Quote:
Originally Posted by sclitheroe
Do you think the salt kills the bacteria, or do you think curing the meat with salt prevents/greatly slows the growth of bacteria in the first place?
As someone who makes homemade jerky, there is an important distinction to be made there - you can’t (or shouldn’t) start with meat that is of unknown freshness and thus already has significant bacteria colonization. I would think this would go doubly so for fish that has a shorter lifespan than beef. I don’t think I’d make smoked salmon from fish that’s been packaged and sitting in the cooler for a few days.
I’m not arguing with you, just interested in your opinion on the curing process.
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Agreed, you should definitely start with fresh meat/fish, but I do think that salt kills the bacteria that may be on the meat fish. It extracts the moisture from both so I'd imagine bacteria would have a hard time surviving in a high concentration of salt.