Dry Cured Meat - First Attempt - Spanish Lomo

This will be my first attempt at making a Dry Cured Meat after wanting to do so for several years.  I really enjoy Prosciutto which is a Italian Dry Cured Ham.  It has a rich and earthy flavor and really lovely chewy texture.  Prosciutto is a big piece of meat and requires a couple years of aging so I'm not up for trying one but I've come across a smaller piece of Cured Pork which seems much more doable:  this is Spanish Lomo as demonstrated by the Two Guys and a Cooler YouTube channel.

Dry Cured meat is typically aged in a cool and humid aging space, similar to cheesemaking, to allow for slow and even drying.  This recipe was written to allow for making it in a normal refrigerator using dry aged steak wraps which also slow down the drying.  It seems like a simple enough process so I'm going to give it a shot.

This Spanish Lomo (which I've never tried before) is made using Pork Loin and is spiced with Paprika among other things - this recipe is made with Pork Loin.  The recipe calls for the use of "the equilibrium" curing method where salt is added at 3% by weight of the meat and it is allowed to sit in a vacuum seal bag until the salt has had time to penetrate the meat and protect and preserve it.  Following this salting (which takes about a week for this size cut) it is dried until 35% of the water is lost

I am very excited to be trying this finally  I really love doing things that require a small bit of up front work and then become something much better with time.  Dry Aging seems very much like that kind of endeavor.

Ingredients:

• 1333 g Pork Loin

• 40 g Kosher Salt
• 20 g Sugar
• 2 g Black Pepper
• 5 g Paprika
• 5 g Spicy Paprika
• 5 g Smoked Paprika
• 4 g Garlic Powder
• 3 g Onion Powder
• 1.3 Bay Leaf

Process Details:

• 1/14/23
• Mixed the spices

• Covered the Meat with the spices

• Moved the meet to a Food Saver bag and moved this to the fridge to cure for a week.  Moved all the spices that hadn't stuck to the meat into the bag as well as they will need to be allowed to absorb into the meat for the cure

• 1/22/23:
• Removed the cured meat from the bag (removed the bay leaves but left the other spices)

• Wrapped it in the steak wraps and then a netting

• Weighed the meat as 1324 g (so, we'll be shooting for 860 g as our final weight)
• Moved the meat to a wrack in the fridge for drying

• 1/29/23 - Weighed the meat after 1 week at 1162 g.  It has firmed up a fair amount already
• 2/12/23 - Weighed the meat as 1031 g (lost 22% against the target of 35% so far)
• 2/19/23 - It now weighs 995g
• 2/26/23 - It is down to 956g.  The outside layer that is face up after the week is pretty dry and hard.  This seems to even out a bit after being on the down side for a week..

• 3/5/23 - Now down to 928g
• 3/12/23 - It is now 910g
• 3/19/23 - Measured the weight as 875g this morning and flipped it again
• 3/26/23 - The meat is down to 860g - Done! 
• The dry cure wrap has dried out a lot:

• I had to run it under cold water to soften up the wrap such that it could be scraped off (it turns into a gelatin)

• Cut it in half.  It looks really nice.  The bottom is pretty dry which isn't unexpected given that it aged in the fridge

• Sliced it on a home meat slicer my mother had from 30 years ago.  It does a really good paper thin slice.  I'll review the flavor later but it is a really nice flavor - the paprika smoky and spicy flavors really compliment the meat

• I decided to vacuum seal it and let it mature in the fridge to maybe reduce the dry ring a bit