FST 212: FOOD PROCESSING 1

Curing: Tocino Making (Group 1)

Introduction
Curing uses high concentration of salt to bind to the water in foods, making it unavailable to
microorganisms. The earliest recorded use of salt as a preservative dates back to 3000 BC, when salt was used to cure
fish. Now, curing is known as a food flavouring and preservation process, especially in meat and fish, by the
addition on a combination of salt, nitrates/nitrites and sugar. Nitrates and nitrites not only help kill bacteria, but also
produce a characteristic flavor and give meat a pink or red color. Common types of curing salts are Prague powder
and saltpeter. Prague powder is colored pink to distinguish them from regular salt.
Meat delicatessens are mostly cured. Tocino, a cured product, is Spanish for bacon or cured meat. In the
Philippines, it is a red sweet pork served as a breakfast dish that you must dip in vinegar. A red food color is sometimes
added to intensify the color of tocino.

Objective(s):
1. To develop skills in curing.
2. To gain knowledge on the effect of curing on both quality and safety of cured products.
3. To evaluate the sensory qualities of cured meat.

Materials:

1 kg. pork (ham portion, sliced to about ¼” thickness)

2 T salt
2 T rhum or pineapple juice
12 T sugar
½ t Prague powder
Kitchen towel/tissue
Oil*
Hardwood*
Hardwood charcoal* Sawdust
/ Wood shavings* Guava
leaves*

* after curing

Cutting Board Smoking Trays * Cooking Tongs

Weighing scale Measuring spoon Mixing bowl
Knife Colander Basins Frying pan*
plastic bag (PPE) and rubber band

(don’t forget to specify the quantity, capacity and unit of each items when you borrow)
 Procedure:

1. Wash the meat with clean tap water and allow to drip.
2. Cut the meat into small slices at approximately ¼” thickness.
3. Weigh meat slices and prepare the curing ingredients per kilo of meat. Mix all ingredients in a mixing bowl in dry
form.
4. Rub thoroughly the curing mixture into the meat, skin and flesh sides. See to it that meat is evenly rubbed with the
curing mixture.
5. Place the meat slices in a plastic bag (PPE). Press as much as possible to exhaust air and tie the end with string or
rubber band
6. Allow to cure inside the refrigerator for 2 -5 days per kilo and then wash to remove adhering curing salts.

Cooking Process:

7. Prepare smokehouse using hardwood, charcoals and sawdust or “kusot” as fuel.

8. Divide the meat into 2 parts, 1 for frying and the other for smoking.
9. Pan fry 1 part of cured pork until both sides are cooked and nicely browned. Evaluate afterwards.
10. While the other part of cured pork is laid down on a smoking tray, and smoked for about an hour. Flip the meat
halfway through the smoking process.
11. After smoking, check if meat is cooked. If not, continue smoking. If meat was cooked, proceed to evaluation.

Worksheet: to be placed in
Fill up the given tables below with the data that you have gathered in your laboratory.

Table 1. Process observations of Tocino.

Cured whole tocino
Untrimmed meat, (grams)
Trimmed meat, (grams)
Date of Curing
Weight after curing, (grams)
Weight after frying, (grams)
Percent shrinkage
Date of Cooking

Table 2. Sensory evaluation of tocino.

Tocino Color Aroma Taste Texture General Acceptability
(1-9)
Pan-fried
Smoked

General Acceptability 4-dislike slightly

9-Like extremely 3-dislike moderately
8-Like very much 2-dislike very much 1-
7-like moderately dislike extremely
6-like slightly
5-neither like nor dislike
Table 3. Production cost of Tocino
ITEMS Unit Price (Php) Quantity Cost (Php)
Meat
Salt
Sugar
Gin/Rhum
Prague powder
Electricity/Gas
Utilities
Labor cost
Total Production Cost (Php)
Yield (grams)
Price per 100 grams (Php/100 g)

Table 4. Production cost of Smoked Tocino

ITEMS Unit Price (Php) Quantity Cost (Php)
Meat
Salt
Sugar
Gin/Rhum
Prague powder
Electricity (2/24 hrs)
Gas (50/24 hrs)
Utilities
Labor cost (260/8 hrs)
Total Production Cost (Php)
Yield (grams)
Price per 100 grams (Php/100 g)

