It’s a surprise to many people that not all salt is created equal. The table salt most people use to fill their salt shakers at home is not pure salt. Most salt has iodine added to it, as a solution to a shortage of the element in most people’s diet. This is the ubiquitous Iodized Salt. In addition to iodine, table salt and some other fine pour-able salts have sodium ferrocyanide added to prevent caking. These additives have benefits but for some recipes they have drawbacks. In canning these ingredients will make the liquids cloudy. They can also contribute an off flavor for brine’s and dry cures. When you want absolute control of the appearance and flavor of your creation take salts with these ingredients off the list.

In addition to the purity issue, there are differences in the coarseness of available salts. Popcorn salt for example is very fine. Table salt is normally fairly fine. Canning and pickling salts and kosher salts are fairly coarse. Rock salt is left as crystals that are not ground. These salts can be mined or extracted from sea water through evaporation. They are normally made without additives and are largely the same in terms of content but they will react different in recipes and have different purposes because of how quickly they dissolve. Kosher Salt for example gets its name because it is used to help make meats kosher by extracting the last of the blood from meats. It’s coarseness prevents the salt from being absorbed fully before the blood is picked up by the salt.

In addition to these differences, there are salts available that have flavors added to them. They can have fruit flavors added for use in tropical drinks, smoke flavors used for dry curing, and even pickle flavored salt used for… well I was surprised at how popular pickle flavored salt was for making chips, burgers or your favorite side dish have that pickle taste. (Not to be confused with pickling salt which has no flavor added to it.)

Smoked flavored salts are very useful in dry cures. This is especially true if you are cooking the meat in an oven where smoke can’t be introduced. They are normally pure so the only thing they add is that smoky salt flavor to your recipe.

Knowing what is available and how it can be used can be very helpful when preparing to dive into that special recipe. The coarseness of the salt will also effect its volume when measuring it for a recipe. So until you get a handle on how it will change your recipe, use a little less salt. Then add to flavor. It won’t take long to get the right amount.

I have a variety of salts in the IGT Store so you can see some of the available offerings.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope the added complication added to your life is worthwhile.

It is a bit of a reach but, what the heck. You’ve been warned.

I have a book that describes the process in detail written by Arlington C. “Buckskin Slim” Schaefer. What is surprising about this book published in 1973 is that it lead to a renewed interest in this process that continues to this day in tanning hides and that it was published in the county where I live. Douglas County, Oregon

The title of the book is “The Indian Art of Tanning Buckskins” and has quite a following even today amongst those wishing to make their own leather. Another name for the process is brain tanning.

You see the substance used to cure a hide in the Indian style is the brain of the animal. For a deer the brain is combined with about a quart of warm water and simmered for about an hour or so. There is a lot of preparation that is done to the skin before and after the skin is place in the brain-dope, as he calls it. It involves scraping, soaking and wringing the hide. It can then be cured two ways.

The first option is to lay out with the (former) hair side up and the brain-dope is rubbed in by hand. The edges are folded in and the hide is rolled up for about fifteen minutes.

The second option is to take the wrung-out hide right into the bucket or pot that has the dope in it. Kneed the hide to work the emulsion into all the nooks and crannies . It is left in the emulsion overnight and then laid out to dry all day in the sun or indoors depending on weather. After the hide is somewhat dried out, it is then put on a rack to complete the drying process. I haven’t done this but it’s certainly a lot of work. This will take us to the last step, smoking.

The hide is sewn together staring at the neck and leaving a hole at the tail end (about 16-20 inches) to go over the coals. A hole (pit) is dug about 18-24 inches deep and about 16 to 18 inches around. A small air hole is cut into the pit from about 18 to 24 inches from the pit at about a 45 degree angle and reaching to the bottom of the pit. The hide can be hung from a tripod made of long sticks. The edges of the hide are staked down or held down with rocks. In the pit a bed of coals are made. On the bed of coals damp rotten wood is placed to create the smoke. The air hole is used to regulate the coals as a flare up can ruin the project. The flow of air is slowed with moss or rags when needed. The hide is smoked for and hour or so and then turned inside out and repeated. Between the brain-dope and the smoke the hide is cured and ready for use.

The book goes into much more detail but this gives you an idea. It is a fascinating process making an incredibly useful leather.

