Hello dear colleagues in the disease!
I want to share the recipe and technology for making uncooked smoked balyk and at the same time try out the experimental format for presenting the recipe proposed by Zeus to test interest in microblogging. Let's salt, ripen and smoke together! But for a long time, a whole month

As a result, the product will look something like this:

The first and very important thing is the choice of meat. I have several fairly large markets, supermarkets and small butcher shops in my city. The market disappears because the quality is extremely unstable, dealers buy pigs in villages from different owners, certificates are bought, it is dangerous for damping. In supermarkets, the quality is stable but poor, the meat is pumped up like bodybuilders. Thank God we have a small grocery chain, as they say boutiques, sell their pigs, the quality and freshness are quite acceptable. The cut is a little lame, but oh well, the best available.
I take two pieces. Pay attention - there are pieces on the side of the neck, they are much more interesting and varied in section than the usual one, the second on the other side is the same. Usually sellers try not to show them and are surprised at my choice.

I do not touch the films, fat and side parts. Just trim the edges.

We weigh - 2860 grams.
For salting, you need per kg.
Nitrite salt 28 grams (for my taste, it will turn out slightly salty)
A mixture of sugars "crystals" - 10 grams.
Peeled garlic, chopped with a knife, bay leaf, juniper 1-2 pieces, ground ginger on the tip of a knife.

Antioxidant - sodium isoascorbate - 0.5 grams per kg.
Someone will say cheating bastard, poisoning himself and his family. And I will say - no, this additive helps to preserve the color of the meat, prevents the formation of carcinogens, objectively the meat is more beautiful and tastier. The additive is allowed in our countries and even in the EU and USA. Sooner or later it will appear in Paul's assortment and will be like phosphates.

Further worse - preservative - potassium sorbate - 1 gram per kg. this is half the application rate. Well, I don't like to grow mushrooms and unknown animals on the products that I will eat. On my scales there is an unproven harm of this preservative and the risks of eating some mycotoxins or something else interesting. Sock odors, bacterial mucus ... spare! The meat should smell like meat and spices. Moreover, the appearance of mold on this product is unacceptable. In my opinion, the additive will not interfere with the assortment of sausages. The choice is yours, I do not impose it, but I ask you not to ask how and how to wash off the mold.

Mix all the ingredients and sprinkle the meat in any suitable container (only not aluminum) or in a bag.

Now you need to wait a couple of three hours until the meat lets out the juice and dissolves the salt and the rest of the mess. Stir and pickle according to the usual scheme. I keep it at room temperature overnight and then put it in the refrigerator for 10 days, no less. From time to time I turn it over as I remember.

I will continue to saline

I will continue
Five days of salting have passed. The meat released its juice and began to soften slowly.

I don’t drain the juice, it’s a concentrate of taste, later it will be almost completely absorbed into the meat.
The smell is awesome! Garlic, lavrushka and juniper are a great bouquet!
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Well that's it! The salting is complete!
Moving on to maturation
The meat after the refrigerator is a little slimy, it has become much softer. Almost all of the liquid was absorbed along with the extractives.
The aroma is great!

I wash off all the spices under cool water, since most coarsely ground spices are not difficult to do.

After salting, the pattern began to appear. I really like this breed of pigs, it has streaks of fat in this longest muscle, there is no such thing in meat from the supermarket, for me this is a sign of a more or less normal growth rate of a pig.

I prepare nets and dress meat in them.

After that, it must be rolled and slightly beaten with a fist, so it will take on the correct shape and additionally soften.

I wipe it off with napkins and send it to the cell.

It is not ready for smoking, not tomorrow, not after tomorrow. Even when the crust is dry, it is too early to smoke. It should mature for at least two weeks, the meat will become dense, the humidity will drop, the surface will become dry. If you hurry up with smoking, you are guaranteed to get a product of mediocre quality, where instead of the aroma of haze in a bouquet with the taste of meat and spices, you will have to savor the sourness, at best light. It's not just not tasty, but also unhealthy. No withering in the smokehouse in the process! Maximum is a very short-term sanitary and then in a week not earlier.
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Time flies!
Tomorrow I'm going to the village to visit the smokehouse.
This is how the balychki will look now.

