Reddit reviews Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing (Revised and Updated)

I have made pounds and pounds of bacon following Ruhlman's Charcuterie book and it has always worked great. I typically change up the wood I'm smoking the belly with to vary the flavor, but the base is amazing (smoked with cherry wood has been the best I've made yet).

Ruhlman's Charcuterie is indispensible.

I'd also recommend Fatted Calf's In the Charcuterie.

Prague Powder. Basic pink curing salt.

Sausage stuffers can run $100-200, but the old fashioned type still works great for $35. Same goes for meat grinders. There are expensive electric grinders, but a decent manual grinder works just fine for $25. Of course, if he owns a Kitchenaid mixer, you can just get the grinding and stuffing attachments for that.

I've not tried dry-cured meats, but here's a stuffer for $40US. I just use my grinder to stuff the sausages I make (bratwurst, andouille, boudin) and it works just fine. The piston press stuffer really shines for emulsified sausages like bologna and franks.

As for recipes, I have this book and this one and they are fairly comprehensive. Read the Ruhlman first for the broad strokes, then the Marianski for some more in-depth theory and practice, along with what seems like a thousand recipes.

Michael Ruhlman's books are the best I know of: Charcuterie and Salumi

Yup, Rhulman's is a book, or rather a book author.
[Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Curing and Smoking] (http://www.amazon.com/Charcuterie-Salting-Smoking-Revised-Updated-ebook/dp/B00CF2MBB2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1404270367&sr=8-4&keywords=ruhlman)

Some people consider it the bible of modern salt preservation techniques.

If interested, the book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Ruhlman/Polcyn is as fantastic reference/inspiration. If a full blown book isn't your thing, a safe bet for any curing is to search for things posted by Michael Ruhlman to sanity check any recipe you find. Curing is something that isn't as hard as one thinks, but if it goes bad it can be really really bad for the people eating your food.

This is a great book. I would definitely pick that up.

http://www.butcher-packer.com/ is also another good resource for buying supplies like stuffing tubes and casings.

There's also some free resources on the web you can checkout if you don't want to spend a lot of money at first.

Plus, make sure to post any other questions you have here, we'll be happy to help!

Well - the trick is you need to have a proper ratio of nitrate (pink salt) to ensure that botulism can't form. Pink salt isn't the same as a brine. I highly recommend you get this book, and a scale as the measurements need to be fairly precise.

https://www.amazon.com/Charcuterie-Salting-Smoking-Revised-Updated-ebook/dp/B00CF2MBB2

But honestly cold smoking is much more dangerous than people realize unless you are cold smoking cheese/nuts. Doing meats requires them to be cured properly or bad things could happen.

Stay safe!