Are Curing Salts Really Necessary?

hey everybody welcome to the channel i hope you're having a great day my name is eric and i'm glad you could make it because today we are going to be shaking things up a little bit as we begin a discussion on what is quite possibly the most debated and controversial topic in this craft that we all love called charcuterie that's right we're going to be talking about whether or not curing salts are actually necessary to produce a safe and edible product and so i want you to stick with me through this episode as we're going to cover a lot of information we're going to talk about what curing salts are what they do how they work and then most importantly we're going to talk about whether or not they are actually necessary all right so before we begin i just want to say thank you to all of you who wrote to me you know personally and in the comments section requesting this video i've been wanting to make this video for the last couple years and you guys gave me the push to finally do it today and the reason we're doing it is because there is a lot of very very dangerous and bad information uh on youtube and i can't tell you how many emails i get a week from people who followed other youtubers recipes and have either gotten sick or have shown me pictures of some highly questionable charcuterie and i don't want that to happen to you today and so by the end of this video you're going to have the knowledge to determine without a shadow of a doubt whether or not using curing salts in your charcuterie is right for you let's begin okay so what are curing salts well the history of curing salts is absolutely fascinating and can be dated back all the way to the ancient egyptians we're talking 5000 years they would mine the salt they would use it in their curing application and their food would last much longer and they may or may not have known that the salt that they were mining was not pure salt it actually had impurities and one particular impurity that was in their salt was something called potassium nitrate you may recognize potassium nitrate by a completely different name and that is saltpeter it's one of the main ingredients in gunpowder but when you take potassium nitrate and you mix it with salt and you add it to meat it makes the meat safe to eat and this was later discovered by the chinese the spaniards the italians the peruvians the french so on and so forth but the problem with potassium nitrate is that it never really created a consistent product and so around the late 60s early 70s scientists got together to create a substitution and they came up with sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate and so today when we talk about curing salts we're generally referring to two different products insecure number one and insecure number two all right prog powder number one and prog powder number two you get the idea the one version of the curing salts is regular table salt mixed with a little bit of sodium nitrite the two version of curing salts is regular table salt mixed with sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate in very very small quantities and both of these products are used differently to cure meats curing salts have three functions the first and absolute most important function of curing salts is to inhibit the growth of unwanted bacteria specifically clostridium botulinum now that's the bacteria that causes botulism if you're unaware of clostridium botulinum it is the most lethal and dangerous food bacteria on the planet fun fact did you know that in the 10th century a byzantine emperor leo the wise prohibited the manufacturing or the production of certain sausages because of how many people were dying from eating them then in the late 1700s another outbreak occurred in germany which motivated a young physician by the name of justin kerner to successfully document and publish detailed descriptions of this disease and its symptoms he actually called it sausage poisoning soon after that this sausage poisoning disease became known as botulism stemming from the word botulis which is the latin word for sausage coincidentally enough about 80 years after justin kerner's work was published this pathogen was actually discovered and it bears a striking resemblance to sausage but i digress clostridium botulinum thrives in an anaerobic environment and what that simply means is that this particular bacteria tends to grow really well in low oxygen or no oxygen environments and i gotta tell you this bacteria is incredibly fascinating if spores are found on your food and the conditions aren't right for it to grow it'll form a membrane or a protective shell or armor if you will and literally hibernate until the conditions are right for it to grow the spores of this deadly pathogen can be found all over the place fruit vegetables soil water seafood meat i mean it's everywhere and for the most part it's completely harmless unless the growing conditions are optimal in which case this harmless spore will start to produce neurotoxins which can cause paralysis basically destroy your nervous system and your brain yeah it's not good but on a more positive note this deadly toxin does seem to be an interestingly popular wrinkle remover have you ever wondered what botox stood for botulinum toxin okay so adding curing salts inhibits the growth of unwanted bacteria check it also preserves the color and although the process of preserving the color is pretty scientific the long and short of it is this as soon as you add curing salts they begin to break down through a conversion process that happens microbiologically and end up as a gas known as nitric oxide that particular gas bonds itself to a protein in the meat called myoglobin and it keeps it from getting oxidized so there you go it preserves that beautiful pink color and i think that's kind of a byproduct of curing salts and the third function and i really think this is more of a byproduct much like the color situation of adding curing salts to your meat comes down to flavor adding curing salts will give your meat a distinctly hammy flavor which some people like and some people don't and finally let's talk about whether or not curing salts are even safe and i gotta admit this is a hot topic and there's a lot of myths there's a lot of fear and misconceptions about curing salts primarily because of a 50 year old flawed study and lots of misinformation okay let's dispel some myths first and foremost nitrates and nitrites by themselves are not cancer-causing so let's just throw that one out the window matter of fact nitrates and nitrites which are the curing agents in curing salts are naturally occurring chemicals found all throughout nature you can find them readily available in celery carrots beets cabbage kale you know spinach lettuce things like that and it's no exaggeration to say that over 80 possibly even 90 percent of the nitrates and the nitrites that you consume on a daily basis