Making my first capicola

[Tony]

I am curious about the curing time for my first capicola The instructions that come with the kit say to cure the meat for two weeks, yet I’ve watched two videos and they both only cured their meat for one week. I’m sure that this is an important step and under or over curing would not be good. I know when I brine my salmon before smoking, that leaving the fish in too long would make for some bad tasting salmon. I would appreciate any help with this question. This is my first attempt at this and I am very excited to get into making my own cured meats. Thanks for any help given.

[Dave]

Having made capacola numerous times I can tell you that based on my experience one, or even two, weeks will not be enough. In fact, I’ve kept mine in the fridge for 30 (the first one in a batch of two or three) to 60 (can’t eat them all at the same time) days and they’ve always been great. Crusty on the outside and soft in the middle. Everyone loves it. I think you will really like the end products.

[Tony]

I want to make sure that everybody understands that I am asking about the time that the meat spends in a “ziplock bag” with the salt ,pepper, garlic, instacure #2 and garlic on it. The step “before” it is rinsed and then vacuum packed and let sit in fridge to lose 35% of weight. That is the time I am questioning not the overall time to finished product or the time that the meat is actually in a vacuum pack bag losing weight. Sorry if I wasn’t clear of the about the step of the process I was asking about. Thanks for any and all help.

[Dave]

Oh, okay…that part. Well, it’s not critical (someone please correct me if I’m wrong) to safety whether it stays in the fridge for one, two or even three weeks because the bacteria will be inhibited from growing by the presents of both the instaCure#2 and kosher salt. Generally, the longer it stays in the bag, the more the flavors from the spices will be absorbed into the meat. Though I suspect that after three weeks, you’d start to get diminishing marginal returns where this is concerned. Hope this helps.

[Bob]

A good rule of thumb is 2 weeks. If it’s not a coppa muscle and you are using the whole shoulder 2-3 weeks is fine. You need time for the salt and cure to penetrate to the center, before starting the drying process.

Fish are whole different ball game taking hours and not weeks to be done.

[Tony]

Thank you all for your quick responses. It is a true coppa from the butcher. I will go two weeks and then move on from there. Really looking forward to getting into this new hobby. Thanks again.

[Author]

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