Questions: for curing

1. What is the purpose of adding prague powder?

2. Is there a standard level of prague powder that must be added to cured meat?
 Curing: Making of Bacon (Group 2)
INTRODUCTION
Bacon is processed from pork bellies by curing them either in sweet pickle or in dry salt. It is said that the
best kind of bacon is commonly cured in dry salt. There are certain terms that are applied to bacon. When employed as a
prefix bacon indicates that it has been dry cured; when used as a suffix shows that it has bee sweet pickle-cured. To
illustrate; ‘bacon bellies’ mean dry-salted acid smoked bellies; while ‘breakfast bacon’ indicates pickle-cured
smoked bellies. Bellies processed in sweet pickle are ordinarily easily cured products. The method is just to put the
required amount of meat in the curing vat where the pickle is added.
Objectives:
1. To develop the skills curing bacon.
2. To evaluate the sensory qualities of the cured meat

MATERIALS
Pork bellies (thinly sliced) 1 kilo
22 g Salt
11.2 g Sugar
6.8 g Prague powder
PPE Plastic and rubber band/string Kitchen
Tissue/towel
Oil*
Hardwood*
Hardwood charcoal* Sawdust
/ Wood shavings* Guava
leaves*

*after curing
Cutting Board Smoking Trays * Cooking Tongs*
Weighing scale Measuring spoon Mixing bowl
Knife Basins Frying pan*
Colander plastic bag (PPE) and rubber band
(don’t forget to specify the quantity, capacity and unit of each items when you borrow)

METHODOLOGY

Procedure
1. Get untrimmed weight of belly.
2. Trim if necessary.
3. Weigh the meat and get trimmed weight.
4. Wash with clean tap water.
5. Hang to drip using bacon hanger in an airy room for at least 30 minutes.
6. Prepare curing ingredients and mix all ingredients thoroughly in a dry form based on the method and
formula selected for curing.
 Quick cure style – use of prague powder in the formula

The recommendation is to use 40 grams of salt, sugar, and Prague powder consisting of : 55% salt
28% sugar
17% Prague powder

Or an amount per kilo meat of the above ingredients; Namely:

Salt - 22 grams
Sugar - 11.2 grams
Prague powder - 6.8 grams
Total - 40 grams
7. Weigh the individual ingredients.
8. Mix all ingredients thoroughly in dry form.
9. Place meat on a tray.
10. Rub thoroughly the curing mixture into the meat, skin and flesh sides. See to it that meat is evenly rubbed
with the curing mixture.
11. Place the meat slab in a PPE Plastic. Press as much as possible to exhaust air and tie the end with string or
rubber band.
12. Allow to cure inside the chiller for 2 days per kilo.

Cooking Process
13. After the end of the cure period the meats are removed, soaked, washed and dried at ordinary room
temperature.
14. Divide the meat into 2 parts, 1 for frying and the other for smoking.
15. Pan fry 1 part of cured pork until both sides are cooked and nicely browned. Evaluate afterwards.
16. While the other part of cured pork is laid down on a smoking tray, and smoked for about an hour. Flip the
meat halfway through the smoking process.
17. After smoking, check if meat is cooked. If not, continue smoking. If meat was cooked, proceed to
evaluation.

Worksheet: to be placed in results section

Fill up the given tables below with the data that you have gathered in your laboratory.

Table 1. Process observations of Bacon

Cured whole Bacon
Untrimmed meat, (grams)
Trimmed meat, (grams)
Date of Curing
Weight after curing, (grams)
Weight after frying, (grams)
Percent shrinkage
Date of Cooking

Table 2. Sensory evaluation of bacon.