come from the vegetables that you eat another interesting place where you will find nitrites is in your bloodstream and in your saliva and i find it interesting that your body will store up nitrites in your saliva to help fight off bacteria in your mouth and in your stomach also what i find fascinating is that the chemical formula for naturally occurring nitrite is no2 and the chemical formula for synthetically produced nitrite that you find in your curing salts is no2 and so molecularly there is absolutely no difference between naturally occurring nitrites and synthetically produced nitrites their chemical formulas are identical so if the nitrites that are in curing salts are the same as the nitrites that are in nature then why is it considered poisonous and that's a great question and here's the answer when you buy curing salts you're actually getting it in a much more concentrated form than you would find in nature and so when you buy curing salts you've been given a responsibility of knowing how to use it correctly i mean let's face it just about anything that you have when used incorrectly could be possibly harmful dangerous and or deadly have you ever heard of something called hypernatremia if you get hypernatremia you're likely to experience seizures it could possibly put you into a coma and could possibly lead to death hyponatremia is something that happens when you eat too much salt so even salt can be a poison if used incorrectly so if you understand curing salts and how to use them you don't have anything to worry about and i've actually got two other videos dedicated to curing salts how to use them when to use them so on and so forth and i'll put a link in the description box if you want to check those out all right now that you know what it is what curing salts do and how they work it's now time to answer the question are curing salts necessary when making your sausages or your dry cured products and before we answer this question i just want you to know that i don't take any of this lightly i've dedicated over 10 years of my life to this extraordinary craft not only to research but also to the actual production of meats and sausages and i bear an extraordinary responsibility as a tutorial youtube channel to instruct people on how to safely do this at home and i can guarantee you that if you follow any of my recipes that i have on youtube you will produce a safe product and so if you're into sausages if you're into meat preservation or cured meats and you really want to turn this thing that we call charcuterie into a hobby that's not only fun but rewarding for your entire family do me a favor click that subscribe button and that notification bell right now we have a load of information on this channel that is perfect for the beginner but also for the more advanced salami maker and if you follow my tutorials you will probably not run into the same mistakes i did and after it's all said and done if you have any questions or any problems you can always leave me a comment or send me an email because i am here to help all right so let's get to the answer are curing salts necessary for your sausages or your dry cured meats well the easy answer is no and yes because it really all depends on what you're making you see we can't talk about the necessity of curing salts without talking about foodborne illnesses and don't get me wrong i love salt salt is good and it makes for an excellent preservative but you would need at least 10 salt in your recipe to prevent the germination of botulism spores and i don't know if you've ever tried to eat something that had a 10 salt content it is unedible all right so with all that information out there and the knowledge that nitrates and nitrites when used correctly are safe food additives if there was even a fraction of a percentage that i could produce an unsafe product because i only chose to use salt and i were to feed that to my wife my child or my friends and get them sick i don't think i could live with myself now the good news is that not all forms of charcuterie right not all forms of sausage and dry cured meats require curing salts and i can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that there are some sausages and some dry cured meat products where if you use only salt you can sleep easy knowing that they are 100 safe to eat and i guess you're asking what's the difference so the difference in whether something needs a curing salt or whether you can just use regular salt comes down to how it's prepared and what i do is typically recommend the use of curing salts if you plan on making a sausage or a dry cured meat product where the conditions are right to grow these harmful bacteria okay so what are the conditions that need to be present in order for harmful bacteria to grow well there's roughly five or six conditions that need to be present but for the purpose of this video i've oversimplified it and i'm going to give you two conditions consider this a a two-point checklist and both conditions have to be met in order for you to consider using a curing salt if only one condition is met and the other one is not you can use only salt and it will be 100 percent safe to eat if both conditions are met then whatever you're making whether it's a sausage or a dry cured product you need to know that that particular product is going to fall into a high risk category of being extremely dangerous if it happens to have any of these foodborne pathogens in it during the process all right so just remember two conditions both have to be met in order for you to consider using curing salts the first condition is temperature will your meat be left in the danger zone temperature for longer than two hours and for the purpose of charcuterie we're going to define the danger zone temperature as 37 fahrenheit to 140 fahrenheit all right so that temperature range we're going to call the danger zone is your meat going to be hanging within that temperature range for longer than two hours if it is you've satisfied the first requirement of the conditions that we're talking about the second condition is have you created a low oxygen or no oxygen environment if you have you satisfy the second requirement and remember if you satisfy both requirements at the exact same time your sausage or dry cured meat is now in the high risk category of developing a foodborne pathogen all right let me give you some examples of each condition so that you can have a better idea of what i'm talking about and hopefully it'll clear up any questions that you might have the first condition is pretty obvious it's about temperature if your meat is going to be hanging in the danger zone temperature which is 37 to 140 fahrenheit for longer than two hours you have satisfied that requirement this particular condition applies to cold smoking applies to cooking at very low temperatures this condition will generally apply to all salami and all dry cured meat products pretty simple