First go at curing of salt beef

[dbairduk]

Hi this is my first post but been reading quite a bit.
I followed this recipe i found on the web but made some adjustments.
here is the original recipe
2.7kg (6lb) Beef Brisket, lean
285g (10oz) Coarse Salt
4 tbsp Soft Brown Sugar
2 tbsp Black Peppercorns, coarsely crushed
1 tbsp Coriander Seeds, coarsely crushed
10 Juniper Berries, crushed
1 tsp Saltpetre
1 Bay Leaf, crushed
½ tbsp Ground Mace
½ tbsp Ground Ginger
½ tbsp Whole Cloves, crushed

Place the beef in a ceramic or plastic container (metal would be unsuitable), rub half of the salt well into the beef.
Cover the container with clingfilm and refrigerate for 12 hours, turning once.
Remove the meat from the container, rinse and dry well with kitchen towels.
Mix all of the other together.
Rub the mixture into the beef, ensuring its whole area is covered.
Place the beef into the cleaned container.
Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 10 days.
Turn the beef every day.
After 10 days, remove from the refrigerator, rinse well.

Mine was more like
7.5 lb beef brisket(3.5kg)
100g coarse sea salt
1 small tsp saltpetre
50g dark brown musavado sugar
1 tbsp black pepper corns
10 juniper berrys
1 tbsp pickling spice
1tsp garlic powder
I Skipped the inital salting and rinising as read this could make it too salty and changed the salt ratio.
I didn't have scales good enough to measure grams exactly for salt peter. but guess a teaspoon will be about 3-4g?
Rubbed all it in well and placed an a large ceramic dish(from my slow cooker)
coverd in cling film. Rubbed any juice from the dish into the meat.
Now 4 days on and I can see it going a bit red at one end... Does this slowly develop as the bacterias develop and break the nirtites down into nitrates? And should it look totaly red when it's cured?

Thanks in advance

Dave

[captain wassname]

Dave
Do you mind me asking where exactly did you get this reciepe.It seems a lot of saltpetre Ive just weighed a tsp of saltpetre at 5.3gms.This is over twice the max allowed by US rules and 3 times what I would use .What colour was the beef before it started to turn red?
Jim

[wheels]

Jim

It seems to be this one from The Foody:

http://thefoody.com/meat/saltbeef.html

Phil

[captain wassname]

simlar to this except for the cure
http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopi ... 90dc87f200

Would you eat it.

Jim

[wheels]

No -conv-

[dbairduk]

well it was beef colour, then turned a darker colour.

I read on here to use 1g of saltpetre to 1kg of meat. so this could have turned out as 1.5g of saltpetre to 1kg of meat. There is quite an excess.

Is this unsafe to eat then? and would a soaking at the end help lower the nitrates in the meat?

[saucisson]

Where did you get the 1g per kg from Dave?

I would use more like 0.5g per kilo, so 1.75g in total for your piece of meat.

You are still using 5 times as much salt and sugar as I would use. The original looks like one of these older recipes we have discussed before where the meat sits on a massive bed of ingredients and only (we hope) absorbs a small proportion of the saltpetre.

By reducing the amount of salt and sugar and leaving the saltpetre the same you are effectively increasing the concentration of saltpetre available to the meat by nearly three fold over the original recipe, which concerns me greatly.

Dave

[dbairduk]

the recipe had been kind of corrected here,
http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=3672&highlight=500g+beef+brisket
It was from oddleys post close to the bottom

[saucisson]

Ok, thanks, note that Oddley said 1g, no more.

You are using, probably, at least 1 and a half times that.

A level teaspoon of saltpetre is approx 5g (as Jim said), but a heaped one could easily be half as much again.

Dave

[dbairduk]

yes i realise this now.
It was a small teaspoon so would say level.
With salt sugar and salt petre at high levels would a soak after the curing be of any help?

[wheels]

I agree with the previous writers and personally would not use as high a level of saltpetre. However, it is within the 2187 Parts Per Million of Nitrate allowed in Dry Curing in the US.

Granted, these levels of ingoing nitrate would only be expected to be used in things cured over very lengthy periods of time.

The levels exceed the EU limits by a mile though.

The question that no-one can answer short of chemical analysis is how much of the saltpetre will be absorbed in ten days, how much will convert to nitrite etc to cure the meat, how much it will 'reduce' in that time, and how much will be disposed of in the soaking/cooking.

Personally, I don't think I'd risk it, but as I said, technically you are within US standards.

I'm sorry that this maybe doesn't answer your question fully, but hopefully you are now in a better position to make your decision.

Phil

[dbairduk]

well given its in the recipe and its within the US allowance, I will risk it on this occasion. (plus the meat cost me £20)
I will give it a good soak and dry it for a day, and a 4 hour boil.
I will be looking into a more mathematicaly sound pump and dry rub for my next venture!

But it's damson chutney next ready for christmas!

So back to my initial question... what should I be looking for to know my beef is cured?

[wheels]

That's your choice! (It wouldn't have been mine!)

There is no way of telling from the outside whether meat is cured. The outside can be pale and inside bright red and vica versa. You would normally leave a piece of meat this size longer in cure when using saltpetre, or hang it for the cure to 'equalise' throughout the meat. I am loath to suggest that in this case due to the excessive nitrate. I'm trying to fathom out whether it would result in lower nitrate by allowing some to 'exhaust'? If forced, bearing in mind that I would have scrapped this meat by now, I think I would remove it from the cure after the 10 days, wash it well, and then hang it to dry in the fridge for a week or so, before soaking and cooking.

There are more experienced forum members than me when it comes to using saltpetre though, I tend to use it only in air-dried products, they use it regularly for this type of curing and know how it performs better in this situation than I do. Hopefully, one of them will advise further.

Phil

[saucisson]

Do you have any Vitamin C tablets? If so dissolve one up in the minimum amount of water and add to the bag. Otherwise a couple of tablespoons of fresh orange juice may help. Any Vitamin C you can get in there will accelerate the using up of that nasty nitrate...

I don't think keeping this one will kill you but I don't advise doing it again.

Do not under any circumstances be tempted to slice a bit off and fry it, this is a cook in water only product.

Dave

[dbairduk]

I am sure i can pick up some asorbic acid up on the way home from work.
So which is the more dangerous nitrate or nitrite? I would have imagined nitrite...?