They have become noticeably denser, the color pleases. No hardening crusts appear, matured perfectly.

The preservative worked great, not even a hint of mold. It smells like spices and a little whey.
I am satisfied, you can start smoking.
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Got to the smokehouse!
I have it homemade, nothing like that, but it works well. Since this smokehouse is not entirely intended for cold smoking, it is necessary to make adjustments to literary representations. Everywhere they write cold smoking for a long time up to 7 hours. Like many others, I did it for the first time, it was unrealistic to eat the finished product. For such long periods of smoking, it is necessary to have special equipment, where the product is fumigated with weak smoke of low concentration. In my smokehouse, like many others, the smoke is highly concentrated and does not come out of the chamber so quickly, which means that the time must be reduced and the preparation of the product must be carefully considered before smoking.

The essence of the smoking process is the deposition of smoking substances on the surface of the product. Scientists have counted more than three hundred compounds in the smoke, it is not possible to understand them, you just need to create conditions for the precipitation of the necessary substances. The product must be dry, otherwise acids will settle and the same sourness will appear, which I consider to be a marriage. I put the balyk in the smokehouse, turn on the convector and the heating element at the lowest power of 20C, for three hours during this time the crust becomes completely dry and the temperature of the meat rises, leaves the dew point. Since most of the necessary components of smoke are perfectly deposited on fat, I slightly lubricate the surface of the meat with refined sunflower oil, this will create additional protection against acid, improve the color and aroma of the product, the oil will then be absorbed or dry out as it did not.

Scientists and doctors unanimously speak about the presence of carcinogenic substances in the smoke, I do not argue with them, but I cannot refuse this, so I try to reduce the harm by means of controlling the combustion temperature of wood chips and reducing the smoking time - the aroma is obtained and that's it. I adjusted the combustion temperature for a long time, now I roughly know what kind of inflation should be for a chip combustion temperature of no more than 300C
How long to smoke, I will not say, I do not know, it depends on many factors. I don't understand why they write about this in recipes, someone will smoke in an hour, and someone will not get it in five, it all depends on the equipment, I burned only two glasses of wood chips. One rule is - IT'S BETTER UNDOOKING THAN OVERBOOKING. In appearance, my balyk is not yet smoked, a deceptive sensation, the color will then appear and the excess smoke cannot be reached from it.

But it is not ready yet, now you need to wait for the smoking substances to penetrate into the meat, some reactions will occur there, the moisture content of the product will drop and the smell from the sharp smoky will become the aroma of smoking. This will take at least two weeks, not a day to air and eat. We need a delicacy, we'll wait, wait again ... otherwise we won't get a good product, I'm sending it back to the cell.
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It's only been four days, see how the color appears.

Left as it was and right as now, the process will continue.
The smell changes becomes pleasant, delicate smoked.

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That's it! The end of expectations has come!

I take a knife, now I will cut

Well, what can I say? It was worth it!
The smell of smoky was completely reborn into a real aroma of smoked meats, light smoke mixed together with the smell of ripe jerky and spices, great! Three-quarters of the sensations have already been received, now the taste is slightly salty, full-fledged, rich, multifaceted. When chewing, the middle melts in the mouth and the fat and veins prolong the pleasure, they are soft and chewed very easily. There is not a hint of sourness, everything turned out great for my taste! You could hold it in the cell for a while, then it will become drier, but I like this one

Thank you for your patience! I hope it was interesting and useful, I tried to show everything in as much detail as possible. This technology and principles work well for other products as well.
Photos from the previous series.

Alexei.

When there is an urgent need to keep the caught fish for a long time, it is impossible to do without cold smoking. Cold smoking fish is a troublesome business, which includes a preparatory stage, which consists in the fact that first they dig a chimney with a length of three to five meters, with a diameter of 50 cm ( fig. 8).

For a chimney, it is more rational to choose a natural steep bank, it is easier to dig a chimney tunnel and equip a firebox in the form of a flat area or a depression in the ground. At the exit of the chimney, a wooden barrel without a bottom is usually installed, or a kind of square pipe with smooth end edges is hammered out of the boards. On top of a barrel or pipe on transverse sticks with hooks, pre-salted and soaked fish are hung.

