Dry curing meat.

[Treeman]

Yesterday I took the first steps towards being able to dry cure meat, I am very apprehensive in regard to useable result.
I think I did it about right, well right as I understand it.

I used 1.5 kg w/Hog Sow front leg, un-iodized very coarse salt +/- 70 gr - Curing salt 8 gr - 2 spoons black pepper, 1 spoon garlic powder - that looks right mixed herbs. I forgot to add sugar.
I will roll and rub it in sugar in 3 - 4 days time.

I have read about this for days on end and still do not understand how the process keeps working. We have less than 100 gr salts etc and 1.5 kg meat. The salt etc is rolled, rubbed and pressed into/onto the meat and then the meat is put in a fridge for like 7 - 8 days maybe? and it does not go off.
I threw off about 150 ml liquid after 18 hrs.

How does the salt keep drawing liquid away, but not get used up?

One would think it would dissolve, become saturated. From what I understand, I will have to cook this cured meat   at end of process to get a cooked ham ?
dry cure by Cody  Allen, on Flickr

[DaavG]

The process is similiar to making biltong, salt draws water out, reduces moisture content and thus bacteria cannot thrive. Dry curing raises the intensity of the flavours.

6.67% might be quite salty. My bacon % on pork jowls etc is 2% salt of meat - so 30g of salt for 1.5kgs. I normally wet cure these (Equilibrium brining https://genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/saltbrinecalculator.html) by vacuuming sealing and the flipping once a day as low hassle factor.

You can cure a leg like that and end up with prosciutto but that takes months to years depending on the size.

[Treeman]

   I dread where I know not

[Ds J]

Is the meat lying in the drained fluid, or gathering beneath a sieve?

The salt usually dissolves when it lies in a fluid. When the fluid runs off, the salt dissolves much slower.

I know this from using coarse salt on skins.

[Treeman]

Meat was raised above runoff. Today I took the meat out and sugar packed it put some Worcestershire in a vacuum bag and sealed it up in a vacuum.
I will in 7 days time take it out and hang it to dry much further. The two day open salt cure achieved the initial "drier" state I wanted before vacuuming it.   

[DaavG]

Curing some pork jowls to make into bacon...

[Treeman]

I am more interested in the methods of bettering venison, I have not eaten pork in years.
I used pork fat recently in some sausage I made and now I do not want to eat it because the pig smell hits me before first bite.

[oafpatroll]

I have not eaten pork in years.

There is clearly something seriously wrong with you. Pls consult a medical professional without delay.

[DaavG]

I am more interested in the methods of bettering venison, I have not eaten pork in years.
I used pork fat recently in some sausage I made and now I do not want to eat it because the pig smell hits me before first bite.

Basically salt at 2.5% of meat plus black pepper, sugar, thyme, rosemary, garlic, fennel seeds & bay leaf. Think it would work nicely on venison.

Love pork... Never eaten warthog

[oafpatroll]

Never eaten warthog

There may be something seriously wrong with you too. This is feeling like an epidemic.

[Tripodmvr]

Jew have something against pork?

[DaavG]

There may be something seriously wrong with you too. This is feeling like an epidemic.

     just never had a piece come across my plate and the farms we hunt, they're pretty scarce...

[DaavG]

Jew have something against pork?

 

[Bonsai]

Pork? - ate a lot of it till about 25 - 27 yrs old. I think I would eat wild domestic pig, and perhaps even non commercial free range kinda pig as well, but not commercial pig - pork.

Some of you may recall about my sense of smell and hearing, I have acute senses as has Cody.

Commercial pork stinks, it smells foul, as does commercial chicken and it smells pretty bad when cooking it as well - any which way one cooks it. Raw pork often smells like what it ate and often that has a high fish content or restaurant waste content, inshort it smells like a harbour refuse bin. When it's cooked I still get that smell through my mouth.

When cooking pork, it smells like a person being necklaced or the parameter of an shack fire.

Pork when removed from itself by marinating, brining, curing or smoking is very nice and tasty, but I feel quite ill sometimes after eating it.
If I do not, then I later on feel "ashamed?" can not feel a better word ? Like seeing a mates 16 year old daughter and catching yourself thinking in 18 year old terms - does not feel good.

I eat bacon with breakfast, but again as much as I love the taste, I get that wrong feeling.

Dunno, do not wish to disrespect anyones food, but my psyche just goes, " pork is ugly and wrong" looks like a injury at a bike accident, of which perhaps I have seen too many - that white flesh.

[Bonsai]

Thats coming from a bloke who has a motto along the lines of "if you can teach me to eat enjoy something you eat, I have benefitted by another thing to enjoy in life"