Salt Curing, Smoke Curing, and Pickling to Preserve Food

Five Things You Can Do Now

1. Look for a pickling or sauerkraut recipe. Purchase a crock, pickling salt, vinegar, and spices, and give making pickles or sauerkraut a try. Use the freshest cucumbers or cabbage you can find.
2. Purchase a good book about sausage making, along with basic sausage-making equipment.
3. Research meat smokers and purchase one. Be sure it has a reliable thermostat.
4. Try smoking salmon or other fish. This is an especially good idea if you catch the fish yourself, but salmon is also available at many grocery stores year-round.
5. Perfect a rib recipe and smoke precooked ribs as a final step for added flavor.

Salt curing, smoke curing, and pickling are additional ways to preserve food. This chapter will give you a description of the basic processes as well as the supplies and equipment you’ll need.

Salt Curing

Curing Salts
Sodium nitrite and salt:	Prague Powder #1, known as Insta Cure #1, or pink curing salt
Sodium nitrate and salt:	Prague Powder #2, known as Insta Cure #2, or Morton Tender Quick

Salt curing is an ancient preservative method. Pork is the most traditional cured meat, although game meat, beef, veal, lamb, chicken, and fish can also be cured. Ham, bacon, and sausage are the most common cured meats in the United States. Many cultures have developed their own unique cured meats and sausages, such as Italian prosciutto and salami.

Curing salts are special blends of table salt and sodium nitrite or sodium nitrate used to preserve meats, poultry, and fish. Curing salts work by osmosis, drawing out the moisture to create equilibrium between salt in the cure and salt in the meat. They are necessary for curing meat because they prevent botulism. Other bacterial and mold growth are also inhibited in this environment. In addition, curing salts keep the fat in meat from going rancid and give it an appetizing pinkish color.

Wet Curing or Brining

Wet curing uses salts dissolved in water to make a brine solution, in which the meat is submerged so that the salts penetrate it. Wet curing is more manageable than dry curing because there is less guesswork about whether the salt solution has permeated the meat. The thickness of the meat will determine how long it takes the salt solution to permeate the meat. Salt moves through the muscle tissue at the rate of one inch per seven days. Modern recipes require that the end product be refrigerated.

Dry Curing Meat

Dry curing uses curing salts either to coat whole pieces of meat or to mix in with ground meat formed into sausage. Spices and other ingredients may be added for flavor.

Treated meat must be cured in a carefully maintained environment, where both temperature and humidity are controlled. Sanitation and the quality of the meat are also important. It is a long, slow process with many variables that have to be managed.

Although the ingredients are basic, the craft of dry curing meat, known as charcuterie, is sophisticated. It is both a science and an art. The key to successful meat preservation is knowledge and experience. If possible, find a master meat curer who can teach you the craft. Additionally, you may want a good reference book to guide you. (See pages 431 – 432 in resource section.)

Country-Cured Hams

Country ham is the dry-cured hind end of a pig. Typically, the meat is salt-cured and then hardwood smoked to give it a unique flavor. Different regions of the United States have their own distinctive recipes. Extension services will have recipes for the region they serve. Country-cured smoked hams will keep at least a year.

Safety Precautions

To avoid botulism poisoning from improperly-prepared dry-cured meats, it’s critical you gain the appropriate knowledge and skills. Be sure to use the correct curing salts, proper tools, and correct curing methods, and use recipes from reputable sources, such as extensions. Look for recipes that use weights and percentages to calculate the amount of salt cure in any given recipe.

Smoking

Smoking is a type of drying that adds a unique smoky flavor to meats that a smoker or dedicated smokehouse. Historically, it was used to preserve meat, usually in conjunction with curing. Today it’s primarily used to flavor meat, and virtually all smoked meats need to be refrigerated.

The meat or fish is salt cured before it is smoked. Hams, bacon, meat, and fish preserved this way and should be stored below 40° F (4° C).

Cold Smoking

Meat smoked at temperatures less than 140° F (60° C), or cold smoked, can be a potential source of botulism because the food does not get to a high enough temperature to kill pathogens.

Cold smoking should only be used on foods that have been previously salted or cured. It requires exactness in order to be a safe method of food preservation. If you desire to use this method for preservation, you’ll need top-quality, accurate digital thermometers and precise scales. You will also need expert guidance and tested recipes that you follow with precision. All meat that has been salted and cold smoked is still raw and should be cooked prior to eating.

Hot Smoking

During hot smoking, the meat is cooked at temperatures between 200° to 225° F (91° to 107° C) until the meat reaches an internal temperature between 145° to 165° F (63° to 73° C). It is used to flavor and slow-cook meat but not to preserve it. Meat prepared this way should be refrigerated.