Delicate fish of the whitefish and salmon family, including char, grayling, omul, are tied with twine, like boiled hand-knitted sausage.

Large fatty fish (carp, silver carp, grass carp), bursting during heat treatment, are laid horizontally so that fat does not leak out. A wooden barrel is placed on top of the chimney pipe, with the help of which the intensity of draft and smoke is regulated. or, more simply, the process of cold smoking itself.

The chimney neck (the junction with the barrel) is lined with sand, clay or turf to prevent smoke leakage.

Great importance is attached to the initial stage of firing up the furnace. First, dry branches of alder, mountain ash, ash are kindled. And only when a steady draft forms at the exit, the fire is sprinkled with dry sawdust, thin branches or decayed bark of deciduous trees. The exception is birch and aspen branches. Birch gives off too much resin and is not suitable for cold smoking, and aspen adds a bitter taste to the fish.

According to gourmets, branches and sawdust of black and red mountain ash, pear, alder, chestnut, grape and ash give the best taste to fish.

The smoking process lasts from one and a half to two days (outlet temperature is not more than 40oС).

It is unacceptable to speed up the smoking process by opening the damper on the chimney, increase the fire flame, and also use resinous tree species (spruce, pine, fir, larch, birch, oak).

After two days, the product is ready for use. Finished fish easily break off the fins at the base of the head. By their taste, you can determine the degree of readiness of the meat.

Finished products are placed in containers with ventilated holes, where they can be stored for several months at room temperature.

Due to the saving of time, instead of a chimney when smoking, an ordinary metal barrel with a knocked out bottom is often used, which simultaneously acts as a firebox and a chimney. There is an improved version of the smokehouse device, when a stove is installed next to the barrel. But most often a pit adjacent to the barrel serves as a firebox. Although, by and large, there is no difference between such smoking devices, since the distance to the fish still remains insignificant. It is possible to smoke fish faster with such a simple device than with a classic device with a natural chimney. This is perhaps the only plus of barrel smokers. The disadvantages include the fact that the smoke, passing through a short pipe - the barrel does not have time to cool down and to some extent be filtered, partially settling on the sandy-clay walls of the chimney. The longer the chimney, the better the fish is.

The smoking process is laborious and time-consuming, which you always want to speed up by throwing more wood, leaves and roots that have not been completely burnt into the firebox. The process, of course, is accelerating, but this affects the quality of the products.

As a result, the angler faces the following problems:

- due to the increase in the smoke temperature, the shelf life of the fish is reduced;

- carcinogenic substances are formed in fish (product quality deteriorates).

Output: fish smoked in violation of the cooking technology is unpleasant (very bitter) and, moreover, is unsafe for human health.

Nevertheless, observing the entire technological process of smoking and not saving time, the fish can be perfectly smoked in a device with a short chimney, i.e. in a barrel (only wooden barrels are used). But in terms of taste, the final product will be inferior to fish smoked according to the classical scheme with a natural chimney.

You need to be especially careful when buying cold smoked fish, since some unscrupulous people (usually poachers) smoke fish without observing existing sanitary requirements, using, moreover, resinous tree species. The black-brown color of the fish suggests that it was most likely unsuitable for food even before the start of smoking. Having smoked fish in this way, they try to pass off the stale product as a delicacy. This disguise of spoiled fish as well-smoked fish confuses gullible buyers. You can tell a good fish from a bad one by abruptly tearing off one of the pectoral fins and sniffing it.

To speed up the cooking process of large fish, after evisceration, it is cut into pieces (pieces) across the ridge along with the spine, after cutting the upper (dorsal) fin with a sharp knife. After smoking, the chopped pieces of balyk are slightly weathered in the wind.

Attention! There are hundreds of times more food poisoning from cold-smoked fish than from hot-smoked fish. So think carefully before taking on this difficult and troublesome business.

I must say right away that small but fatty fish are usually smoked in this way: bleak, podust, dace, smelt, smelt, vendace and especially small omul, grayling and whitefish. At the first stage, a frame made of stakes is made and hammered into the ground, less often a stationary structure is used. The poles driven into the ground are covered with pieces of plastic wrap, which are nailed to the poles with small wallpaper nails with large caps. The entrance to such a smoking chamber is closed up last, with the condition that it can always be opened and penetrated if the coals flare up. When the angler has a plastic bag, the frame is made taking into account its dimensions ( fig. nine).

