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Corned Beef Brine

6 gallons of water (about 3 pailfuls.) 6 or 8 ounces of saltpetre--the large crystals kind. 1 pint of molasses or sugar. 10 pounds of salt. Set the water on the range in a boiler with the saltpetre in it to dissolve first, because sometimes when the brine is so strong with salt as to be what is called a saturated solution the saltpetre cannot melt in it but remains inoperative at the bottom. Then put in the molasses and the salt, let come to a boil and skim it. Pour into a clean ten-gallon keg. Two kegs of such brine are necessary to have for beef alone. It will keep good one or two months according to weather, but depending on how it is used. One is for dropping the course pieces of beef in from day to day as they are culled from the roasts and loins, the other is to change them over to when half corned and to use out of. But tongues and pork if pickled in the same kegs with the beef will spoil the brine very quickly. There ought to be other and smaller vessels of brine to receive them.

Corned beef is an American "stand-by," a permanent favorite, and too much care can not be taken to have it good. People tire of fish of poultry, game and ham, but not of roast beef nor corned beef, but whenever the hotel has to sell off its corned beef to get rid of it at a nominal price and buy the canned corned beef of the packing houses because it is better it is tolerably certain there is a screw loose, and somebody is remiss in their duty or lacking in skill and attention.

The packing house corned beef is good because it is made with good brine like that of the foregoing receipt, and because it is cooked almost to the softness of jelly. It is too soft however to be used hot. It generally has just the right pink color, neither too red like raw meat nor too colorless like boiled fresh beef, to make it look attractive on the table; this exact point can always be maintained by forethought and regard to the temperature of the brine. Six ounces of saltpeter will make the beef as red if kept at summer heat as eight ounces or more in cold weather. It takes about a week to corn beef sufficiently to begin using it.