Brine Cure For Bacon and Hams

Photo: flickr user jonny.hunter

Ingredients

8 pounds Salt

2 pounds Sugar

2 ounces Saltpeter

5 gal Water, boiled but cooled

Preparation

Mix the pickling ingredients. In theory thicker joints, such as ham, should have a stronger brine - make the brine up in 90%% of the quantity of water. Thinner joints, such as bacon and bath chaps, which are the jowls of the pig, should have the mixture in 120%% of the water.: Put the meat into the brine, making sure that there are no air pockets, put a scrubbed board on top and a big stone on top of that to weight the meat down - DON'T use an iron weight- and leave in the brine for 4 days per pound of each big joint. Thus each joint should be weighed before being put in, and each removed at its appointed date. Bacon and small joints

Bacon is best eaten within a few months. Cured hams and shoulders should be carefully wrapped in greaseproof paper and then sewn up in muslin bags and hung in a fairly cool dry place, preferably at a constant temperature. If you paint the outside of the muslin bag with a thick paste of lime and water, so much the better.

Like this they will keep for a year or two and improve all the time in flavour until they are delectable. Light turns bacon rancid, so keep it in the dark. Keep flies off all cured meat.