Is the leather edible? Surprisingly, yes it is. It’s pretty tough though. Commercial leather has all kinds of poisons in it, so it’s not a good idea to let your toddler chew on it. Brain tanned leather is not poisonous, however, there are organisms carried in brain matter that can be dangerous. Problems are unlikely, but I thought I would throw that caution in there.

So here we go.

First of all, I am most familiar with using a brine to cure and flavor the meat. In a bit of research about what is out there I see quite a few recipes from people that are not worried about using a cure, in addition to salt, for low heat cooking. I think this is a bit risky, especially on poultry and fish, unless you are using a fairly high salt content by today’s standards. In ideal circumstances there would be no problem, but if the meat has a higher bacteria count than normal (maybe Earl at the plant got a bit careless when moving Porkchop to the breakdown area and dropped her on the floor, giving her an unintentional marinade in unmentionables or perhaps you were distracted as you were getting the ham out to put it down in the brine and the game you gave up on became a higher priority than that special project that got a bit warmer than intended before brining) you may wish you Had upped your protection. Point is that a cure is a great insurance policy against the unknown without having to make your brine too salty. The low heat cooking process is a more favorable environment for bacteria than a normal cooking process. The meat will spend twice as long in the ideal range for bacterial growth. So I recommend incorporating a cure in any Low Heat Cooking.

The original cure used in this process is salt. However we have other preservatives we can use, so the level of salt needed is lower and more a factor of taste than necessity. These other preservatives are the dreaded Nitrites, Nitrates, and Phosphates we spent a decade or more fearing. When the big studies were conducted to put the nails in the coffin of preservatives like these, the scientists were red faced to report that there were no links between these preservatives and health problems. In fact they found that there may be some health benefits from them. So when putting together a recipe, I recommend including a cure with your other ingredients or substitute a mix like Morton’s Tender Quick. It includes salt, sugar, nitrites, and nitrates. You use a 1:4 ratio of Tender Quick to water by volume. The directions say 2 cups of Tender Quick to 8 cups of water.

Hot Smoking Similar to Barbecuing but generally done at slightly lower temperatures. Smoke can be used for adding flavor.

Kippering Devised in particular for fish, this process relies on both the curing and cooking of meat. Smoke here is also used as a flavor enhancer.

Cold Smoking The process involved the use of smoke to preserve meat. Today, cures are used to help kill bacteria and parasites. Some people will also use a period of time (3 or more days) in the freezer to eliminate parasites, especially from fish. The cure alone only slows the growth of bacteria.

If I tried to include all of the different sources that contributed to all the ways of smoking meat, we’d have a book or two not a recipe.

That having been said, how about a recipe for something.

First, a good recipe for brine.

• 1 gallon water (Hot)
• 1 cup salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup whole cloves (ground cloves are fine)
• 1/4 cup ground nutmeg
• 6 cinnamon sticks ( ground is fine, but I don’t have an amount for you, My guess 1/4 cup)
• 1-2 oz of liquid smoke (2-4 Tbs)

The original recipe calls for boiling the mixture. I combined the ingredients I used very hot water out of the tap and mixed it until the ingredients are dissolved as much as possible. If the ingredients aren’t dissolving as much as you would like, boil the brine for 20 minutes or so. Either way make sure the brine is cool or even cold before putting the meat down into it.
I adapted this from About.com And is by Derrick Riches.

I used this recipe because it is the most similar I have found to the recipe we used in the Smokehouse ( Yes, I added and subtracted a bit). The ingredients we used were only available commercially. This recipe does not include any cure, so here are some options. Add 1-2 oz of Tender Quick to the recipe or find a cure with no salt and follow the directions or substitute Tender Quick for the salt and the sugar.

Anytime you are making a brine or marinade you should be able to sample it and get an idea if the ratios are right. It will always be too strong to call tasty but it will give you an idea.

As far as time in the brine, that will vary a lot depending on the type of meat. Something small (A cut of chicken or a fillet of Salmon) can be cured in 8-12 hours. Something large (A Ham) may take 7-10 days. Also anything thicker than 2 inches should have brine pumped into it. We use, shockingly enough, a brine pump for this. It is a giant syringe like device, but with a needle about the size of a large nail, only longer. No you won’t want any flu shots with this. You pump it up like a beach ball and put it down in the brine. This is handy and recommended on hams, shoulders, and even loins.

