This makes a very safe and effective cure. The hams when being put down should be pumped as follows:
Five stitch in the shank;
One on the shank joint;
One on the aitch bone;
One on top of the shank;
Two in the body;
making a total of ten stitches per ham. The meat should be overhauled from one vat to another at the end of five days, second overhauling ten days later, pumping at that time with three stitches:
One in the shank;
One in the body;
One in the aitch bone.
It adds greatly to the certainty of the cure of meats to be thus pumped.
Wilder Sirup Curing.
—The best flavored meats are produced with sirup, instead of sugar, but meats handled in this way have not the keeping qualities that meats have when cured with a granulated or light sugar. The sirup also has a tendency to discolor the meat, making it look less attractive, and this, coupled with its tendency to cause fermentation, has made the curing of meat with sirup, in large concerns at least, undesirable.
A formula for the use of sirup in a 1,500-gallon vat would be as follows:
88 gallons sugarhouse sirup.
75 pounds saltpetre.
This will make a dark-colored pickle. Hams turned out in this manner are of a very delicate flavor.