Once apon a time you could buy things like salt petre in your local chemist/pharmacist. When I recently decided to have a go at curing my own meats, I went for a walk around my town visiting the chemists and got responses ranging from dumbfounded looks of confusion, through questions like "Is that a new scent from Calvin Kleine?" to a line of questioning that clearly indicated that the pharmacist thought I was trying to make explosives.
So I turned to trusty Amazon (can't think why I didn't start here first) and quickly found this supply at a reasonable price.
After placing my order, the package was quickly delivered, but when I tore open the envelope, the salt petre poured onto the floor. The product was packaged in a flat plastic bottle which was placed in a padded envelope. Somehow, in transit, the lid had come off the bottle and the contents were loose inside the envelope. I contacted the supplier and they immediately sent me a replacement bottle with apologies. So I am happy to report that the supplier is excellent and I will order from them again in future.
As for the product - well this is the first time I have used salt petre, and being fairly new to curing meats, have little to compare it to. I can confirm that when making traditional corned beef, the end product is a lovely pink colour, whereas when I have made it in the past using only normal salt, it tends towards the grey. Similarly, both homemade pastrami and homemade bacon both have that appetising pink colour (the main reason for buying this product). As for its antibacterial properties - well I have submerged beef in a brine with this salt petre for just over 2 weeks in the garage (not refrigerated but reasonably cool) and no one got food poisoning, so it certainly works.
As I final word - if you haven't tried homemade bacon, then this should be reason enough to buy salt petre. You coat your pork in a rub of salt + salt petre and whatever aromatic flavours you fancy, and then stack it up in the fridge. The curing process draws out water from the meat which is the very opposite of commercial bacon where water is forced into the meat. The difference in flavour is just astounding. You know instantly that this is something different when the frying pan does not fill with that unappetising opaque water that comes out when you cook commercially made bacon.
| Item Weight | 113.4 g |
|---|---|
| Item weight | 4 Ounces |
