🚀 go-pugleaf

CROSS-POSTED to sci.bio, rec.food.cooking

Thank all of you who wrote for the suggestion of buying saltpeter for
my Corned Beef at the pharmacy.  They had to back-order it, but
eventually it arrived. Cheap, too.

I ended up adding it a few hours before the curing ended, which is
before boiling the meat for 2-3 hours. The meat was red on the outer
inch, and grayish inside of that. It looked a bit like rare roast
beef, with the colors reversed. It tasted fine, with no cheesy smell,
although Shankar Bhattacharyya warned me about the Botulism chance
that I was taking. I got my information from a microbiology book on
cured foods, which seemed quite authoritative, but was written a long
time ago.

ABOUT BOTULISM

So I took the chance (!) & ate it, & I'm still alive. I read about the
days before saltpeter was used while curing meat, and the techniques
seem to be about the same as with saltpeter. I wonder (and I bet that
Shankar can answer this), does the Botulism grow during the curing
stage or during the storage stage (post-curing)? Can it be killed off
by boiling for 2-3 hours? IF Botulism can live in a saline solution
which is "strong enough to float an egg" at 40 degrees F, can it also
live in a very dilute solution at boiling tempuratures?

Where does Botulism usually infect the meat? From the air, from a
sick animal, from me?

Maybe i should take this discussion to sci.bio?

--gregg
-- 
Gregg Tracton                           Voice:(919)-966-7710
 Dept of Radiation Oncology              FAX:(919)-966-7681
  School of Medicine          tracton@godot.radonc.unc.edu
   Univ of North Carolina         {...}mcnc!godot!tracton