There is an art to survival that many believe is being lost. If you don’t have access to a fridge anymore, what would you do? How will you preserve your meat for later use? People have been using other methods to preserve their food for centuries and is a lost art in today’s modern world.

Meat would be the first one to go once you lose electricity, but spoiling can be prevented using old-fashioned techniques.

Curing is a technique which basically involves preserving the meat in salt. This was one of the most common ways of keeping meat fresh in the days before refrigeration. Some still use it today, but now it is more about enhancing the flavor of the meat, not about preserving it.

Meat spoils because it is a good place for bacteria to thrive in. Bacteria need water, and there is a lot of water content in meat, especially the muscle fibers. This is solved by introducing salt. It will expel a lot of the water from the meat, and creates an environment where bacteria cannot develop and multiply.

If you plan on creating a place to cure meat for any reason you should examine your house and property thoroughly using a thermometer to find a place efficient for curing. As you go from one area to the next, record the temperature. Make sure you check the attic, any unheated areas of your house, your storage shed, and any other shelters on your property. You are looking for the coldest areas; this is where you will store your meat.

LETS TALK ABOUT SALT

Salt plays a critical role in curing food. Food may be preserved in other ways, such as air-drying or smoking, but these methods are not as reliable or as tasty as curing with salt. Salt curing can be done by pickling in brine, or by spreading salt over a food and hanging in the air. It may also be combined with other methods, such as smoking.

Salt plays several different roles in curing. The first is that it creates changes in the osmotic pressure of food cells, which pulls water out of the food and kills most pathogens. All food cells are filled with water that contain minerals, mostly salts. When you immerse food into salt brine, the salt content of the fluid outside the cells becomes greater than what is inside the cell.

The cell’s normal functions rely on maintaining a balance of osmotic pressure between the fluids inside and outside the cell . So as salt concentration outside a cell rises water rushes out of the cells to dilute the salt and bring the organism’s osmotic pressure back into balance. This dries out the cells, and since microbes that cause spoilage need water to live, they are destroyed in the process. At the same time salt-cured food becomes a less hospitable environment for future growth of harmful (or toxic) bacteria.

Perhaps the most dangerous bacteria that grows in curing meat is Clostridium botulinum, which causes botulism, a state of partial or full paralysis that can lead to respiratory failure. Because C. botulinum only produces toxins in anaerobic environments, it is not a hazard in cured meats other than very large dense hams and dry-aged meats in casings such as some sausages. The only way to prevent its growth is to use special curing salts with nitrites and nitrates.

Most cured meats (bacon, hot dogs, bologna) can be made nitrate-free without sacrificing safety, though they will lack the bright color and tang of traditionally cured meat. When nitrites interact with the amino acids in meats in our stomachs or in high-heat cooking, potentially carcinogenic nitrosamines are formed. However, during curing most of the nitrite breaks down to nitric oxide, a harmless chemical found naturally in the body. Excessive nitrite salt in cured meat combines with lactic acid to oxidize the pigment myoglobin, producing the green oxymyoglobin. This is known as nitrite burn. “Greening” of curing meats can also results from the accumulation of hydrogen peroxide produced from the reaction of lactic acid with atmospheric oxygen. In either case, the meat is likely inedible.

The tangy flavor of cured meats is, in part, the taste of nitrite, but the powerful flavors associated with curing are also products of the natural aging processes that happen over time. As food sits in a cure, enzymes inside the cells of the food break down protein into savory amino acids (like meaty-tasting glutamic acid), and fats into flavorful compounds that range from floral and citrusy to grassy and buttery. Wet-cured products are not quite as flavorful as dry-cured food because their flavors are diluted with water. The flavor of cured meats is highly concentrated, since 18 to 25 percent of the meat’s original moisture is lost during the curing process.

DRY CURING MEAT

WHAT YOU NEED

• Fresh meat such as a pork ham
• Pickling salt or kosher salt (pickling salt is finer and dissolves
better)
• Brown sugar,
• Crocks or jars for storage.

