Salted food safety, step by step
Interactive lesson: a home control plan — five control points, thermometer and scale, nitrite, checks by eye and nose, botulism and labels.
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The whole lesson as text
1. Five control points
A control point is a place in the process where you can still prevent a mistake.
- Raw material — A healthy animal, a Trichinella test, pasteurised milk, fresh fish on ice, vegetables without rot. If it isn't right, don't process it for eating uncooked.
- Cold — Meat and fish below 4 °C (39 °F) before salting, 2–5 °C (36–41 °F) during salting. Measure with a probe thermometer in the centre and a max-min thermometer next to the container.
- Salt and nitrite — As in the module's calculator, nitrite up to 80 mg/kg. A scale accurate to 1 g and an entry in the log. If it wasn't weighed, don't eat it raw.
- Time and finished product — Days by thickness, ripening, 7 days of freezing for fish: extend, never shorten. It's done when the scale, thermometer, nose and eye say it is.
Why: Poisoning from salted food rarely comes from a bad recipe. Most often one step was skipped: meat salted while warm, salt by eye, a test result not waited for. For each point you know the limit, how you measure and what you do when the limit isn't met.
- Checks aren't done in your head. If it isn't written down, it wasn't done.
- Keep the control point plan on the larder or fridge door.
2. Thermometer and scale
Thermometer and scale are checked before every season and after a drop.
- Iced water — Fill a glass to the top with crushed ice, top up with cold water, stir and wait 3 minutes. The probe goes in the middle of the glass, not touching the bottom.
- Read and correct — It must show 0 °C (32 °F) (± 0.5). If it shows 1.5 °C, subtract 1.5 from every reading, or recalibrate it if it has a button.
- Where the thermometer goes — Right next to the container or in the bag with the meat, at the height of the meat, not on the wall and not by the door. Check the fridge with a glass of water: it must hold 2–4 °C.
- Checking the scale — Kitchen scale: 1 L of water in a tared container is 1,000 g (± 5 g). Check a large scale with a known load, such as a bag of sugar.
Why: A thermometer that reads 2 °C lower than the truth leads you into salting in the warm. An error of 1–2 g of curing salt in 6 g is large, so the scale must be accurate to the gram.
- For small amounts of meat, make up the mix for 2–3 kg and take a portion by the weight of the meat.
- The warmest part of a cellar is high up, by the ceiling; the coldest by the floor.
3. Nitrite: arithmetic and storage · Locked
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4. Eye and nose checks, throwing out · Locked
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5. Botulism and at-risk groups · Locked
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6. Labels, logs and the season · Locked
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