All Purpose Curing Salt

[Richtee]

The nitrite form seems to have a somewhat limited life of 36 months... what this means I'm not sure- as far as it's effectiveness in curing. I assume it gradually oxidizes to the NO2 and leaves a salt behind? BBally might be able to answer this. The nitrate form would last alot longer, altho I cannot find a reference on it.

I have used Morton's TQ that's 3 years old in the past and had no problem...

http://www.inorganics.basf.com/p02/C...it/Haltbarkeit

[Kwakman99]

Welcome 650 nmWolf, going back to the old ways is always good. Bring us out of that Starbucks moka-half-late-decaf-grande world so many of us live in (in my case, a Tim Horton's medium coffee ;)

I would recommend any easy to obtain coarse salt for curing. You certainly don't need any of the super expensive salts. When I cure meats, I do tend to stick more with the sea salts then any other type of salt simply because more then not that's all it is just salt, nothing else added (no iodine, no sugar, no nitrites) and for me when curing, I don't look to add anything that could change the flavour of the meat. I buy a store brand sea salt that runs around $1.50 a pound.

When curing what you want is a light coating of salt to cover any exposed meat, if there is flesh like with pork, you don't need to salt it. As the salt draws out the moisture of the meat it will creat a salt brine at the bottom of your dish. Remove the excess fluid with a paper towel and replace the salt on any exposed meat. The salt doesn't have to be dry, you can use the damp salt from the brine.

The basic rule of thumb is a day of curing per pound of meat, but myself I usually double it because I like my meat a little more firm. It's a starting point and you can adjust as per your tastes.

Good luck with the curing projects, especially with your game meat.

[Whisky Fish]

I hope you guys are right. I have no interest in making it. I just did a quick search on making Potassium Nitrate and came across some shady websites. Little did I know that it is used in making explosives. If I wasnt being monitored by big bro before, I am now. Ha.

Yeah, forgot to warn you about that part. Ooops.

And yeah I would think keeping it sealed up and away from sunlight and it should last indefinately.

[Mark R]

(they have a shelf life of a year).

I suspect that is an "FDA" requirement. I used to manufacture surgical instruments, the FDA required an expiration date of five years (non-sterile). Exactly what goes bad with stainless steel in five years?

[Beer-B-Q]

I hope you guys are right. I have no interest in making it. I just did a quick search on making Potassium Nitrate and came across some shady websites. Little did I know that it is used in making explosives. If I wasnt being monitored by big bro before, I am now. Ha.

Anyway, I thought the Cure #1 (Prague Powder) had a 1 year shelf life since that is what a google search told me. After further examination, it was just "some guy" answering a Yahoo Question who said that and not an expert.

Does anyone know for sure? I assumed that it was like regular salt and had an indefinite shelf life, then I read the Yahoo report, now I hear differently. Any thoughts?

Thanks again!

I would stock up on Charcoal, Sulfur and Potassium Nitrate.

Charcoal, Sulfur and Potassium Nitrate = Black Powder

[bbally]

For nitrate in a survival situation you need Celery seeds.

Celery has a high enough concentration of nitrate and nitrite to cure ham, bacon, fremented sausage.

My interest in anarchy stocks is strictly seeds and the powder and components to make ammo.

[DangerDan]

Anarchy? No way man.
I saw on TV where LSD is making a comeback. Some lady was puttin it on candy and shipping out on a rather large scale. and I'm hopin another sexual revolution is to follow.. Make love not war man? Tune in Turn on? Just today my daughter asked me if I wanted some shirts Tie-dyed. Yeah a sure sign there....

[curious aardvark]

I do tend to stick more with the sea salts then any other type of salt simply because more then not that's all it is just salt, nothing else added (no iodine, no sugar, no nitrites)

Seasalt HAS: iodine, assorted nitrates and quite a few other trace components.
One reason you can fully cure with seasalt is precisely because it contains trace amounts of nitrates.
And pretty much most things that come from the sea have trace amounts of iodine and iodine salts.

If you want pure salt - you need factory refined salt, only way to get it.
Anything that comes direct from mines or the sea will contain trace impurities.

That's a helluva lot of sulfur in that mix - mind you it is by volume not weight, so that's probably it :-)
Also if you mix with the alcohol you get a pretty tight mix and it evaporates to leave the powder and you don't have to do anything as daft as heat it :-)
So I've heard lol

If I were you rich or ken I'd lose that post ;-)
Where things like that are concerned, you really can't be too paranoid.

[Gunslinger]

Won't make that good of powder anyway without a super high quality charcoal powder, like willow. It has to be very soft wood charcoal to be worth a damn. Not that it wouldn't hurt or kill the idiot making it, but it'd take a bunch with hardwood charcoal.
Oh, I forgot that we're trying to discourage this kind of discussion.

[Onthebit]

While I question your reasoning in wanting to learn to cure meat, to answer your question, simple sea salt may be used in curing. To prove this I'll show you two hams. (Yes I had to delve into my chamber for a subject to use as an example but thats OK). This is still a learning process for me and the somewhat early retrieval will show us all what the outcome is.

This ham was cured with Cure #2



This ham with only Sea Salt.



There is a lot that comes with this curing method, monitoring of the salt while cold curing, hanging in the proper environment during equalization and then preventing spoilage during the drying process by maintaining a temperature and humidity. Actually, humidity played a very insignificant role here as this ham was coated with lard to slow the drying process. (I think this method appears to work very well).

I also have some bone in hams hanging and believe that they will come even better than this example.

"The end of the world" is a whole other subject. In this case your curing methods would be only used on larger animals. In time these would become far and seldom as you wouldn't be the only one trying to eat. Within a couple of years you'd be lucky to have an animal large enough to cure and be reduced to living off of "fast food".

Then using pickling salt would be useless? Did you also dry smoke the second ham? I'm salivating because I am sure that ham tastes like my grandfather made....I want to make some too!!

[SmokinLee]

Onthebit, You need to do a search on all of DangerDans threads. Very Interesting.

Then using pickling salt would be useless? Did you also dry smoke the second ham? I'm salivating because I am sure that ham tastes like my grandfather made....I want to make some too!!

[Richtee]

Onthebit, You need to do a search on all of DangerDans threads. Very Interesting.

Yes- What DD does is EXPERT stuff as well. You'd do well cutting your teeth using more conventional methods. Gotta walk afore ya run

[curious aardvark]

Yes- What DD does is EXPERT stuff as well. You'd do well cutting your teeth using more conventional methods. Gotta walk afore ya run

Amen to that - I'm still waiting to see what the ham stuffed inside a bunch of salami is going to turn out like :-)