right the second condition is about low oxygen or no oxygen environments because remember some of these food borne pathogens require no oxygen to thrive and so the moment you create a no oxygen environment you create a place that is hospitable i mean this is a friendly environment for that spore to start producing neurotoxins so this condition applies to a hundred percent of all sausages that use ground meat remember the moment you grind your meat and stuff it into a casing you've now created a no oxygen environment and whatever bacteria you might have picked up whether it's from your hands from your equipment from your grinders from your stuffer from your mixer is now inside of your sausage in a no oxygen environment which is the perfect place for it to start growing another place you will find a low oxygen or no oxygen environment is a smoker or a smokehouse and i realize that not all smokers are the same the smoker that i particularly use produces a very low in at times no oxygen environment but other smokers may have more air flow through one little test you can do to determine whether or not your smoker is a low oxygen or no oxygen environment is light your smoker up and go ahead and put a candle inside your smoker and leave it in there for about 30 minutes after 30 minutes check to see if that candle is still lit if it's still lit there's a good chance you have enough oxygen running through your smoker where this condition won't apply but if it is out then your smoker is a low or no oxygen smoker and you can pretty much check that one off your list all right let's look at some actual sausages or some dry cured meat products and compare those to our two conditions and see how they stack up now remember both conditions have to be met if at any time one condition is not met we can toss that out it is no longer high risk and you can only use salt but if both conditions are met it becomes a high risk piece of charcuterie and the chance of growing some sort of a food borne pathogen becomes a lot greater all right so let's take a look at fresh sausages fresh sausages are typically ground meat stuffed into a casing and then refrigerated and cooked so let's stack that up against the conditions the first condition is will our fresh sausage be in the danger zone temperature for longer than two hours and the answer is no fresh sausages are usually never in that temperature for longer than two hours so we immediately cross that condition off and so that means that fresh sausages are not a high risk sausage you can only use salt and feel safe about not getting anyone sick let's talk about salami salami is a ground meat product that's stuffed into a casing and generally hung in temperatures that are between 50 and 60 degrees fahrenheit for three to six sometimes eight ten weeks how does that stack up against our conditions well the first condition will it be in the danger zone for more than two hours absolutely we could check that condition generally salami hangs in the danger zone temperature for many weeks the second condition is have we created a low or no oxygen environment and we can check that one off as well because the minute we grind our meat and stuff it tightly into a salami casing the inside of that salami casing becomes a low oxygen or no oxygen environment since both of those are checked salami becomes a high risk piece of charcuterie that has the potential of growing a foodborne pathogen so when it comes to salami making it is advisable to use curing salts because salt alone will not kill the pathogens that could possibly grow let's move on to another example let's talk about whole muscle dry curing whole muscle dry curing is incredibly popular you've got prosciutto you got pancetta you got guanciale bressa ola you got lonzino capicola matter of fact we just did a video on capicola if you want to see that you can check that link right there all right so how does dry curing whole muscles stack up against our two conditions well the process of making dry cured whole muscles starts with curing your whole muscle once the muscle is cured it's then hung to dry in a temperature range that's between 50 and 60 degrees fahrenheit so as far as dry cured muscles go the first condition check it's met and the second condition is have we created a low or no oxygen environment and when it comes to whole muscles the answer is no remember the whole muscle has not been contaminated with any kind of foreign bacteria it is in essence sterile now unless your butcher has stabbed it or punctured it with a knife introducing foreign bacteria if the muscle was butchered properly and it's completely intact without any major puncture wounds or gashes then it is completely sterile and because it is hung to dry in an area where air is moving around it constantly that condition doesn't apply so we can cross that off the board therefore when dry curing whole muscles only salt is necessary now if you want to add curing salts that is completely up to you it will elevate the flavor and it will give it a nice pink color but it is not necessary now let me throw you a curve ball what if you wanted to take your whole muscle and cold smoke it or smoke it at a very low temperature like bacon or cold smoked capicola well you have to re-evaluate your conditions the first condition is still going to apply because it's going to remain in very low temperatures for a very long time but the second condition you have to take a closer look at because the moment you put it in your smoker you're now introducing it to a lower no oxygen environment in which case it becomes a high risk piece of charcuterie so if you're going to cold smoke your dry cured muscles or if you're going to smoke at low temperatures your whole muscles like pork belly that becomes high risk and the use of curing salts is absolutely advised all right i think that wraps up today's video and i really appreciate you sticking around to the very end with me and if you have any questions about what we talked about today or if you would like further clarification about a specific meat project you're working on leave them in the comment section below and i'll be happy to give you a straightforward and honest answer if you found today's video helpful or entertaining in any way blast that thumbs up button it's always appreciated and if you're new to the channel please consider subscribing and clicking that notification bell we post new videos each week and we have got a heck of a sausage series right around the corner i don't want you to miss it thanks for being here we'll see you next week bye [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: 2 Guys & A Cooler

Views: 185,325

Keywords: curing salts, nitrites, are nitrites safe, do I need curing salts, cured meats without nitrites, traditional ways of curing meats, meat preservation, how to cure meats at home

Id: m4OuOZulHUQ

Length: 21min 43sec (1303 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021