This excerpt is from the Little Chief smokers manual:
"
When you really think about it, just how far back does the "curing" of meats go?
If you didn't have a refrigerator or a freezer, what would you do to preserve the necessary foodstuffs for your family?
One doesn't have to exercise this point very long to determine that the early day inhabitants of this grand planet earth must have given a lot of serious consideration to this question.
No doubt the earliest Neolithic methods were a simple drying process done by the sun and the wind.
As fire was used to aid the drying and cooking, it was discovered that the foods prepared in this manner tasted better and had greater lasting qualities.
At a later time, the process of "salting" the meat, prior to smoking, was discovered. The historical significance of this discovery cannot be overemphasized.
Salting or the infusion of salt into meat of various types is called "curing." Simply stated, this process causes the meat to undergo certain physical, chemical and bacteriological changes, which result in greatly extended
stability.
More specifically, salt (sodiumchloride) acts to suppress the growth of spoilage causing bacteria and to solubize the available meat proteins.
With the introduction of salt to a cut of meat, the meat proteins dissolve and the meat becomes tacky.
When heated, the dissolved proteins set up and "bind" the meat This phenomenon is most important in the manufacture of sausage or heavily cured meats such as pork or certain dried fish products.
Other chemical elements are sometimes introduced into commercially cured foodstuffs to control color and texture. We need not, quite happily in fact, bother ourselves with these extra and somewhat controversial chemicals.
The science (and art) of "curing" is simply the infusion of salt into your food products, which can be achieved by three different methods:
(1) THE COVER BRINE...which is the easiest of the three and most applicable to what we are trying to accomplish. Most recipes and suggested cycle times in this booklet use the cover brine system.
(2) THE DRY CURE...excellent for old-fashioned curing of hams and bacon. This process is still used by some specialty sales firms in the southeast. It is however, a time-consuming and rather costly process, unless done on a large volume or on a commercial basis.
(3) INJECTION CURE...used almost exclusively by commercial meat packers. It is fast and effective, allowing the processing firms to speed processing and lower in-house inventories.
It is, however, complicated and much too sophisticated for the home processor.
The cover brine can do it all for us. Making the assumption that our quantities of food are going to be processed in the "Little Chief" smoker, these same quantities can easily be "brined" in a glass, crockery or plastic container that will allow the brine solution to completely cover the food"