Fish weighing up to 100 g are salted for 1.5-2 hours without oppression in a plastic bag. Salt consumption per 1 kg of fish is 120 g. Hot coals are poured inside the smoking chamber, fresh green grass is laid on them in an even layer.

The fish is ready in 1.5 hours.

In order to prepare a high quality product, you must adhere to a unique technological sequence.

Those who think that balyk- an ordinary piece of meat subjected to a smoking procedure is deeply mistaken. A real, true balyk is made only from tender pork neck meat, soft, as if melting in the mouth, pierced with thin marble veins. To create a product, muscle fibers located near the ridge, without bones and skin, are used.

First, a piece is salted, and then, to give it a more pronounced taste and better preservation, it is subjected to a smoke treatment procedure. Most often on our counters there is hot smoked balyk processed at temperatures up to 50 ° C. The advantages of this method are a short (no more than 48 hours) cooking time, a low percentage of moisture loss in meat and impregnation of the product with fat, which gives it an unusually delicate and refined taste.

Unfortunately, hot-smoked balyk does not have a long shelf life, therefore, if they want to save meat longer, it is processed using the cold method. The resulting product has a juicy salty taste, greater dryness and a slightly coarse meat structure.

Meat prepared according to any of the recipes enjoys well-deserved popularity among consumers, allowing them to diversify their diet.

The benefits of smoked balyk:

The bactericidal preparations contained in the smoke rid the meat of putrefactive bacteria. In addition, the smoking procedure allows it to preserve metabolic acids and trace elements that are destroyed during frying, and preserves the original calorie content of the dish.

Harm and contraindications:

The smoke, with the help of which smoking occurs, often contains potentially hazardous substances - carcinogens that can cause cancerous degeneration of cells. Therefore, it is better if this extraordinarily tasty delicacy is not often present in your diet.

Balyk products are considered to be one of the best fish products. Fish balyk can be smoked and sagging (dried). In order to prepare balyk products, the fish should first be cut up, then seasoned with salt, and then either slightly dried and smoked in smoking chambers in a cold way, or dried in the air.

Types of fish balyk

Dried balyk

Hanging (dried) beams are wilted on specially designed towers in a well-ventilated room with closed blinds. It is under these conditions that the fish gradually withers to the desired moisture content.

In terms of their taste, suspended fish balyks are valued higher than smoked ones, because, being in the above conditions for a sufficiently long time - up to one month or more - the product fully matures and acquires its own special "bouquet". Under the influence of heat and air, its own proteolytic enzymes and microflora are activated, due to which there is a gradual maturation of the fish. This process is somewhat similar to the ripening of cheeses.

Cold smoked balyk

As for cold smoked fish balyk, they are dug out and wilted in 5-7 days. The ripening process of such balyks is quite simple and therefore their "bouquet" is limited by the own taste of fish and the aroma of smoked meat. Both together provide excellent gastronomic qualities of cold smoked balyk.

What fish is balyk made of?

For the preparation of balych products, large meaty and fatty fish are used, for example, fish of the sturgeon, herring and salmon families. In addition, good balyks are also obtained from oceanic fish - sea bass, catfish, notothenia, halibut, umbrina, mero and others.

In order for all technological processes for obtaining balych products to proceed correctly, and the finished product to be sufficiently uniform in taste and quality, the fish must be cut in a special way. As a result of such cutting, parts of the fish are obtained, called tesha, back and side. Tesha is the abdominal part of the fish, and the sidewall is the two halves of the fish carcass, which contain both the dorsal and abdominal parts. Beluga carcass sidewall is prepared only from the back of the fish.

Requirements for fish balyk

Preparation of fish balyk requires a high level of sanitary production. This level of production is found in fish processing plants to which raw materials are delivered - most often in the form of salted semi-finished products or in the form.

In industrial refrigerators, dried and smoked fish balyks are usually stored for no more than 1-2 months. However, they should be periodically checked for the appearance of mold. And in a home refrigerator, balych products can be stored no more than 5-7 days in whole form (in a piece) and 1-3 days in the form of cut slices.

