Curing and Canning Corned Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the brine
Cut the beef into pieces weighing 5 to 6 pounds, removing bones and tough portions.
Prepare a weak brine by mixing 10 pounds of coarse sea salt in 100 pounds of water.
Add 4 ounces of saltpetre to the brine if desired.
Pickle the beef
Submerge the beef in the brine and let it pickle for 2 to 4 weeks.
After pickling, wash off the salt solution from the meat.
Cook and prepare for canning
Boil the pickled meat for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let it cool in the water.
Trim the cooked meat to remove any objectionable portions and bones.
Cut the meat into suitable sizes for canning.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Beef
- Provides the meat that is cured, cooked and then canned.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the pickling brine.
- Saltpetre
- Optional curing agent that helps keep the meat's color pink during pickling.
The step that matters
Pickling the beef in the brine. The brine must stay fully covering the meat for the whole 2 to 4 weeks. Any exposed meat can spoil or take on off flavors, and the salt concentration controls how the meat cures.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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