Course overview

River Cottage alumni and top artisan charcutier Steve Williams will take your charcuterie skills to the next level.

This is the ideal follow up to the Introductory River Cottage Charcuterie at Home course, for everyone who wants to grow their skills to produce charcuterie at an advanced level. This could include professional chefs and butchers, small holders and meat producers who are looking to craft artisan charcuterie and smoked meats for sale to the public.

Ideally you will already have some knowledge of butchery (especially pork butchery), but there will be an overview of the key cuts throughout the course.

Steve will explain all the key elements of small-scale commercial charcuterie production. On this course, you’ll learn about sourcing the right pigs and achieving carcass balance.

He’ll take you step-by-step through making a variety of cured meats such as coppa, speck, pancetta, guanciale, lomo/lonzo, dried hams or culatello to a professional standard and scale.

Steve will also guide you through the professional equipment you need to get started, including smokers and drying chambers.

He’ll give you guidance on testing your products and environment to meet the standards needed for professional charcuterie creation.

Steve will also teach you how to use hot and cold smoking techniques to create things like: bresaola, pastrami, salt beef and venison ham.

You'll learn:

equipment your'll need to create professional charcuterie
how to source sustainable meat for your cured meats
curing and brining
choosing cases for sausages
smoking meats and choosing hot and cold smokers and equipment

The course includes:

4 on-demand video lessons - presented by Steve Williams and River Cottage
lifetime access to the videos, notes and interactive class
flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
downloadable lesson notes
practical charcuterie assignments and recipes (with tutor feedback available)
access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
small interactive online classroom - chat online to students from around the world and share your creative ideas

Independent Cookery Schools Association approved

This course has been approved by the Independent Cookery Schools Association (ICSA), recognising the highest standards of training.

Time to complete the next level charcuterie course:

Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 15 hours to complete including:

Video lessons: 3 hours in total
Course notes: 30 minutes per lesson
Your gut health recipe assignments: at least 2 hours per lesson
Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes per lesson
Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes per lesson

You'll need:

Your lesson notes will include the full details of the ingredients you'll need, but you will be making charcuterie so you'll need standard kitchen equipment.

Ready to get started?

Just add the course to your basket above - choose the 'Expert' option for personal feedback from Steve on your charcuterie assignments.
If you know someone who'd love this course then give it as a gift - just tick "This is a gift" at the checkout.

Any questions? Contact us by clicking on the orange speech symbol - we'd love to hear from you.

Watch course trailer

Lesson summary

Sourcing pork and equipment for professional charcuterie

In this lesson, Steve will teach you how to source the best pork – not only for quality but also which cuts you need to make professional quality charcuterie in the most sustainable and natural way. Steve discusses different breeds and slow-bred pigs. He also looks at all the different cuts and what can be produced to maximise margin on the pig and to balance carcass. He’ll also advises on working with other producers to get non-prime cuts or buying in collars or by products from bacon producers. Steve then covers butchery for charcuterie production. You’ll learn to work with a whole (split) pig and head for this course. Steve will show you how to cut the primals off the side of pork, as well as how to harvest these cuts – Coppa, Spec from shoulder, Lomo, Pancetta (rolled), tenderloin, chump, and Culatello. Steve looks at the different types of curing salt and options available. PDV Salt, Sea Salt, Continental curing salt, salami curing salt, prague powders and salt petre. He discusses pre-mixes and training staff to cure without making mistakes. To round this extensive lesson off, Steve tackles equipment, demonstrating what you need for commercial charcuterie making.

Curing – Dry cure, brining and EQ cures

Steve will take you through the various types of cures in this lesson, including commercial cure mixes, rough curing and the 3% cure method. He discusses both types of curing for traditional charcuterie and continental style charcuterie. He then looks at the 3% dry cure method, as well as an EQ curing method and brines. Steve then shows you how to make up a dry cure mix for the Coppa, Lomo, Pancetta, Culatello, and Guanciale.

