Dry Salt Cure in Tierces
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub the meats thoroughly with the salt and saltpeter mixture.
Pack and cure
Pack the meats into tierces at 340 lbs. each.
Sprinkle the remaining mixture on top after packing.
Leave one tierce on end overnight, tightly headed.
Roll the tierce as often as convenient for the first twenty days, at least four times.
Cure hams for 40 to 75 days, and bacon for 20 days.
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
- Fine salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, slowing spoilage during curing.
- Refined saltpeter
- Supplies nitrate that helps preserve the meat's pink color and adds cured flavor.
The step that matters
Rolling the tierce during the first twenty days. Turning the packed meat redistributes the salt and brine so the cure penetrates evenly. Skipping rolls can leave some pieces under-cured and others over-salted.
“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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