 Tocino Color Aroma Taste Texture General Acceptability
(1-9)
Pan-fried
Smoked

General Acceptability 5-neither like nor dislike

9-Like extremely 4-dislike slightly
8-Like very much 3- dislike
7-like moderately moderately 2-dislike
6-like slightly very much 1-dislike
Table 3. Production cost of Tocino extremely
ITEMS Unit Price (Php) Quantity Cost (Php)
Meat
Salt
Sugar
Gin/Rhum
Prague powder
Electricity/Gas
Utilities
Labor cost
Total Production Cost (Php)
Yield (grams)
Price per 100 grams (Php/100 g)

Table 4. Production cost of Smoked bacon

ITEMS Unit Price (Php) Quantity Cost (Php)
Meat
Salt
Sugar
Gin/Rhum
Prague powder
Electricity (2/24 hrs)
Gas (50/24 hrs)
Utilities
Labor cost (260/8 hrs)
Total Production Cost (Php)
Yield (grams)
Price per 100 grams (Php/100 g)
 Effects of Dry Rub Method on Ham Production (Group 3 and 4)

Dry rub- Group 3

Sweet Pickle- Group 4
note (MEAT SHOULD BE CHILLED 24 HOURS, SO BUY THE MEAT BY MONDAY)

INTRODUCTION

In the manipulation of meat products there is no portion of the animal that demands as careful and efficient
consideration as the hams. Ham making is a very important in the preservation of meat and meat products. There are two
methods used in curing ham, namely, the dry cure and the sweet pickle cure. The same curing ingredients such as sugar,
saltpeter, and salt are employed in both processes. The difference only lies in the application of these ingredients. In the
dry cure, curing ingredients are rubbed on the surface of the meat to be cured, while in the sweet-pickle cure it is
submerged in curing pickle. The main purpose of injecting or pumping the pickle is to lessen the period of curing and
to guarantee an efficient and uniform curing.
Refrigeration is essential in the preparation and curing of ham since it is not only and efficient way for
controlling the development of molds and bacteria, which if not checked would surely cause the meat to spoil and
become rancid, but it also makes the meat firm rendering it to be easy to cut and trimmed.

Objective(s):
1. To get acquainted with the different ingredients used for processing cured ham.
2. To understand the role of curing materials and curing method on the quality of cured ham.
3. To develop skills on the different methods of curing ham.

Materials:

≈ 1 kg. pork (preferably ham, make sure to keep your meat cold)
Salt
Sugar
Prague powder
Container with cover for curing (plastic) Sterile
syringe (for sweet pickle method) Kitchen
Tissue
Weighing scale Colander Knife
Mixing bowl Spoon measuring spoon
Cheese cloth Graduated cylinder

Procedure:

I. Preparation of Meat
1. Chill the meat overnight (a day ahead).
2. Trim the meat and weigh.
3. Wash the meat and allow to drip for 30 mins in a colander.
4. Compute the ingredients based on fresh trimmed weight of meat.
5. With the recommended use of 40 grams dry mixture, consisting of salt, sugar, and prague which is good for 1k of
meat, compute the amount of total mixture and each ingredients needed for (gram or kilo) of meat using the
following percentage below as basis.
6. Record the amount below:
Salt (70%) = gm
Sugar (15%) = gm
Prague (15%) = gm
TOTAL = gm

A. Dry Rub method

7. Mix the above ingredients thoroughly in dry form.
8. Rub the total dry mixture into the meat at one time.
9. Cure in the refrigerator for 5 - 7 days.

B. Sweet Pickle Method (by injection)

7. Dissolve the ingredients on water (10% of trimmed weight).
8. Filter the solution to remove dirt and other sediment from salt.
9. Inject the sweet pickle solution into the ham.
10. Put the container and meat in the refrigerator and allow to cure for 5 - 7 days.

Cooking Process:
1. After the curing period, wash the meat with warm water to remove salt adhering to the meat surfaces.
2. Drain the meat by hanging or in a colander ready for cooking.
3. For every kilo of meat, prepare the following:
¾ c beer
2 pcs cloves (optional) 2
pcs bay leaves
1 c pineapple juice 1
c brown sugar
4. Boil the meat with the above mixture for 30 minutes to 1 hour or until tender.
5. Remove the meat from the cooking pan and let the mixture boil until thick syrup is formed.
6. Discontinue heating when thick syrup is obtained and place the ham on a platter. Garnish with pineapple slices or
orange slices and serve.

DATA SHOULD BE THE SAME FORMAT WITH THE TOCINO AND BACON