Question on pork safety

[jcbigler]

hey guys, quick question on pork safety here.

I have a pork belly that has been in the fridge for the past 8 days, "curing" with a kosher salt and brown sugar rub. I was going to smoke this up last week after a couple of days as my bacon burnt ends, but never got around to it.

The rub is 1.5% salt by weight of the meat and brown sugar with maple syrup added. There's no actual cure on this meat, just the salt.

Do you think this is still safe to cook and eat? Even if I leave it until Thursday? Or is that too long for no real cure and just salt? The meat doesn't smell bad and I don't see any discoloration on it.

 

[chef jimmyj]

Salt and Sugar are Hygroscopic. They bind available moisture or even steal it from within bacteria cells. Not great conditions for bacteria growth and survival. It is unlikely there is a Safety issue but there may be a quality or taste issue. Enzymes in pork cause far more damage to the meat, resulting in foul smelling nasty pork. Do a fry test and proceed if all good proceed with smoking...JJ