Cases - options and sourcing

A key aspect to making your own cured meats evolves around casings for sausage, salami and whole muscle meats. Steve looks at the different options and formats for production. You’ll then learn how to removing meat from cure, wash, wrap and hang the charcuterie from previous lessons. Steve will walk you through making chorizo and fermented sausage. You’ll use your casing skills to house chorizo into a hog casing, salami into a fibre casing. Steve will show you how to tie, label and hang the sausages in fermenter, while discussing the fermentation process and hanging up of these meats.

Other meats and smoking

Steve will delve into the pros and cons of hot vs cold smoking. He looks at smoking equipment. You’ll learn how to cold smoke chorizo and hot smoke pastrami.

Choose how you want to learn

Expert-level

Develop your learning further with marked assignments and personal tuition:

Start the course whenever you like
Tutor access for personalised assignment feedback & coaching
Certificate of completion and CPD learning hours
Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
Lessons with expert videos & notes
Group chat & direct message with tutor & classmates
Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom

Peer-level

Get the most from shared knowledge and community study:

Start course whenever you like
Practise what you learn with your peers
Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
Lessons with videos & notes
Course assignments
Group chat & direct message classmates
Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom

meet the expert

Steve Williams

One of the UK's most revered charcuterie makers.

Why choose Learning with Experts?

Start whenever it suits you, and immerse yourself in motivational lesson tutorials with expert guidance.

Enhance your learning and personal growth with lesson assignments. Each course includes an optional assignment at the end of every lesson.

Drop a friendly message or respond to your assignment feedback. Our world-class experts are just a click away, ready to help you!

Stay informed about your own progress and those of your peers, and take joy in celebrating achievements along the way.

Chat and share ideas with passionate communities of learners from around the world.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between PEER and EXPERT options?

At Peer and Expert level, you get access to the same core content and features:

Video lesson tutorials led by your expert tutor
Downloadable lesson notes
Option to practise what you learn with lesson assignments
Group learning within an online interactive classroom of up to 20 classmates
Lifetime access to videos, notes and classroom

If you choose Expert level, you get all of the above plus the following:

Personalised assignment feedback and coaching from your expert tutor
Opportunity to interact with your expert tutor through a private messaging system
Certificate of completion.

What is an online classroom?

Our online classroom has been developed to allow you to learn from our experts in a sociable environment alongside up to 20 other students. After each video tutorial led by your expert, you will be encouraged to practice what you have learned with optional assignments - these can be seen by the other students in your class, who are free to share their own thoughts and questions with you.

You will be encouraged to take part in an ongoing class discussion where you can discuss ideas, post images or work, and comment on each other’s assignments. It’s a great way to learn from other like-minded people who share your passion from all over the world.

This means not only do you benefit from people who are outstanding in their field, but also from a close-knit group of like-minded people whom you can learn alongside. Group learning has shown to greatly improve not just the experience of studying, but also how well you retain the knowledge, and we have built our classroom experience around this fact.

When can I start my course and how long will it take?

You can start your course any time within 12 months after receipt of your purchase confirmation email. Once you start, you’ll have lifetime access — meaning you can revisit the lesson videos and notes whenever you want.

Our courses are designed so that you can study at your own pace, some prefer to binge learn while others like to spread their studying over a longer period of time - it’s completely up to you. To give you a rough time frame, each lesson video is approximately 30-40 minutes long, and we recommend that you spend around an hour on each assignment.

How often can I speak with the Expert?

If you opt for the Expert version of your course, the time you have to interact with your tutor is limited to course length. You will have one week per lesson to chat to your tutor and to have your assignments marked, and during this period you can ask them as many questions as you would like.

To find out the length of each course, head to the product page and look at the Course outline to see how many lessons it contains. e.g. a four lesson course assumes that you will have completed the assignments within four weeks.

Your tutor interaction period will start as soon as you enter the classroom. If you find that you are struggling to complete the assignments in the allocated time or you wish to put this function on hold, just get in contact with one of the team via the support button and we will help you out.

Support and full FAQs

If you need any help with a course, be it one you’ve started already, or one you are looking to purchase, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support email address, or view the full FAQ’s here.

You can also use the orange speech bubble on your page to start a conversation with us.

For privacy or data questions, please contact us here.

Next Level Charcuterie