Canadian Bacon

I made some Canadian Bacon using the recipe from Ruhlman's Charcuterie.  It's pretty simple, you cure in a brine (with pink salt as the curing agent) for a couple days, let it dry for a day, then smoke it to an internal temp of 150F.  The brine has a few spices in it, but basically, this is a smoked cured ham (made from pork loin).

It came out pretty much as expected.  There's a small non-pink spot in the middle: perhaps the brine didn't diffuse quite far enough in in the two days?  With the commercial product, they pump the brine into the meat under pressure to get better perfusion.

I want to try Kassler Ripchen which is a similar product, but in theory is smoked first, then brined.  Or maybe it's cured, smoked, brined.  It's hard to get a straight story online: there's tons of recipes, the vast majority of which are basically identical to the Canadian Bacon.  The original Kassler process is about 100 years old, and may have done things that aren't good practice today.

Also on the list to try is Landjaeger: a dried, cured, smoked sausage made from pork and beef. Think of it as southern German jerky.  It's a dry cured sausage, but not the months hanging like salami, just a couple weeks; but it is fermented (unlike the Pancetta).  I also have a tub of sauerkraut fermenting in the wine locker.