Salt Curing Meat For Long Term Use Without Refrigeration
So, just how does one prepare his/her meat for long term use when refrigeration is not available? I know it has a lot to do with pouring enormous amounts of salt all over the meat, slicing the salt off to get to the meat you want, but just how does it work? And how much meat gets wasted cutting the salt off?
So, just how does one prepare his/her meat for long term use when refrigeration is not available? I know it has a lot to do with pouring enormous amounts of salt all over the meat, slicing the salt off to get to the meat you want, but just how does it work? And how much meat gets wasted cutting the salt off?
I make alot of jerky from deer and beef. I believe you do need some salt as i use regular or curing salt mixed with soy sauce, liquid smoke,Brown sugar, and sometimes coarse pepper or red pepper to make a little spicey. I marinate it for one to two days and dry it in several food dehydrators. I slice it in 1/4 inch strips with the grain of meet ahead of time also. Im not sure if your looking for dehydrated meat or just cured meat recipe
I guess what I'm asking is different. I can remember growing up and going to my grandmas house and she had an old 5x5 smokehouse (although I never remember smoke coming from it). They hung meat in there and it was covered in salt. I mean so much that if you ever touched it with your tongue, it would eat it off. What was she doing with all that salt? Did it preserve the meat for long periods of time? They'd slice a big portion of salted meat off to get to the good stuff and then slice off what they wanted for that meal. Then they'd resalt it. At least thats how I remembered it, but I was really young.
I know how to make jerky. I'm talking about large chunks of meat!
The salt dehydrates the meat on the outside, thus sealing it. The salt is also caustic to bacteria, thus preventing their growth, which would spoil the meat.
If the meat is heavily salted and kept in a cool place, it will last a long time.
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My question is this to you. Where are you loacted or where was this "smokehouse' located? Because it seems to me that even with keeping them in salt you'd still have to keep them semi cool like in a root cellar. At least for extended periods of time.
We pack Fresh Salmon steaks in layers in a 5 gallon bucket of rock salt. It wll keep for years like that. You pull the steaks out and put them in fresh cold water and soak the salt out and change the water several times over nite.
Ready to cook and eat !
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sure glad i hung aroung my great grand father lots before he died. cept my wife and kids don't like sugar cure they want pig loaded with salt for breakfast and biscuits
no offence to the post about how cold it has to be but we aint that lucky to get all those cold days, we still cure hams and hind quarters in 50 degree weather and nobodies died yet. we're still eating on a salt (country) cured ham from a wild sow i killed last year
