DIFFICULTIES WITH CURING BRINE AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM.
Query.—W. S. & Co.: We are so situated that we have to boil all the water that we use in our brine. After boiling it we run it into a cooling tank and let it cool. We have made some experiments with your Freeze-Em Pickle and like it to cure very well, and have decided to adopt its use in the curing of all of our meats. Now, what we want to know is, can we dissolve the Freeze-Em Pickle in the boiling hot water and then cool it and run it through coils the same as we do now with the water? Would the heat affect the Freeze-Em Pickle? Our vats when full hold 6,900 lbs. of medium sized hams. According to the size of the kettle and the amount of water to boil at one time, it would require 58 pounds of Freeze-Em Pickle. What we want to do is this: we do not want to weigh the Freeze-Em Pickle for each vat, but simply want to make a large quantity of brine and then run the prepared brine on to our hams. We have been using saltpetre and molasses for our brine and we are having trouble with it getting ropy and stringy. Will syrup answer the same as molasses or sugar, and is New Orleans molasses the best, or should granulated sugar be used entirely? Kindly let us know what you consider the best for hams.
Ans.—First of all, we advise that after the water is boiled, that it is allowed to settle and precipitate so that all the solids will settle to the bottom of the settling tank. It should settle at least 24 hours before the solids will have separated and gone to the bottom. Then the water should be drawn off, but not from the bottom of the tank, but at least a foot from the bottom. The water that will come off from above will be nice and clear. This water should then be run into another tank, called the mixing tank, in which the sugar, salt and Freeze-Em-Pickle should be dissolved; this will make the stock brine which can be run down into the cellar over cooling pipes, so as to chill it properly before it is put on the meat. The reason the brine that you are making becomes ropy is that you are using the wrong sugar. If you will use absolutely pure granulated sugar or absolutely pure syrup made from granulated sugar you will have no trouble from ropy brine. We strongly advise the use of nothing but absolutely pure granulated sugar. We find that it gives the best results. It costs a little more than the unrefined product but you get less vegetable substance in your brine, and the brine will therefore keep much longer. The brine in which hams have been cured can be used a second time for curing breakfast bacon, and the breakfast bacon will be even better than if put into fresh brine. As your vats are large, the meat will pack very tight on the bottom, and we wish to caution you to be sure and overhaul your meat promptly five days after it is packed and continue overhauling as per directions in our book on curing meats and making sausage. If you follow these directions you will not have any ropy brine or any spoiled meat, but all your meat will come out uniform and will have the proper flavor.