Bacon/Ham Prepared Cures Salt Levels

[processhead]

GWG8541
I think about the excessive amounts of salt that were used to cure country style hams and it makes me think it was to ward off spoilage/souring at the center of the ham as the salt slowly migrated from the surface to the center.
It had to take a long time for full penetration and curing.

[mrobisr]

processhead said in Bacon/Ham Prepared Cures Salt Levels:

It had to take a long time for full penetration and curing.

The one I did took 53 days between curing, equilibration, smoking, and then 6 months to age.

[akdave]

It would be interesting to find out when Cure Salt and Brine pumps were invented as they both were significant advancements for meat processing.

[mrobisr]

akdave Curing salts have been used for thousands of years using naturally occurring sodium nitrate in salt deposits. It wasn’t until the late 1800 hundreds that the use of nitrite became popular and understood. I read somewhere that they probably didn’t understand the process prior to that but knew that certain salts fixed the red color and kept the meat preserved for an extended period of time compared to other salts. While today we use commercially produced nitrates/nitrites contrary to popular belief they are found in nature.

[wdaly]

processhead Thanks for asking about this. I have learned through experience that I have to rinse aggressively (at least twice) or the bacon is too salty. Hadn’t really given a lot of thought to adding salt and cure at the frontend and rinsing of at the backend. Try not to eat more salt than necessary, so this is of interest to me.

[processhead]

Jonathon Did you ever hear back with more information on this topic?

[processhead]

processhead said in Bacon/Ham Prepared Cures Salt Levels:

Jonathon Did you ever hear back with more information on this topic?

Any updates?@Jonathon

[Denny O]

processhead Buehler, Buehler, Buehler, Buehler,

[processhead]

Jonathon Any word from you on this topic?

[processhead]

https://meatgistics.waltons.com/post/104200