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Old 11-07-13, 08:33 AM   #10
peacmar
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I would have to do some research to find out the exact specifics of the science behind it, but I know that the inception of the idea revolved around the old time method of preserving meat by dehydrating it with salt alone. My grandparents "jerky" was made my placing meat strips in a sealed container filled with kosher salt. The minimum was somewhere around 1 cup salt to 10 pounds meat. A small screen was used as a false bottom in the container to allow the moisture to collect.

Now the basic idea is that one part of salt is can hold on to many parts of water. And will only give the water up to other parts of salt, unless it is forced too completely release the water by evaporating with heat or whatever. So the air moves over the top of the bucket full of rock salt "aka cheap salt" and the moisture is very highly attracted to and captured by the top layer in the bucket. When enough moisture builds up gravity and probably capillary action help move the moisture lower in the bucket freeing up the top layer to absorb more moisture. As you go lower in the bucket the salt becomes more saturated and the very bottom is at a maximum concentration of water to salt. A liquid forms and gravity pulls that into the bottom bucket through the 1/8 inch holes you drilled. Eventually the salt in the top settles down and put and needs to be replenished but very slowly.


This is just a generalised assumption, but if one cup of salt dehydrated 10 pounds of meat. And that 10 pounds is probably half water, I think one could assume that one cup of salt could absorb half a gallon of water, by weight of course. Just assumptions....
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