Rub each
piece of pork meat with pickling salt, and pack closely in a
container. Let stand over-night.
The next day weigh out ten pounds
of pickling salt and two ounces of salt peter (sodium nitrate) for each 100 pounds of meat,
and dissolve in four gallons of boiling water.
Pour this brine,
when cold, over the meat, cover, and weight the meat down to keep
it under the brine.
The pork should be kept in the brine until
used.
NOTE: For all curing always use
pickling salt and
not table salt, as the latter contains starch to keep it dry
and this starch may cause the meat to spoil. If you carefully
follow these directions you will have delicious sugar-cured hams
and bacon.
Pickling SaltorDairy Salt is
fine-grained salt that has no additives and is generally used in brines
to pickle foods. Unlike table salt, the lack of additives will help
keep the pickling liquid from clouding.
