Dry-curing meat

In short

• Meat is salted chilled to the centre (below 4 °C / 39 °F) and kept at 2–5 °C (36–41 °F) until salt reaches the centre.
• Equilibrium curing: per 1 kg of meat 13 g of nitrite curing salt (0.6 %) and 15 g of plain salt, weighed; or 1.3 g of Cure #1 and 27 g of plain salt. That's 80 mg of nitrite per kg, and all of it goes into the meat.
• Time: roughly 2 days per centimetre of thickness (about 5 days per inch) of the thickest part, at least 7 days. Then equalising for half that time again.
• Salt meat from the tub (salted in excess) is eaten only cooked, after soaking.
• Poultry is roasted or hot-smoked after curing to 74 °C (165 °F) in the centre. Raw dried poultry is not for home curing.
• A product eaten raw is done when it has lost enough weight: the scale decides, not the calendar.

What's inside

Chapters

1. What gets dry-cured and where it's covered
2. Meat before salting
3. Equilibrium curing, step by step
4. Tub salting (the old way)
5. Equalising, rinsing and what comes next
6. Dry ribs, hock and bones
7. Pastrma
8. Poultry: breast and leg
9. Game
10. Drying and weight loss
11. Faults and storage
12. Common mistakes
13. Printable checklist

Worksheets

• Dry-curing calendar
• Salt calculator
• Time and date calculator
• Salting and weighing log
• Labels for dried meat