The never-ending dilemma of meat smoking. Regular salt or the so-called Chile saltpetre?

Smoking season is here and all true connoisseurs are marinating, pickling and preparing meat. We understand very well because there is no replacement for a good piece of homemade smoked meat. Yes, everyone has a special recipe covering the entire procedure but before you put meat in the marinate, whether it is dry or vacuum, you need to use plenty of use salt. The question is regular or the so-called Chile saltpetre ?There are two groups of sausages and meat smokers. Some people praise Chile saltpetre and others hate it. So, let us take a look at these two ingredients in more detail.

Chile saltpetre is nothing new

Of course not. This type of salt has been around for more than 100 years. It is basically a nitrite salt, for which there is no true substitute and it has different advantages in comparison to regular salt.

Photo: Pixabay

Benefits of Chile saltpetre

So what are the advantages of Chile saltpetre? Here there are:

It preserves the beautiful colour of meats

Have you ever eaten “faded” smoked meat? If so, then most likely Chile saltpetre was not used. The biggest advantage of this salt is its ability to preserve the appetizing red colour of smoked meat.

It has antioxidant properties

It reduces the risk of your meat going bad during the marinating process. That is especially true if you did not maintain correct temperature during the process therefore, there is a chance that Clostridium botulinum bacteria may have “attacked” your meat.

Low content of nitrite

Indeed. For example, the most common brand of Chile saltpetre contains about 0.3%, which is a barely noticeable amount. A higher concentration of 0.6% is traditionally used in industrial production of meat. If you follow the standard dosage of 20 to 25 g/1 kg of meat, you will only reach the maximum value that is allowed for organic foods and if you also enjoy smoking meat with vegetables rich in vitamin C, your body can deal with saltpetre very well.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Regular salt extends the marinating time

Yes, this is true. You need about 10 days to marinate meat if use Chile saltpetre but if you use regular salt, marinating can last up to a month. So, if you do not have the time you are probably better off using Chile saltpetre.

Source:

https://www.udirny.cz/o-uzeni/nakladani-a-uzeni-masa/
https://www.vyziva-pro-fitness.cz/rs/zajimavosti/jak-je-to-s-rychlosolemi/

Preview photo: Radek Štěpán