Read this before you cure anything
The recipes on this website and in the Sausage Guru app are for information only. You are responsible for safe handling, accurate weighing and correct cooking of everything you make. When in doubt, throw it out.
Curing salts
Curing salts contain sodium nitrite, and sometimes sodium nitrate. In the right amount they prevent botulism and give cured meat its colour and flavour. Too much is poisonous.
| Cure | What’s in it | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Cure #1 (Prague Powder #1, pink curing salt) | Salt with 6.25% sodium nitrite, dyed pink | Products that are smoked, cooked or eaten within weeks: smoked sausage, snack sticks, summer sausage, bacon, ham, jerky |
| Cure #2 (Prague Powder #2) | Salt with 6.25% sodium nitrite and 4% sodium nitrate | Long, slow dry cures only: salami, coppa, pancetta and other products that hang for weeks or months |
- Weigh it. Use a scale that reads to 0.1 g. Never measure cure by the spoon.
- Scale it to the meat. A common rate for Cure #1 in ground products is 2.5 g per 1 kg of meat. Follow the recipe’s ratio, and let the app’s batch scaler do the maths when you change the batch size.
- Never swap them. Cure #1 and Cure #2 are not interchangeable.
- Store it safely. Keep curing salt in its labelled container, away from table salt and out of reach of children and pets.
- Mix it evenly. Combine cure with the other dry ingredients before adding it to the meat.
When cure is required
Use curing salt whenever meat is smoked or dried at low temperatures for a long time. The warm, low-oxygen conditions inside a sausage in a smoker are where Clostridium botulinum grows. Fresh sausage that is refrigerated and cooked right away does not need cure.
Safe internal temperatures
Check with a probe thermometer in the thickest part. These are Health Canada’s recommended minimums:
| Food | Internal temperature |
|---|---|
| Ground pork, beef, veal and lamb, including sausage | 71 °C (160 °F) |
| Ground poultry and poultry sausage | 74 °C (165 °F) |
| Whole poultry | 82 °C (180 °F) |
| Wild game | 74 °C (165 °F) |
| Leftovers, reheated | 74 °C (165 °F) |
Wild game
Bear, wild boar and other wild game can carry Trichinella parasites. Freezing does not reliably kill the strains found in northern wildlife, so cook wild game thoroughly. Don’t use bear meat in dry-cured or fermented products.
Keep it cold
- Keep meat and fat at or below 4 °C while cutting, grinding, mixing and stuffing. Partly freezing your grinder parts helps.
- Clean and sanitize grinders, stuffers and surfaces before and after every batch.
- Refrigerate fresh sausage and use it within 2 days, or freeze it.
Dry-cured and fermented products
Salami, coppa, pancetta and similar products are never cooked, so safety depends on salt, cure, acidity and drying working together. They need a temperature- and humidity-controlled chamber, accurate weighing, and monitoring of weight loss and pH. If you are new to dry curing, start with whole-muscle cures, follow tested recipes exactly, and discard anything with off smells, slime, or mould you can’t identify as a safe white mould.
Where to learn more
- Health Canada: Safe internal cooking temperatures
- Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Food safety for consumers
Questions? Email [email protected].