 days.  Moved it to a normal vacuum bag to stop drying until the other is done drying and both can be sliced.

04/05/2014 – 277 g
04/07/2014 – 271 g

Drying slowed to a crawl due to almost complete loss of vacuum in the UMAi bag, so aborted a few grams early.  Moved it to a normal vacuum bag.  Will slice in the future.