Curing 200+ pounds of pork 3 different ways. Dry cure, wet cure and salt only cure.

JohnInCarolina said:

SGH said:

Fellows I just discovered that it wasn't the imitation calamari that got my slaughter thread buffaloed. A few people complained about the head shot and the cut throat pics. Oh well. I forewarned of graphic images in the title. You would think that folks would just bypass it instead of reporting it as abuse. 

This just makes me shake my head.  

Me too. Especially when you take into account that I started a thread titled: "Would you like to see a hog butchered" a week beforehand and it got over 7,000 hits. Only 3 people said that they would not want to see such. However 2 of them said that they simply would not click on and to go ahead and post it. In the name I clearly stated "Warning: Graphic Content. I don't know, it is what it is I guess. 

buzzvol said:

will all three methods you are using produce a "salt pork" similar to country ham?  

It depends on your approach. While the wet cure does a wonderful job and has some advantages over dry curing in certain circumstances and conditions, I feel the final texture is a little lacking compared to the dry cure. The wet cure doesn't "tighten" the meat quite as well as the dry cure. I realize that this is certainly debatable and open to father scrutiny, but it is certainly my belief. However to remedy this, I let the wet cured meat spend extra time in the cold smoke where farther tightening will occur. However there is still a slight texture differnce. I'm of the opinion (and it's just that, my opinion) that dry curing produces superior results in end product quality. Darby/Stike can probably offer more on the science behind it. I can only what I think works best. The dry cure wins my friend.