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ssonb

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Say you have a lot of store bought bacon which is a top tier food stored and frozen and in our ever changing world your area losses power for an extended length of time.
Can this bacon be un packaged salted or smoked to the same extent that it will last without refrigeration or freezing like was done by our ancestors?
I spect so but any experienced hands your input will be mucho helpful in the more detailed arena.
 
You would need to know if Prague Powder #1 was used in the original brine. If it wasn't, and that's the most likely scenario these days, there is no do over for storage purposes.

I have smoked store bought for flavour purposes, but it won't keep much better than pre smoked. Store bacon is not smoked, it is flavored with liquid smoke.

Store bought is also wet brined; high moisture content. Hanging from the rafters old school bacon is dry brined to draw out the moisture.

You could try dry brining store bacon again but without knowing the amount of nitrate cure in the bacon or how well the new cure penetrates second time round, it's a crap shoot health wise. Too much nitrate is toxic and too little could lead to food poisoning.
 
the big difference in store bought stuff and home cured stuff from back in the day that hung is how dry it is...bacon today is so 'wet'..its not cured and dried out...they want to sell you water weight....true bacon feels dry to the touch like a home cured ham does.
 

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