Corned Beef

Kijek · Post by **Kijek** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 19:57

Recently we had a small discussion on corned beef and the use of cures, as I was trying to develop a totally natural corned beef product, using nothing but pure organic ingredients and no cure of any type, just sea salt.

Most agreed it could be done, but flavor, texture and color would suffer.

Well I did it, using the recipe that I always used from the book Charcuterie, only this time I omitted the curing salt and added beet root powder for color.

The results where excellent, flavor spot on delicious, texture was spot on tender as well, the only thing that suffered at all was that redish, pinkish color, although the beet root powder helped a little. ( No big deal)

So a huge success and yes it can be done with no curing salt. I'm hooked.

Here is what is left over.

Post by **Butterbean** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 20:17

You do know that beet root powder is full of nitrates and sea salt has varying amounts of nitrates in it so you are not really making a nitrate free product are you?

In fact, just watch the infomercials about the miraculous benefits of beet powder due the the healthy nitrates they contain which the claim to be good for the body.

Nothing wrong with doing what you did but if you believe nitrates are bad for the human body - which I don't - then wouldn't you be better off using a curing salt so you can actually calculate the amount of nitrates you are putting in your food? Nitrates are nitrates no matter their source.

Kijek · Post by **Kijek** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 20:47

Butterbean wrote:You do know that beet root powder is full of nitrates and sea salt has varying amounts of nitrates

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!
Oh man I screwed up again

Post by **Butterbean** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 21:08

Kijek wrote:
Butterbean wrote:You do know that beet root powder is full of nitrates and sea salt has varying amounts of nitrates
WHAT!!!!!!!!!!
Oh man I screwed up again

As long as an arm or some other appendage doesn't start growing out your ear you should be alright.

There is a lot of misinformation out there on nitrates and nitrites. If you want to make something "natural" then by all means use nitrates because there is nothing more natural than nitrates.

Nitrates are everywhere and the human body depends on them for good health. Instead of fearing nitrates people should celebrate how mankind figured out how to work with nature's nitrogen cycle to make food look and taste good AND give us the only reasonable defense against botulism there is. Just because we now understand how little nitrates are required to make food safe doesn't make this any less natural it just means we understand nature better and are in more harmony with it. Working beside it. With it.

The only way you could corn your beef without nitrates would be to use evaporated REFINED salt which is nothing but NaCl. This process is very involved and the impurities in the salt are later sold to industry. Impurities like sodium nitrate. I see nothing "unnatural" about using a curing salt since its only natural that humans learn and adapt.

Of course had you actually made nitrate free corned beef the meat would be the dull unappealing oxidized grey color which yours is surely not. This is simply biochemistry which again is just nature - or a field with an understanding of nature.

Your brisket looks good BTW.

StefanS · Post by **StefanS** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 23:45

Kijek - read this first.... http://www.meatscience.org/docs/default ... 4232bbb3_8

Kijek · Post by **Kijek** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 00:06

Thank you guys for the information and chemistry lesson, I do appreciate it, as I try hard to comprehend everything and be more professional.
Thanks again.

Post by **Bob K** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 15:50

Kijek-
If it's any consolation...any product can be listed and sold as nitrate free if it uses natural nitrate sources like celery, beets etc. That's why you can get nitrate free bacon in stores

Kijek · Post by **Kijek** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 17:13

Thanks I'm starting to see the big picture now.