Personally Speaking

Smoked salmon is a family favorite, and both my husband, Craig, and my brothers have developed expertise. It’s an easy process that consists of slicing the fillets into strips, brining them in the refrigerator overnight in a simple salt solution, and then smoking them for a couple of hours. My brother uses a salt-and-sugar solution, but Craig usually uses just salt. It’s not necessary to buy an expensive brining salt. The secret to smoking it is to do it slowly and at low a temperature. Be sure to set a timer so you don’t overcook it!

Another of Craig’s specialties is smoked ribs. Each summer, Craig puts on a rib fest to thank the employees of his landscaping company. He cooks a crazy amount of ribs, and one way he finishes them is by smoking them for an hour and a half. That wonderful smoked flavor is a favorite—there are very few leftovers!

Sausage Making

Sausage making is another method of preservation. Dry-cured sausage such as salami requires curing salts, a lactic-acid bacteria starter culture, and a controlled curing environment. Meats preserved this way require expertise and care.

Meat, poultry, and game scraps can be ground and made into sausage. You will need a meat grinder. A manual, cast-iron meat grinder with cutter plates and an attachment for stuffing sausages is best. A funnel can also be used for stuffing. An attachment on an electric appliance will also work but is susceptible to loss of electricity.

Artificial casings may be stored, or you can use the small intestine from a hog or sheep. Lightweight muslin is used for sausages over one and a half inches in diameter. A selection of spices can help make sausage to your taste preferences.

Dry-cured sausage will keep for six months to more than a year if properly cured. Otherwise, it must be canned or frozen for long-term storage.

Safety Precautions

All meat is susceptible to pathogens and bacterial growth. Although fresh internal muscle is sterile, when sausage is ground, the pathogens are incorporated into it. When a piece of meat is cooked, the pathogens on the surface are killed, but to be safe, the internal temperature must reach 165° F (74°C).

Pickling

Pickling is a process for preserving food in an acid solution. One common pickling process uses an acid solution made from a vinegar solution of at least 5 percent acidity. Another uses brining and fermentation to create an acidic solution made of lactic acid.

Pickled Vegetables

You can pickle vegetables with either a vinegar solution or by fermentation. Vegetables made with a vinegar solution are processed, placed in jars, and canned in a water-bath canner.

Brined pickles and sauerkraut are made with a brining process that uses fermentation to create an acidic environment from lactic acid. Once the vegetables have reached a desirable stage of pickling, they may be refrigerated or processed in a water bath.

Safety Precaution

Be sure to use a recipe from a reputable, lab-tested source, and make sure the vinegar-to-water ratio is at least half vinegar. Use produce and meat that is as fresh as possible. Take precautions to sanitize work surfaces and preparation tools. And use crockery, glass, food-grade plastic, or stainless steel for containers and utensils.

Equipment for Curing, Drying, and Pickling

Temperature-Humidity Sensor

This sensor needs to be accurate, and so you should be able to calibrate the hygrometer part of it with a hygrometer calibration kit.

Meat Thermometer

This is important for monitoring the internal temperature of smoked meat.

Kitchen Scales

It is important to accurately weigh your meat and curing salt.

Curing Chamber

To properly cure meat, you need a curing chamber that can maintain a temperature of around 50° to 60° F (10° to 13° C) and high relative humidity, around 65 to 80 percent. Curing chambers are often built from old frost-free refrigerators with a temperature regulator specifically calibrated for dry curing.

Smoker

Smokers come in multiple sizes with a variety of features. Look for one that has a good temperature control system. Electric smokers are convenient but may offer an inferior taste. Charcoal and gas smokers usually require more adjustment and may or may not come with a thermostat. A good smoker is made of steel, is reasonably heavy, and closes tightly. A grill can double as a smoker.

Fermentation Crock

There are two kinds of fermentation crocks—open and water-sealed. The water-sealed crocks have the advantage of being airtight, with less mess and odor, but they are more expensive. A five-liter crock will hold about ten pounds of cabbage and is fairly easy to lift and clean. For larger amounts, consider a ten-liter crock.

Meat Grinder

You’ll need a basic hand meat grinder or meat-grinder attachment if you plan to use ground meats to make sausages.

Sausage Stuffer

A hand-crank sausage stuffer is superior to add-on sausage-stuffer attachments. Make sure the piston that pushes the meat into the stuffer has a plastic or rubber gasket that doesn’t allow the ground meat to squeeze out.

Curing Salt-Sodium Nitrite

This is the most common curing salt. It contains 94 percent plain salt and 6 percent sodium nitrite, as well as a tiny bit of red dye so that it doesn’t get confused with regular salt. The sodium nitrite helps prevent botulism growth and is the top-recommended curing salt.

Curing Salt-Sodium Nitrate

This curing salt is used for slow-cured meats. Over time, it slowly breaks down into sodium nitrite and is called for in some recipes for dry curing meats.

Morton’s Kosher Salt

This salt does not have additives that may affect the quality of cured products, but be aware that it is larger grained than regular table salt, and because the grains are larger, a teaspoon of kosher salt contains about half the amount of salt as table salt. Adjust recipes for weight as needed.