Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
This day, in reading Dr. Brownrigg,1 I met with the following methods for curing provisions, for long voyages; & which brought to my mind a conversation we once had upon this subject, in which you express’d your wish, that we might obtain the true method used by the Irish, & tho’t it might be of great benefit to the public.
With a view to the public good, I immediately copied it, ’tho’ badly able to write at present; & do myself the honor of transmitting it to you, to be made use of in any way you may judge proper.
Extracts from Doctr. Brownrigg.
“Provisions must be cured in a different manner, & with different kinds of Salt, according to the different uses for which, they are design’d. For example, beef, herrings, & many other kinds of flesh & fish may be pickled very well for home consumption with any good kind of common white Salt; and, if carefully salted with it only once about the month of October, will keep good & sweet for the whole year in a cool Celler. But flesh & fish so salted are not fit for Sea Provisions, & wou’d not endure exportation into very hot Climates. Those therefore, who are most exact in pickling beef for exportation, after the animals have been carefully Slaughter’d, between Michaelmas & Christmas, take their Carcasses as soon as cold, & cut them into proper pieces; & after rubbing each piece carefully with good white Salt, lay them on heaps in a cool Celler, in a drab with a Shelving bottom, where they remain for 4 or 5 days, ’till the blood hath drained out of the larger Vessels. Then they take the pieces, & dry them with a cloth, & rub them for the second time with powder’d bay-Salt. They are then fit to be put up in casks, & much care is used in packing them close, & in Strewing between them large lumps of bay salt, as they are put up. When the casks are filled with Beef, their heads are fitted in; & all the vacuities are afterwards filled up with the Strongest brine that can be made, which is poured in by a hole in the head of the Cask. This hole 322 is afterwards closed up, & the cask is made so tight, that none of the brine can leak out, & no air can gain admittance. It is found by experience, that beef cured in this manner will keep good & sweet for years in the hottest climates. The Dutch,—use no salt for curing provisions, besides their own refined Salt. With it they can preserve flesh & fish of all kinds as well as with the Strongest bay Salt; & choose to be at the expence of refining bay salt, rather than to defile their provisions with the dirt & other impurities, with which it commonly abounds.”
“The method here described agrees pretty well with that which is practised in Ireland in curing beef for naval provisions, & for exportation into the American colonies. The white Salt there used is chiefly brine Salt, or refined rock salt which they have from Leverpool. Bay Salt the have chiefly from St. Ubes & other ports of Portugal; many of their Salters will not use French Salt, (tho’ much cheaper) because of its dirtiness; & in Salting commonly use about equal quantities of white & bay Salt.”
“The white Salt used at the Victualling office in London, is altogether Newcastle marine Salt; with which they require certificates upon the oath of the vender, that the Salt sold to them was made at Shields, or other places nigh Newcastle, & is, at least, three months old. The method there practised of salting flesh for the British navy, is related in the following manner, by the Revd. Dr. Hales Philos. exper. pag. 89.”
“They first rub it with white Salt only; then put it into brine for five days to drain the bloody part out, for it is the blood that is most apt to putrify: then they pack it in Casks, strewing white & bay salt between each laying: then fill the cask up with pickle made of water and Salt, boiled so strong as to bear an Egg: they put three pounds & a half of Salt to a gallon of Water. The proportion of Salt, pickle included, is, to an hundred weight of flesh, four gallons & a half of white, & one & a quarter of bay Salt.”
Dr. William Brownrigg (1711–1800) was an English physician and scientist and a Fellow of the Royal Society. His book The Art of Making Common Salt, as Now Practiced in Most Parts of the World; with Several Improvements Proposed in That Art, for the Use of the British Dominions was published in London in 1748. The article drawing on this—“Art of Making Common Salt particularly adapted to the use of the American colonies” as published in the Pennsylvania Magazine, Mar. 1776—is usually attributed to RTP but was written by Brownrigg and distributed by RTP.