First, cut the pork into slabs. Generally, four- to six-inch slabs work best. Mix 1/2 pound of pickling salt with 1/4 cup of brown sugar. This is enough to cover twelve pounds of pork. Liberally cover the pork with this mixture. Next, pack the meat into sterilized crocks or jars. You should make sure it is tightly packed. Cover the meat with cheesecloth.

Using the temperature chart of your house, determine where to store your crocks. You need to keep the meat in an area that is about 36°F – no higher than 38°F. You also do not want an area that could see freezing temperatures. Leave the meat in this cool storage for at least one month. After that time, you can wrap the meat in plastic or moisture-proof paper and leave it stored all winter. You now have salt-cured pork for any occasion.
Many older people remember having a smokehouse on their land when they were young. Meat would be salted and hung to cure in these cool, dry areas. You could build a storage room for handing meat without too much work. The room should have excellent air circulation and stay cool without freezing.

It is also important to note that without refrigeration, achieving these cool temperatures needed for dry curing is not an option in hot Arkansas summers which explains why aging the meats was always done in the winter and fall.

 

Here is a good suggestion for building your own smoke house at home.

SMOKING MEAT

There are two traditional ways to smoke fish and meats—hot smoking and cold smoking. Both methods can be done with the same food and the same apparatus, the only difference being heat.

HOT SMOKING

This technique involves a closed box to hold in the smoke and the heat from your smoke producing materials. The food is cooked by this heat, and permeated with a smoky flavor. Fish prepared in this manner can last for up to a week at room temperature. Meats can be hot smoked and left out for only a few days at warmer temps. The smoker should maintain 160 degrees or more for 30 minutes to safely kill any parasites and pathogens.

COLD SMOKING

Cold smoking is done at cooler temperatures for a longer period time. The goal in this method is long-term storage, which requires more of a drying process than a cooking process. It should not get hot enough in the smoker to actually cook the food. Temperatures under 100 degrees are ideal.

Use hardwood or fruit wood chips to make your safe and savory smoke. Apple wood from a local orchard makes a great, sweet smoke that’s perfect for poultry and pork. Hickory wood from the nearby forest gives a rich, sharp flavor and produces hot, long-burning coals. Maple wood chips are another excellent choice for meat or fish.

BRINING PORK

Salt brine curing involves the creation of brine containing salt, water and other ingredients such as sugar, erythorbate, or nitrites. Age-old tradition was to add salt to the brine until it floated an egg. Salt curing meat also called “corning” to preserve it is probably one of the oldest preservation techniques known to man. Meat was dry-cured with coarse “corns” or pellets of salt. Corned beef of Irish fame is made from a beef brisket, although any cut of meat can be corned.

Brining is a reliable method of preserving pork, although it takes a little more time than salt preserving. Start out the same way you do for salt preserving by cutting the fresh pork into slabs. Next, you need to pack the pork into a sterilized container like a crock or jar.

Dissolve 1 pound of pickling salt and 1/2 cup of brown sugar in 3 quarts of water. Pour this brine over the pork and ensure that the meat is completely covered in liquid. If you have a problem covering the meat completely in brine, add a weight to the meat to keep it submerged. A plate with something heavy on top will work nicely. Store the covered pork in one of your rooms that will stay an average temperature of 36°F.
After the first week, remove the pork from the brine. Stir the brine well and repack the meat. Leave in the cool room and repeat this process for the next four weeks. If the brine is thick or stringy on any of the weeks you open it, remove the meat. Empty the brine and sterilize the crocks. Wash each piece of pork well before repacking. Mix a fresh batch of brine for the meat, and put back into storage. At the end of four weeks, your meat is ready to be cooked.

 

Here are a couple of our favorite recipes to get you started!

 

Cold Smoke Cured Molasses Country Ham

Canning Meat

 

 

Like what you are reading? Subscribe to Arkansas Outdoor Country Magazine and we will send you a copy right to your door!

 

Subscribe to Arkansas Outdoor Country TODAY!