GB411006A - Method and material for curing, smoking and seasoning meats - Google Patents

Abstract

Meats are simultaneously cured, smoked, and seasoned by treatment with a mixture of common salt with a smaller amount of potassium nitrate, together with wood smoke tars and seasoning agents. The mixture is preferably applied dry but may be used in solution. The wood smoke tars are preferably derived from birch, maple, oak or hickory by distilling the pyroligneous acid obtained in making charcoal from the woods until about 80 per cent of its acid content has been removed and using the residue. Cane, beet, corn or other sugar may be added to the mixture, the granules of the sugar being of the same size as that of the salt. The seasoning may be a dry essence of spices consisting of essential oils of spices such as clove and nutmeg and oleoresins of red and other peppers ground into a greater quantity of initially coarse sugar as described in Specification 355,089: chemically pure glycerine may be mixed with the wood tars before these are added to the mixture. Burnt sugar colouring or aniline dye may also be added. In the treatment of meat by a dry process, it is hand rubbed with the material, 1 1/4 pounds being applied to each 100 pounds of meat, allowed to drain for 10 hours, rinsed in water, 4 1/2 -6\ba1/2 pounds of the material per 100 pounds of meat are next rubbed in and a pack made in a barrel, tub, &c., with the heavier pieces of meat, e.g. hams and shoulders of pork, at the bottom and the lighter pieces, e.g. slabs of bacon, at the top, a supply of the material being added to the top. The pack may be broken after 3 or 4 days and the meat again hand rubbed with the material and the pack then re-established, the meat being allowed to remain in the pack about 1 1/2 to 2 days for each pound of meat in the pack, the temperature of which is kept at about 45 DEG F. The meat is finally washed in lukewarm water, dried and wrapped.