• 1 kg of pork tenderloin;
• coarse (rock) salt - 3 tbsp. top spoons;
• granulated sugar - 0.5 tablespoons;
• freshly ground black pepper - 1 tsp;
• spices to taste.

• Time to prepare: 96:30
• Time for preparing: 96:00
• Servings: 8
• Complexity: easy

Preparation

We will cook dry-cured pork balyk at home in two stages: salting pork tenderloin and withering it.

1. Put a mixture of salt, sugar and pepper in a deep bowl, roll a piece of meat in it, then rub its surface with this mixture. Close with a white napkin, put oppression on top so that the juice stands out from the meat. Refrigerate for 4 days. Turn the meat every day. On the fifth day, remove from the refrigerator, dry thoroughly with a napkin or paper towel.
2. Prepared meat is put into the refrigerator in a container with a closed lid. On the second day, the allocated juice is drained, and the container is placed with a slight slope so that excess liquid collects. For this purpose, you can put a plastic jar lid under the bottom of the container. The accumulated liquid is removed every day by turning the piece of meat. Remove from refrigerator on day six.
3. Further, to make pork balyk at home, you need to dry it. Grate a well-dried salted piece of meat with a mixture of spices. Which one to choose depends on your taste, this is a completely creative stage of preparation.
   

   You can make it out of ready-made "hops-suneli" by adding mustard seeds. Second composition: crushed nutmeg, coriander seeds, paprika powder. Caraway seeds, juniper berries, dried and crushed are also used.

4. After the pork is well grated, it is wrapped tightly in several layers of gauze, tied tightly and hung in a dry, warm place. Preferably where there is air movement. After 4 - 5 days, the surface of the meat hardens, a small crust forms. Pork loaf is ready, you can serve it to the table. Store it in the refrigerator without removing it from the gauze package until it is finally ripe. See how it looks cut in the photo. The cut is evenly colored.

The most reliable and ancient way of preserving meat products is balyk, the name is caused by an analogy with dried red fish. Pork loaf, at home, is a delicious, spicy product and an excellent cold snack for festive table.
The decisive point is the choice of meat tenderloin: pork neck, loin or loin - pork flesh from the back. A small layer of fat is required so that the dried delicacy is not too dry. The tenderloin can be large, but not too thick. You can even cut it lengthwise, remove the veins (if any). After all, it should be evenly salted.

This type of balyk can be prepared with your own hands if you have at your disposal a home smokehouse or a smoke generator for cold smoking factory production. Some craftsmen make smokehouses from metal barrels. You can replace them with the most ordinary barbecue.

This recipe for pork balyk at home, at first also requires salting the meat. The method of salting, in contrast to the above-described (dry), has a "wet" version. A brine is prepared at the rate of: for 1 liter of water 10 g of granulated sugar and 100 g of salt. In boiled brine, the meat is kept under oppression for 5 days in a cool place, also turning it over every day. It is believed that a wet ambassador will make the balyk more juicy and tender. After salting, no matter how it was carried out, the meat is dried, that is, it is hung in a draft for 2 days. Before that, it must be thoroughly rinsed in clean water, dried, packed in gauze.

Now you can start the smoking process, which will take no more than 2 hours. Let's describe the sequence of actions:

• make a fire in the grill;
• pour alder chips or sawdust onto the bottom of the smokehouse, 3 handfuls will be enough;
• put the meat on the wire rack, cover the chips with a pallet;
• tightly close the smokehouse with a lid, put on fire;
• after 1 hour, remove the smokehouse from the heat, replace the burnt chips with fresh ones, clean the carbon deposits from the lid and put them back on the fire;
• smoke for another 1 hour;
• The product will be finished after 2 - 3 hours of air cooling. It is also recommended to keep it in the refrigerator for several hours before using it.

Sometimes it is believed that smoked pork balyk, juicy, aromatic, with a ruddy crust, is preferable to dry-cured. And he prepares faster. This, as they say, is a matter of taste. But the smoked product should be stored wrapped in foil for no more than 4 days at a temperature not higher than +2 degrees. While the shelf life of dry-cured products is much longer.

We offer you to visually get acquainted with how to cook pork balyk at home. The video will teach you how to cook hot smoked balyk in the country.
Video: