# Venison Curing Question



## jfsjazz (Dec 10, 2018)

My son is getting ready to smoke a 6lb clod of venison according to a ham recipe from Steve Rinella's book, "The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game".  While this author has a great reputation and a solid history in this area, I can't get my head around the prep of the meat that the recipe recommends.

The brine recipe calls for 3 ounces of pink salt (optional) for 6-10lbs of meat, 3 cups of Kosher salt and a cure length of 3 days, with a daily injection of the solution.  There are other ingredients but I want to respect his published recipe and I'm mainly concerned about the salt levels.  This is unfamiliar to me as all of my cures usually go for 7 days up to three weeks, depending on what I'm curing, and a pink salt ratio of 1 tsp to 5 lbs of meat.  

Could it be that these higher levels of pink salt are recommended because the suggested curing time seems so much shorter? 

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Joe


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## pc farmer (Dec 10, 2018)

So you already cure meats, right?  Why change ?   Use your cure method with the spices he used.


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## Bearcarver (Dec 10, 2018)

I use TQ, instead of Cure #1, so I won't give you a recipe that uses Cure #1.
But I do know enough about Cure #1 to put that recipe in the category of highly suspect for a number of reasons.
I'll give you a couple suggestions that you could do:
A  Check out the Cured & Smoked Venison Smokes in my Step by Step Index. (Link below)
B  Check with Dave Omak for a recipe using Cure #1.
C  Check with Pops & his Recipe using Cure #1.

Bear


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## smokerjim (Dec 10, 2018)

I've done whole deer legs with pops brine which calls for 1 cup salt or less 1 tbsp  cure #1  along with white and brown sugar in gallon of water I brine mine for over 20 days, I'm guessing  the lower brine time for you is the higher salt content .


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## chopsaw (Dec 10, 2018)

I'm with farmer , do what you know .


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## daveomak (Dec 10, 2018)

Morning....   I hope you accurately copied the portion of the book you referenced...   I think his books should be read as "humor"....
First, you can't speed up the curing process my adding more salt, sugar or nitrite....
Second, often there are typos in recipes....
Third, often writers hire idiots (post graduates) to do their pre printing translates for the printer...
Finally, often, writers like Rinella, are writing about one subject and are lacking expertise in another when they dearly need some help...

3 ounces of "Pink Salt" "Cure#1" "Prague Powder" is enough nitrite to cure 75 pounds of meat...


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## jfsjazz (Dec 11, 2018)

daveomak said:


> Morning....   I hope you accurately copied the portion of the book you referenced...   I think his books should be read as "humor"....
> First, you can't speed up the curing process my adding more salt, sugar or nitrite....
> Second, often there are typos in recipes....
> Third, often writers hire idiots (post graduates) to do their pre printing translates for the printer...
> ...




Yeah Dave, I actually have a photocopy of the page. Just looked bizarre to me.  

In any event, thank you and thanks to the others who weighed in on this for me.  Always great advice and guidance on this forum!!!  I'll definitely be guiding my boy to the tried and true methods that we know.

Cheers!!


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## Bearcarver (Dec 11, 2018)

jfsjazz said:


> Yeah Dave, I actually have a photocopy of the page. Just looked bizarre to me.
> 
> In any event, thank you and thanks to the others who weighed in on this for me.  Always great advice and guidance on this forum!!!  I'll definitely be guiding my boy to the tried and true methods that we know.
> 
> Cheers!!




Hi Jazz,
Here's a little story for you that might help too.
About 50 years ago, way before I had a Smoker, or any thoughts of getting one, I started to take my Deer Hind Quarters to a Meat Processing place in East Greenville, PA. We took many there & it was always Great.
Then one time I got one that was Rotten inside---It smelled Terrible!!
So I took it back & he apologized & refunded my $$$. He said when he removed the bone from the Hind Quarter, the Cure must not have gotten all the way in through the hole left from where the bone had been.
So from that day forward, I took my Hind Quarters apart into 3 pieces before I took them to him, and never had a problem again. Except every year he'd bitch & cry about me breaking the meat into 3 pieces. I kept telling him "I forgot", but I think he knew why I was doing that.

Now that I do my own, I still break the Hind Quarters into 3 smaller sub-sections before Curing & Smoking.
Thought I'd let you know, in case you want to do that to any large hunk of Venison, because large hunks of venison are usually a few smaller parts joined together, and have easy places for bacteria to sneak inside.

Bear


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## jfsjazz (Dec 11, 2018)

Bearcarver said:


> Hi Jazz,
> Here's a little story for you that might help too.
> About 50 years ago, way before I had a Smoker, or any thoughts of getting one, I started to take my Deer Hind Quarters to a Meat Processing place in East Greenville, PA. We took many there & it was always Great.
> Then one time I got one that was Rotten inside---It smelled Terrible!!
> ...




Thanks Bear!!  Great story and a good lesson for all of us too!!


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## tallbm (Dec 12, 2018)

I'm pretty much with Bear on his approach.
After I did some small feral hog legs into hams I pretty much learned that I may as well have removed the bone before brining and just tied it all back up and smoked it without the bone.
Where I personally may deviate from Bears approach is by simply removing the bone by cutting into the leg and "unwrapping" the 3 muscles from around the bone but keeping them connected.  This means when they were "unwrapped" they would basically lay out kind of flat, see the pic below.












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We aren't dealing with massive farm raised pig legs so leaving the bone in actually makes less sense for our much smaller deer and feral hogs we hunt.
Here is what my little hog hams (60 pound hog) looked like and notice I deboned them anyhow AFTER I cured and smoked them so they would vac seal easier lol.












DSC_8951[1]



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DSC_8953[1]



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DSC_8954[1]



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DSC_8957[1]



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DSC_8958[1]



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## Bearcarver (Dec 12, 2018)

tallbm said:


> I'm pretty much with Bear on his approach.
> After I did some small feral hog legs into hams I pretty much learned that I may as well have removed the bone before brining and just tied it all back up and smoked it without the bone.
> Where I personally may deviate from Bears approach is by simply removing the bone by cutting into the left and "unwrapping" the 3 muscles from around the bone but keeping them connected.  This means when they were "unwrapped" they would basically lay out kind of flat, see the pic below.
> 
> ...





Yup---You can do that too.
However mine all gets sliced real thin for Sammies, so I gotta take it apart sooner or later, so I do it before curing. Then I can be more accurate curing small pieces, rather than one big one, spread out. And I can fit the small pieces on my MES smoker racks better too. I can get a lot of pieces on one or two racks.

Bear


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## tallbm (Dec 12, 2018)

Bearcarver said:


> Yup---You can do that too.
> However mine all gets sliced real thin for Sammies, so I gotta take it apart sooner or later, so I do it before curing. Then I can be more accurate curing small pieces, rather than one big one, spread out. And I can fit the small pieces on my MES smoker racks better too. I can get a lot of pieces on one or two racks.
> 
> Bear



Yeah breaking it apart for that is perfect.  
Mine were holiday hams.  It took those 2 little hams to almost get to the size of a store bought small ham.  The gatorade bottle in the pics is a reference to the size hahaha.  I would do it again though if I could get my hands on some more feral hogs :)


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