How to cure meat with brine

[Marianne]

Some here already to this, but here's an informative page on how to cure meat with brine.

http://www.shtfblog.com/how-to-cure-with-liquid-brine/

 

[Hinotori]

Thanks. I've been trying a bunch of different things before smoking meats. Trying to find something I really like. DH wants me to smoke more things.

 

[Marianne]

I love smoked meat. We haven't had a smoker for many years, though.

 

[Hinotori]

We just got this a few months ago. It's big pellet smoker. It only goes down to 150, so we can't cold smoke with it. I have some ideas for how I want to build a cold smoker. Just have to get it done.

 

[~gd]

Some here already to this, but here's an informative page on how to cure meat with brine.

http://www.shtfblog.com/how-to-cure-with-liquid-brine/

You can't really Cure meat with brine, about the best you can do is short term preservation. Don't beleive me? buy some salt pork or corned beef at the supermarket, break the plastic seal and leave where it is warm and won't stink up your home. Brine is often the first step of curing large Cuts it helps remove blood and gets the salt into the meat fast. used in cool weather it is usually replaced by salt/sugar rub which helps draw the moisture to the surface. often it will draw enough water that people think that it was brine not solid salt that did the work.

 

[BlueReuben]

Hi Marianne,

To answer your question I was trying to give you link to one of the top sites on Internet about curing, brines and meat smoking, but being a new member my link was not allowed. Well, I could copy paste some of the information but it will come to about 20 pages, and you don't need that.

You cannot preserve meat by wet curing which is brine. The reason is that meat is preserved by removing moisture (jerky), dry hams or dry salami. Water must be removed to stop bacteria from growing and spoiling the meat. Bacteria need moisture to live. Brine contains water.
You probably could use 100% brine, known as saturated brine and this is about 26% of salt in water. No more salt can be dissolved in water, it will simply sink to the bottom. Such a brined product will be very salty. A good idea will be to add some vinegar as well as bacteria hate acidity. Now you have a salty and pickled product which can be preserved.

Meat is usually preserved by dry cure which is dry salt. Italian, Spanish or American Country Ham are the best examples. Keep in mind that such hams are salted first and then dried in air at about 50-55 F. They are preserved by drying, salt inhibits spoilage bacteria from growing, which is very important in the initial stage. Then, as more moisture evaporates each day, the product becomes more stable.

It is almost impossible to produce top quality smoked product without curing it with salt and sodium nitrite first. Most people don't realize but sodium nitrite (cure 1) is not added just for safety reasons and development of pink color, but it also develops a characteristic curing flavor. People often talk about ham flavor, this is this nitrite flavor I am talking about.

 

[Britesea]

Here is a really interesting link on making salt pork...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdmPIpQZPRg&feature=youtu.be