curing salts.

[ranting]

I go to the store and the corn beef is RED> I make my own corned beef with spice and its good ! but not red like the stores !> is there a curing salt that make the stores corn beef RED??

 

[Cheeser]

Sodium nitrate. I would guess that Alaska Butcher Supply sells it.

It is not "curing salt" or "pickling salt". Those are regular salt without additives like iodine which can affect flavor.

I make my corned moose without the sodium nitrate. It doesn't affect the flavor at all from what we can tell.

 

[Daveinthebush]

Both of my Corned Bear recipes call for Kosher Salt.

 

[Patsfan54]

Sodium nitrate. I would guess that Alaska Butcher Supply sells it.

It is not "curing salt" or "pickling salt". Those are regular salt without additives like iodine which can affect flavor.

I make my corned moose without the sodium nitrate. It doesn't affect the flavor at all from what we can tell.

There's a big difference between sodium nitrate (with an A) and sodium nitrite (with an I).

While sodium nitrate preserves the color, it can also lead to cancer if not used properly. Sodium nitrate is typically for slow dry curing that doesn't involve cooking and allows the nitrate to breakdown into nitrite over time, like pepperoni or prosciutto. Sodium nitrite also preserves the color and is used for wet curing when cooking will be involved like bacon, corned beef, or corned game.

The best bet is a commercial salt cure mix like Prague Powder #1, Insta Cure #1, or Pink curing salt #1. They will usually have a food dye like Red #3 so you don't confuse the salt with table salt. Most outdoor stores will have some version on this, 3 Bears has it, sometimes grocery stores have it. As long as it has 6.25% sodium nitrite that's what you want.
Here's a five pound corned moose roast I recently made.