Anatomy Of Smoke Cooking And Curing; Back To Basics; Ways - Smokehouse Products Little Chief Operating Instructions Manual

anatomy of
smoke cooking
and curing!

Back to Basics

3 Ways... or the
"Real Cure"
When you really think about it, just how far back does the "curing" of meats go? If you
didn't have a refrigerator or a freezer, what would you do to preserve the necessary
foodstuffs for your family? One doesn't have to exercise this point very long to determine
that the early day inhabitants of this grand planet earth must have given a lot of serious
consideration to this question.
No doubt the earliest Neolithic methods were a simple drying process done by the sun and
the wind. As fire was used to aid the drying and cooking, it was discovered that the foods
prepared in this manner tasted better and had greater lasting qualities.
At a later time, the process of "salting" the meat, prior to smoking, was discovered. The
historical significance of this discovery cannot be overemphasized.
Salting or the infusion of salt into meat of various types is called "curing." Simply stated,
this process causes the meat to undergo certain physical, chemical and bacteriological
changes, which result in greatly extended stability. More specifically, salt (sodium
chloride) acts to suppress the growth of spoilage causing bacteria and to solubize the
available meat proteins. With the introduction of salt to a cut of meat, the meat proteins
dissolve and the meat becomes tacky. When heated, the dissolved proteins set up and
"bind" the meat. This phenomenon is most important in the manufacture of sausage or
heavily cured meats such as pork or certain dried fish products.
Other chemical elements are sometimes introduced into commercially cured foodstuffs to
control color and texture. We need not, quite happily in fact, bother ourselves with these
extra and somewhat controversial chemicals.
The science (and art) of "curing" is simply the infusion of salt into your food products,
which can be achieved by three different methods:
(1) THE COVER BRINE...which is the easiest of the three and most applicable to
what we are trying to accomplish. Most recipes and suggested cycle times in
this booklet use the cover brine system.
(2) THE DRY CURE...excellent for old-fashioned curing of hams and bacon. This
process is still used by some specialty sales firms in the southeast. It is
however, a time-consuming and rather costly process, unless done on a large
volume or on a commercial basis.
(3) INJECTION CURE...used almost exclusively by commercial meat packers. It
is fast and effective, allowing the processing firms to speed processing and
lower in-house inventories. It is, however, complicated and much too
sophisticated for the home processor.
The cover brine can do it all for us. Making the assumption that our quantities of food are
going to be processed in the "Little Chief" smoker, these same quantities can easily be
"brined" in a glass, crockery or plastic container that will allow the brine solution to
completely cover the food.
Other benefits of this process become immediately apparent. It is easy to vary the salt
concentration of the brine solution and it is easy to introduce other taste variations such as
spices, herbs, or a variety of fruit juices. The blending of these various tastes (along with
the inherent taste of the meat product you are processing) is what it's all about. At this point
I think it is fair to say that the possibilities of achieving a wide variety of subtle, yet
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