After the meat is cured, you need to rinse it. For the large cuts, 1 1/2 - 2 hours under running water. It doesn’t need to be running at full tilt, just a light flow around it. In the meat business we use a sink that over flows into another sink, so the meat is immerse. You can use a container that can overflow into you kitchen sink or (raised eyebrow time) a container set in the bath tub overflowing into the tub. (There go the brownie points with the wife) You get the idea, use your imagination and have some good excuses ready.

And finally, you cook it up. An oven will work fine. Set it at about 225 and figure on 6 hours although it could take 8. A meat thermometer is critical here. Small or thin cuts will cook much faster, probably in 3 -4 hours. When it gets to 165, its ready. Remember in lost cases it will be heated up again, so don’t expect this to look like dinner. Smaller cuts may be ready to throw on a plate but the larger cuts normally are going to be cooked again. If you find the outside is getting too well done before the temperature gets to your target, then cut the temperature back to 210 or so. Adjustment is the name of the game.

Smoked meat is a lot of work, but it is very rewarding. I highly recommend that you write down exactly what you do to make your product. It will make adjusting your recipe much easier and since there are so many steps it can be hard to remember what you did a week ago when you made that brine.

First, the history of smoking meat goes hand in hand with the history of civilization. The details maybe lost in the sands of time. The needs, however, are not difficult to conjure up. One key motivator was the need for a way to preserve meat, a precious commodity, for extended periods without refrigeration or canning.

Cooking at what we would call normal temperatures (above 300 degrees f) was the first answer. This was good for dinner but had some disadvantages for long term preservation. Cooking alone makes meat safe to eat but leaves the meat open to attack from bacteria, fungus or mold, and oxidation. In a relatively short period of time the quality of the meat is affected and then the edibility starts a short trip downhill.

I suppose adventurous souls experimented with different additives and processes until the tribes folk survived the experiments. Noting what seemed to make the meat more durable, they may have even found ingredients that made the meat more tasty. As is so often the case, there was more than one way to accomplish the goals of longer lasting meat products.

The process can include 3 steps.

1. Curing or brining
2. Rinsing
3. Cooking

So simple, but there are many choices in these three simple steps.

Curing or brining is done to load the meat with preservatives and flavorings. The curing process can involve a liquid brine in which the meat is soaked for many days or it can be a dry cure that the meat is coated with day after day until the meat is ready to be cooked. It can even be a process that cures the meat without any cooking needed. There is even a process where the cure is placed into the meat as it is ground up and then cured in casings without the need of cooking. Another method does not use preservatives added to the meat in these ways but is simply the long application of wood smoke in a warm environment. The smoke acts as a preservative in this case and the cooking (more like drying) is done at very low temperatures (about 100-120 degrees f). The processes are as varied as the imaginations of the people who developed them.

After the curing/brining process there is a cooking process. At least in many smoked meats, cooking is used. We can break these down into three categories.

1. Low heat cooking
2. Very low heat cooking
3. Cold cure techniques (Where time is inserted in place of heat)

They are not interchangeable. The cooking process will dictate the amount of cure needed and the type in some cases. It’s important to have an idea of what is needed to make a product in a safe way. These cooking techniques are low enough in temperature and slow enough that bacteria can grow to dangerous levels unless there is enough preservative in the meat to keep the bacteria in check.

Not all processes will produce a meat product that will be desirable to the modern palette. Many of the ways of the past were necessary, but not always tasty. Some of the products were so salty we couldn’t stand to eat them, like salted beef. These products were durable but loaded with so much salt they had to be soaked for hours just to make them edible. Modern preservatives allow us to make food safe without depriving the ocean of all of its salt (yeah, humor is in short supply). This gives us better control over flavor and a safer finished product. We also can leave more moisture in the meat since refrigeration and freezing allows us to store the meat without affecting the flavor.

I haven’t covered everything but that will give an idea of the scope of the topic I plan to cover in these articles. If you learn of other techniques or have a different point of view about these topics let me know. I have some experience on the subject but I also know there are many other people with more to add.

Have a great day and look for more on smoked meat to come.

In the modern vernacular the techniques are broke up into two basic categories. Smoking and Pickling. These categories are very general and when we dig into historical references we see that these terms have a more specific meaning back in the day. Maybe this will only be interesting to me but as I used to say during exhortations, “I speak about what I need to hear and hope there are others in the audience who find it valuable too”.

So, over the next few, or several, or many months I will contribute to the population of this topic. I hope it is interesting to you. Also feel free to share your knowledge or correct mine at anytime. I am far from all-knowing on the subject, just interested.