Thread: Salting/preserving meat

Looking on the www and there is a lot of conflicting info. I'm sure most of it is just copy paste and no experience.

I know you can salt cure meat in a fridge. About to try this.

Can you just salt it and hang it out under a tree for example?

Also, is just salting or soaking in brine best?

Is coarse salt ok to use?

Nit interested in billing. Just preserving.

Thx

Originally Posted by Oldbloke

Looking on the www and there is a lot of conflicting info. I'm sure most of it is just copy paste and no experience.

I know you can salt cure meat in a fridge. About to try this.

Can you just salt it and hang it out under a tree for example?

Also, is just salting or soaking in brine best?

Is coarse salt ok to use?

Nit interested in billing. Just preserving.

Thx

I have just been in Norway and at a hunting friends place had salt cured wild meat. Common in Norway. It’s not dry like biltong but raw moist cured. @norsk on the forum here may have more info on the process living there.

Using just salt can be done meat usaly goes a grey colour and tends to be salty as heck, if you want the nice pink colour you need to use salt petter, or brine, when you use salt and salt petter as a rub your in essence doing a dry cure and it takes a bit of time. If time isn't your friend pump the meat with brine and soak it for a couple of days. Each way has its merits and downfalls if not done right. Remember don't go over board on the salt petter or brine mix, be precise as you can change the mix from a nitrate into a nitrite and worst case would be sick or dead

Look in grandmums cookbook....there are old recipes and old ways to do this before refrigeration.cool n DRY will keep most meat ok for short time,it's moisture that speeds up it going bad.

Muslin material around a frame hanging in a cool shady area, so the wind can flow around the meat and dehydrate it. That is one of the old time ways anyway.

I did a dry cure ham once. Tunnel boned the back leg. Stuffed it with salt, covered it in salt. Sat a rock on it. Changed the salt the next day, then 2 days later, then a week later. Left it in the salt for about a month or two. Then scraped salt off and hung it in a pillowcase in my back porch for three months. It hung over winter. It ends up with a layer of “mold” over it. Trim the mold off and cut into small pieces then froze it. Sliced it thin and ate with crackers etc.
was really nice, definitely not salty and dry.

Mmmm,
Experimenting, I've put some in the fridge in a layer of course salt.

Same as above, just sitting on bench in the shed.

And some in a strong brine, again on the bench in shed.

I'll leave them all 3-4 days then hang in the shed, see what happens.

They didn't have fridges 150 years ago.

Biltong is supremely easy to make, much easier than jerky. There are wet and dry varieties as well. Plenty of recipes about. You don't need a fancy biltong box or any of that stuff either. Just vinegar, salt, spice mix and a cake rack.

I sometimes buy an 'air dried beef' I've never made it but this recipe looks like the one I like.
https://wurstcircle.com/recipes/bresaola/
I may actually try this one myself

Originally Posted by Oldbloke

Looking on the www and there is a lot of conflicting info. I'm sure most of it is just copy paste and no experience.

I know you can salt cure meat in a fridge. About to try this.

Can you just salt it and hang it out under a tree for example?

Also, is just salting or soaking in brine best?

Is coarse salt ok to use?

Nit interested in billing. Just preserving.

Thx

@Southcity

What kind was it? Did it look like chops and served hot or was it a whole leg served cold and you sliced bits off it?

Venison

So preserving takes different methods depending on country, etc.... so here goes a mongolian dried meat (it snaps, it's like a ceramic material, ). So this is beef, cut into finger sized strips, then into a dehydrator for a few days.
Now normally this would be stored in a cotton bag in the cool part of a Ger, but we just stick it in the fridge.... the taste is really intense, and you don't use much for the main use which is 'milk rice' ( Banshtai tsai ).



And yes, need the fat.

Here are a few slightly cheffy ones from the book cazador I got as a birthday present. Tony Lolaiy opened it over 40 years ago as a game restaurant. You got a glass of slivovitz on arrival. The ak branch of deerstalkers ak held dinners there, maybe they still do.
The other bresola recipe I've made several times is from a fund raising cookbook and it never lasts