my discoveries in preparing dry cured meats

Looking forward to hearing and progress

Got to get off my arse and fire up my dehydrator so I can do some dried foods, but just at too busy on the work front of late trying to finish off an order for a member on here

The problem with salts labelled as "cooking salt" or "table salt" is that if they contain anti-caking agents that may affect the taste (and I'm guessing also the curing process). I only use rock salt or salt flakes for any curing or fermenting as I'm more sure it's pure.

I've heard once from a USA source that some cooking & table salts contain sugar as well, but I'm yet to see that noted on an ingredient list...

I used Saxa coarse cooking salt bought in 2kg bags for $1.05 per kilo and it seems perfect.  We have a food warehouse in town that supplies food businesses but also sells to public. I checked them out, and they have various salts in 10kg sacks, including rock salt (used in large amounts for serving oysters), but also for the $1 per kg price.  Cheapest in bulk is water softener salt (about 50c per kg) ... but that would require a bit of due diligence on safety looking at the MSDS for the product to see it's exact chemical composition.

Really coarse 'rock' salt wouldn't work as well for the particular technique I'm using.  More difficult to get an even coating on the meat and an even mix with the sugar.

The proportionality of salt to meat is the really important factor if you want an end product that eats like Prosciutto. Too much salt and you end up with something that is too dry and too salty and needs to be soaked in fresh water for hours then eaten cooked. (My very first attempt ended that way.)  Not enough and it gets risky for food poisoning and has a short 'use by' life. I read that some people go as low as 3% salt but I'm happy with my results using 7% and latest batch is down to 5% since I also added potassium nitrate.

My ultimate aim is to do the curing without use of the refrigerator as practiced pre 1950's on many farms ... but safe, baby steps for now.

 

 
 

Cooking salt is fine for preserving.  At $1 per kg in 2kg bags from woolworths its similar in price per KG to buying food grade in sacks.  Just buy a bag per week and stack it away in a cupboard, crate or similar.  After a year of buying you'll have about a hundred kilo. Also buy some sodium or potassium nitrate or nitrite if you want to get into long-term storage of cured meat. That's the harder stuff to source at a good price! I got mine from a rural supplies depot.   

The current project:
1. Trimmed up peice of bolar - 750g / $15 per kilo.  Fresh cut at the butcher. All fat and membranes trimmed off. All fiddly bits trimmed of.  Just want a nice single, solid piece of muscle. Accurately weigh and record on calendar.
2. The trimmings - about 100g worth - use for other things.
3. Cure ingredients: coarse cooking salt 5% of meat weight, dark brown sugar 30% of salt weight, saltpetre 6% of salt weight. Use accurate scales and a calculator - getting the exact amount of saltpetre is critical. Don't overdose or underdose.  Mix it really well.  I like to add fresh cracked white pepper and pimento (allspice) for aroma and flavour.
4. All cure rubbed onto meat.  All surfaces evenly covered and any little crannies (if there are any) have salt pushed into them.
5. The meat goes into a ziplock bag. Any cure left on the paper goes in the bag too. As much air as possible squeezed out - want good contact between all surfaces of meat and the meat-juice brine that forms with 20 minutes.
6. bag goes in fridge and is flipped every 12 hours to keep even coverage of juice.  Cure penetrates at 6mm a day.  This piece will stay in fridge for 10 days.

Below is a small piece of fully cured beef started on Oct 1.  Small pieces are prone to over drying.  Great for shelf life but tricky to slice.
Will post a few more pics as this project progresses.  The objective is to consume at christmas.
Feel free to ask questions if you want to take a crack at this yourself.   End results are very, very tasty. And its a real money saver.

How long will it stay shelf stable for? Loving the progress and pics

Well ... its been 7 days since starting the demonstration project.



1. This what the salted meat looks like after about 30 minutes.  Note the amount of juice drawn out.
After a day in the fridge the meat tightens up and becomes quite firm.  At this point I take a ruler and measure its thickest dimension.  This piece is 8cm thick. 
Remembering cure penetrates at about 6mm per 24 hours and the meat is being flipped each day (so cure is penetrating from two directions at the same time) the cure needs to travel 4cm to reach the centre.  Seven days at 6mm a day = 4.2cm ... so the cure has now reached centre of the meat.  
2. I pre-boil about a litre of water in the kettle and let it cool to room temp.  Wash hands thoroughly then open the bag. Take a sniff!  Your nose is your safety equipment with meat curing.  It should smell just like fresh meat and whatever spices are added. If there is any hint of bad smell - ditch it. (This hasn't happened to me yet.)
The juice left in the bag should look a healthy red colour and be quite clear - not cloudy. Addition of Nitrate to the cure helps achieve this.  (some spices may add a bit of a brown tinge).  
Rinse the juice off the meat with the sterile water.  Put the meat on a sterile surface and pat dry all over with good quality, clean paper towel. (Poor quality paper can stick to meat.) Put the meat on a drying rack over a dish and put it in the fridge.  I use a drinks fridge in the shed as there is plenty of air space in it and I don't need to worry about the kids sneezing on it etc.
3. This is the meat after being on the drying rack in the fridge overnight. The colour is a slightly washed-out red.  Browness or grayness indicates a problem which should also be detectable with your nose. (Never happened to me yet.)  The sugar in the cure gives the meat a slightly glazed appearance.  This will intensify over time as the meat dries.

I will post further weekly updates showing the change in appearance over time.  The meat stays in the fridge to dry until it has lost 30% of its original fresh weight.  For small, thin pieces this can be just a few days.  A chunky piece like this will take a little longer.  The drying process should not be too fast - this can result in a tough exterior that prevents moisture escaping from the middle of the meat.

Update :

We started on November 10th with the 763g peice of raw bolar on the left.
After a week of curing in juices and another 8 days of drying in the shed fridge; we have the glossy thing of beauty of the right. It now weighs 604g. (Final target weight for shelf stable product is 534g)

It smells great so I know the process has worked out so far.  The whole thing is covered with a glossy, non-sticky varnish. It not been smoked despite its appearance.

I've now wrapped it in baking paper to retard moisture loss and give the core of the piece time to mature without drying out too much.  I was intending to age it until Christmas ... but I don't think I have the patience.  I'll start the next two pieces this week.  One beef and one pork - maybe they will last to Christmas before being eaten.

I'll do one final post when this one is sliced up to show how the inside looks.