What is the difference between curing salt and regular salt?
Asked by
MooCows (
3216
)
December 22nd, 2016
Does the salt become curing salt when it is used to
cure a ham or is there actually a “curing salt” that is
different than regular salt? If it is regular salt do you
use iodized or non iodized salt? Anyone out there
mind telling me your procedure to cure and smoke
a fresh ham?
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7 Answers
Curing salts (also known as “pink salt”) are generally a mixture of table salt (not iodized salt) and sodium nitrite, which serves to inhibit the growth of bacteria, specifically Clostridium botulinum in an effort to prevent botulism, and helps preserve the color of cured meat.
It is not Himalayan pink salt.
The nitrite cause the meat to turn pink or red like ham and hot dogs.
SO where can I buy this Curing Salts….haven’t seen it at the grocery stores…
The “nitrite” doesn’t sound like something I want to put on my all natural
ham and change the actual color to another false color…
Amazon will have it, I’ve bought it for making bacon. Sometimes it will be at a sporting goods store that sold rifles and bow & arrows for hunting.
You can’t make “all natural” ham that I know of or get away from changing color. Ham is pink because of the nitrite/nitrate.
When I say all natural ham I am talking about the fact that we raised the hog
100% chemical free and when we get the hams back from the processor
we pack them with a mixture of salt, brown sugar, pepper flakes then roll
them in butcher paper and put them in a “sock” and hang them…then
later on we hickory smoke them at a low temp. This process is new to us
and we were wondering if we were doing right by the salt but apparently not.
The salt does the curing right?
Found the curing salts on Amazon….GREAT
Wondering why they put the pink ingredient coloring in it?
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