Salt Curing Bear meat

[doc holiday13]

As we all know, bear meat is generally going to be full of trichinosis.. Has anyone ever done a salt cure like you'd do with a bone in Virginia Ham or a prosciutto but with bear meat and wouldn't trichinosis be an issue?

I've googled and only found one source that said the salt curing process would kill off trichinosis cyst/eggs, but it was a very small blurb. Bear meat can be just as fatty as pork so why should someone try to pack it in salt and let it age like a country ham?

 

[Short Track]

I left bear in the freezer for 2 years just to kill the trich. 0 degrees over time kills anything.... except ticks.

 

[Poser]

My understanding is that curing alone does not consistently kill trichinosis. You have to cook it to an interval temps of 155. The freezer doesn’t even reliably kill it.

So you would want to smoke or cook the meat to temp.

 

[Poser]

I left bear in the freezer for 2 years just to kill the trich. 0 degrees over time kills anything.... except ticks.

I understand that this is not true and that there exists trichinosis that is entirely resistant to freezing. The freezing process just slows down or stops their indefinite growth. Once thawed, they will resume.

Trichinosis is not a singular species. There are many variants

 

[Short Track]

I researched it heavily after taking 2 bears. Freezing temperatures over time will kill trich.

 

[Poser]

I researched it heavily after taking 2 bears. Freezing temperatures over time will kill trich.

I’m reading that the freezer resistant variant was not discovered until 2020, though there is another variant that had a tendency to sometimes survive freezing.

In all practical likelihood, though, you’re probably good.

AASV News archive - New Freeze-Resistant Trichinella Species Discovered

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405676616300129

New Freeze-Resistant Trichinella Species Discovered : USDA ARS

 

[yfarm]

Interesting comment about ticks. I hunted in a NWR in south Texas which is in a tick eradication zone for tick borne diseases. We were not allowed to retain our hides unless had been in the NWR freezer for 24 hrs with temps verified by USDA inspector. Was a simple chest freezer, dont know the temp setting. Had the hide tanned hair on. As an aside single largest outbreak of trichinosis in the US came in Postville Iowa from a wild game feed at a local bar that served smoked bear sausage that was incompletely cooked.

 

[ODgreen]

Me and lots of others I know that shoot black bears in AK use a Corning kit from AK butcher supply to cure and flavor the meat. I’ve never done bone in, but have done large roast. You basically mix the cure kit with water and then I just put all the meat in 5 gallon buckets and wait 2 weeks with it in my “garage fridge”. I’ve never worried to much about trichinosis, just cook it good. It turns out amazingly well, when I get a bear now I just corn the entire bear. You can season and smoke the hams later and make a killer pastrami. If you smoke a corned ham though I would soak/rinse it really well otherwise it ends up really salty.

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