Got Corned Beef?
chloebud
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chloebud
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Another miss on Corned Beef :(
Comments (11)Thanks for all of the suggestions, I've not considered the brands!! I've moved three time in the last 3.5 years, so different grocery stores. I had a commissary in Maryland and was making a really nice CB up there. It was the whole thing, not just the flat cut, like the fat :). Then in FL I bought at Publix and here in NC there is Farm Fresh. There is a TJ's an hour North of me, along with Target and an actual mall. Also some commissaries in Norfolk. I'll start paying attention to the brand. I've always wanted to wash off the brisket, but thought I was supposed to keep it. I dislike that nasty floating stuff that it creates, from now on I'll be washing it off!!! Christy...See MoreCorned Beef question
Comments (17)Hi Everybody, First, just to be clear Saltpetre (Saltpeter in the US) is NOT Prague Powder, PP#1 is a 6.25% mixture of SODIUM NITRITE. Saltpeter is POTASSIUM NITRATE (sodium vs. potassium, nitrite vs. nitrate). Frank is correct, Potassium Nitrate is not used very much any more, that is why Prague Powder is also known as "modern cure" and "pink curing salt". So, nothing wrong with using Saltpetre. You can get it at an old style druggist. If not, you can order it overnight from most major drug stores. I ordered it from Walgreen's, they sell the Humco brand using the chemical name of Potassium Nitrate. If you ask for saltpetre, any druggist under the age of 60 will probably look at you like you are nuts. Ask them to look it up in their computer. It is NOT food grade, which means it does not get inspected by the USDA for consumption, but it is produced in a clean chemical process. Everybody uses it, though if you call Humco, they will tell you that they can't endorse it for curing meat (with a wink). The chemical reaction that occurs has been known for years; the Nitrate in Potassium Nitrate breaks down into Nitrites due to enzymes and bacteria, which in turn create nitric oxide, which is what binds to the hemoglobin molecule in the blood in meat and keep it pink. This same reaction occurs naturally in the body through breathing and the cardio vascular process. If there is a problem getting nitric oxide into the blood extremities lose their pink color and turn gray. So most modern cures that require short curing times rely on a Prague Powder #1, which uses Sodium Nitrite to skip the step of going fron Nitrate to Nitrite. You also need less chemical to get the same cure, so DO NOT SUBSTITUTE IN RECIPES WITHOUT CORRECTION!. If you were curing sausages that need months to cure, you use a different formulation that has both sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate. The nitrite goes to work fast, while the nitrate does the normal breakdown over time into nitrite and then nitric oxide (this is PP#2). Keep in mind that the added function of the nitrates/nitrites is as a preservative. So the meat can be kept longer without the bad bacteria giving it their "funk". :) That's the start of the process, along with salt, good bacteria and mold, that allows raw meat to turn into dry cured sausages like salami without refrigeration. So if you want to do this in the future, just order from any spice house or sausage supply online, compare prices, and order some Praque Powder #1 or "pink salt". The remainder above the 6.25% of Sodium Nitrite is just table salt. They die it pink so that you don't mistake it for regular salt. Since you use so little, a 4oz bag goes a long way. And if you want to experiment, you can use any leftover saltpeter to make smoke bombs, flares, and gunpowder. ;) Hope this helps a little :)...See MoreCorned Beef---------------Corned Pork?
Comments (5)Corned pork is, to me, much like canadian bacon. I've made it a couple of times, and I like it, but I smoke it after I brine it because I like that better. The peameal bacon that I got in Toronto was basically corned pork, not smoked. Annie...See MoreOT - power out, toss new corned beef?
Comments (17)Another option, although this works better for a local power outage than a widespread one, is to get some dry ice (maybe 10 lbs) and add it to the fridge/freezer (the fridge if you don't mind things near it freezing). I read this tip before the hurricane and thought it not so helpful at the time -- if there is a widespread crisis, either the stores will be closed or sold out. Then a week later, the workers at our house cut power to our detached garage for all day on a hot day without letting us know. We have a chest freezer, and upright freezer, and a fridge out there. Oops. We lost about half the stuff (ouch) -- the parts in the colder areas of the freezers and the chest freezer were still solid and so we made a quick dry ice run to salvage the rest until they could come back the next morning and fix it. We have temperature probes on the devices (but the remote alarms have been off for a bit -- I'm upgrading to a new system that should work better, but we have to manually check right now until I get it up and running). 3 days later we noticed the fridge in the house being not so cold -- we were faked out by the fact that its LCD display had frozen on. Lost pretty much everything there but made another trip to our local 24-hour grocery for some dry ice to make it cold again. If you don't know where to buy it, it might be good emergency planning to look up your local stores and then make sure they do carry it and know how to sell it (most have it in a locked cooler and some have clerks that don't know how to open it)....See Morefawnridge (Ricky)
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