Elminating Boar Musk - Grand Experiment Part 1

Last year I took a 90lb boar that had a strong musk smell and decided to try to do something with it. I soaked it in a salt brine (1 gallon of water to 350g of Kosher Salt) and replaced the brine twice. End result ... no go. The musk was still overpowering and the meat unsuitable.

Recently there was an article in the North Carolina Outdoor Sportsman that talked about removing the musk and a friend sent me a link also on the discussion http://www.texasboars.com/articles/recipes.html. I decided to give it a whirl. I went with the following mixture combination:

• 1 gallon of water
• 350g of Kosher Salt
• 1/2 cup of lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of vinegar

I then created enough of the above ratios to fully cover the meat. I let that soak in my meat refrigerator (and yes I do have one just for my meat processing projects) for 12 hours and then drained the first brine. The water smelled dreadful ... clear indicator that it worked. I then reapplied the same soak  again for another 24 hours. This time the water was not nearly as powerful smelling so I thought that was sufficient.

From the pork (2 boars), I made canadian ham, spicy pork loins, 4 honey hams, and a variety of sausages. Long story short, the spicy loins and the canadian ham turned out excelleent but the honey hams and sausages still carried some boar musk (although nothing like untreated).

So there were a lot of factors at play so I can't draw any final conclusions yet but it seems some combination of the process above will work for all the meat with the right amount of time and patience. Looking back, I see that I did not soak for the recommended amount of time, I did not let the meat get completely white, I used cold, refrigerated water, but not ice water. This gives me lots of things to tweak for the next time. It is only January and I have until the end of March. I am sure there will be a few more boars in my future.