TobyB wrote
The piece in the bought cure still looks like raw pork (albeit that it is slightly harder (from water loss I assume) whereas the piece in the homemade cure looks like bacon and has a much firmer texture.
The home made cure stuff is much much firmer and evidently has a great deal less water in it.
The colour difference is because of the added molasses however, the texture/firmness is because the molasses version is �dry-cured�. As opposed to the one that has been sitting in a brine solution. When you cook it you�ll find that you lose very little extra weight. However, on the negative side it will probably take you a while to get the hang of not oversalting the meat. When you have finished the cure just leave it to soak over night in cool water and then allow it to dry off in the fridge. After a couple of hours taste the water, if it�s too salty then change it out.
TobyB wrote
I was hoping to be able to stick to using natural sea salt and relying on the naturally occuring nitrate/nitrites (as with parma ham)
The cost of Parma hams is what it is for several reasons, amongst these the long curing period (30 months +), the time and effort involved, the space involved and what a lot of people never realize - the amount of hams that are rejected due to bone sour. I don�t have the article at hand but it�s in the region of 6 to 7 % (if my memory serves me well) of the total hams cured.
TobyB wrote
It seems strange that people have been curing using nothing but pure sea salt for hundreds of years and yet the general consensus on here seems to be that doing so is tempting a sudden death from botulism.
It has been thousands of years and not hundreds and it wasn�t �pure salt� that�s why the meat turned "red". Though the amount of salt used is a major factor in the preservation it was, and still is the nitrate/nitrite impurities in the salt that impart the �cured meat� properties such as colour and flavour. If you are aware of a process that achieves the same results as another process, though is quicker and less prone to error, you�d be silly not to use it. It was only several hundred years ago that everyone in the UK drank beer, children included (weak beer), as the water supply couldn�t be trusted, whereas for beer making it had been boiled making it �sterile�.
TobyB wrote
I'm trying to seperate the fact from the fiction and the health authorities advice
Good luck.. no one including Governments and Scientists can agree on most of this subject. N-nitrosamines is one good example. I�ll admit I think that a lot of them react (maybe overreact) if something is at all likely to occur, as against being inundated with class actions law suits if they knew about it and did nothing.
TobyB wrote
as I understand things a good quality, unrefined sea salt is likely to kill the botulism bug (or in any event as likely to kill it as a commercial cure).
Neither �kills� the botulism bug. They both �inhibit the outgrowth�.. basically contain it from spreading.
hope that this is of some use to you
kind regards
Parson Snows