How does curing a meat actually work?!
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The salt extracts excess moisture from the meat you are curing. Removing excess moisture greatly slows down the speed at which harmful bacteria can grow on said meat.
Usually we use a salt mixture known as prague powder #1, or TCM (tinted cure mix). It's made up of 96% table salt NaCl (sodium chloride), and 4% sodium nitrite. A chemical reaction occurs that changes the nitrite into nitrate, and that removes the moisture.
Just a fun fact. TCM is colored pink. Bacon is pink/red because of the TCM. If it wasn't cured, it would be grey, just like a porkchop or sausage.
Myself. Culinary student, and I just learned about curing a couple weeks ago.
No idea.