How to Dry Cure Meat the Traditional Way (Excess Salt)

Commonly, salt pork is a method of saturation curing, and a lot of salt penetrates the meat to ward off unwanted bacteria.

It has three names

• excess salt curing
• saturation salt curing
• salt box method

Saturation/Excess salt curing is for whole pieces or muscles of meat, not for salami, which needs a measured amount of salt to cure and balance flavor.

Salt pork has a long history, dating back to the 17th century. During the Napoleonic Wars and the Civil War, pork salt was part of standard military rations.

Heavily salted pork (here is my main article on salt pork) is left to cure for at least a week. The cuts of meat used were primarily pork belly. The belly was boiled often to remove the excess saltiness before it was eaten.

There wasn’t any refrigeration back then, so this provided routine on long voyages or during all military campaigns. It seems that the homesteader was also able to use this quite easily.

Why and When I Use Traditional Method

The saturation curing is fast, which is primarily why I like to use it. However, it’s not as consistent as equilibrium curing since it may vary in the ‘saltiness’. I’m quite sensitive to overly salty foods.

For biltong, a traditional South African dried snack, I use a 1 hour saturation dry cure, then 1 hour acidity Worcestershire/malt vinegar to create this delicious snack

Gravlax, Lox, or Salt Dry Cured Salmon: I use the saturation method to provide texture and a relatively quick salt cure.

For a more preserved long-term style of cured meat, I also use saturation/excess curing to make salt fish, pork, or venison/deer.

Key Ingredients

Sea salt – no additives or caking agents

Meat – typically red meat, pork, fish

Due to the higher potential bacterial count, I haven’t used any poultry. However, if it is fresh and well-looked after, one definitely could.

Equipment

First stage is salt curing, which can be done in any leak-proof container or bag.

Secondly, an area is needed to dry the meat after the salt curing, here is a list of options.

Cellar / Basement / Garage

Some people find it acceptable to use a cellar if you have roughly the right humidity conditions and around 11°C/52°F temperature. It can work fine for bacon/pancetta or another more minor cut of meat.

However, one of the more critical parts of dry curing is humidity, so the fridge makes it a bit difficult. It typically runs at 30 to 50% humidity. Ideally, you want to dry-cure meats at around 70% humidity.

DIY Curing Chamber

Making a DIY curing chamber (here are some DIY humidifiers I wrote about) is another way of creating the right conditions. If you want to read more about what I’ve learned and what you need, please find a post here.

How to Cure with Saturation/Excess

Steps in detail as follows.

1. Weigh Meat and Calculate Time in Cure

The weight will calculate the amount of time for the curing phase. It’s also helpful to write this on a piece of cardboard and attach it to the hanging meat during the 2nd phase.

Trimming the meat can be useful to get a more uniform tubular or flatter shape, it will also produce a easier to thinly slice meat when drying is complete.

Calculating the minimum 70% weight loss and writing this on the card also.

Calculating Cure Time

It varies depending on the meat, since the fat-to-meat ratios are high. As well as thickness/skin could affect the osmosis, binding, and diffusion of the salt/meat

The approximate ratio is 1/2 pd to 1 pd per day in the cure.

I’ve often found that more significant cuts that are 5″ or thicker will be toward the one pound per day.

2. Cover Meat Above and Below with Salt

Cover and immerse meat in plenty of sea salt in a container or bag.

It starts simply with a tray. You then layer salt on it and rub your meat with it, covering all areas.

Sea salt needs to be in every crevice and covering the entire meat.

3. Place in Cool Fridge Temperature to Cure

Once in the refrigerator or at a fridge-type temperature, wait for the allocated time based on the weight of the meat.

4. Remove From Salt and Rinse

Rinsing is always essential to excess salt curing.

You can cut off a piece and fry it up to see the saltiness in the meat. This is a good idea when starting this craft, especially useful for the saltbox method of making bacon, for instance—either hot or cold smoked. See here for a how-to-make-bacon post.

5. Hang to Dry until Weight Loss Achieved

As mentioned earlier, many different hanging areas could be used for this phase.

The key is for the meat not to be in contact with surfaces. Hanging on S hooks or tying a twine loop through the meat muscle’s narrow end works well.

Hanging will assist in weight loss with more airflow on the surface of the meat.

6. Check Periodically As Meat Dries

I like to monitor the progress, at least every few days. The outside shouldn’t be moist; ideally, it should go hard. It’s about even drying, although for cured meats like salt pork, the drying rate conditions aren’t as necessary as long as the outside doesn’t get too dry too fast.

Thinly slicing is best, for dry cured meats – very thin.

Deli slicer is ideal, but welding a sharp knife and carefully taking slices can work. Par freezing the cured meat slightly can make slicing easier, also.

Expert Tips

As mentioned previously, oversalting is the biggest issue with the saltbox method. In my experience, meat can vary greatly in volume and density depending on the amount of fat or moisture in it.

To counter this, soaking the meat in cool water after curing (if it is thought to be over-salted) can draw some of the salt out of it.

It also uses up quite a lot of salt, which results in quite a lot of wastage. Although salt is relatively cheap, it’s nice to have a precise amount needed for curing with the equilibrium curing method.

Variations

Gravlax is a Scandinavian dish I often make with salmon. It uses this method: You put decent amounts of salt and dill on the salmon for 18-24 hours, rinse it off, slice it thinly, and that’s it. I recently tried the beetroot gravlax that has been popping up everywhere. I found it’s more about the color than the flavor. It’s a beautiful dish, though.

If you’re exploring various ways of preserving meat, with salt and other methods, I wrote this detailed article about it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Storing the Finished Dry Cured Meat

Continue to hang the meat; it will get drier. The more fat in the meat, the less it shrinks and shrivels.

I’ve found that vacuum packing the finished meat can stop the drying and last many months, potentially years.

Serving Ideas

For most dry cured meats, slicing thinly and serving, although it’s more like salt pork. Then using it as a base flavor for stews, soups, or casseroles is more relevant.

Please feel free to leave comments or any queries below.