I recently tainted 5 gallons of spoiled deer meat (freezer went out). I let it taint indoors at room temperature for 2 weeks. I had a really good taint/rotten smell that I liked. When I added the sodium benzoate it completely killed the taint smell. It now has a semi loud "sweet" smell which is not what I was shooting for. My question is should I switch to common pickling salt for baits so it doesn't kill the taint smell?

Preservation of any kind typically stops the breakdown and will soften the odor to some degree. It will still be the same age just mellowed somewhat. Preservation takes the sharpness away.

That's Good to know.

Agreed. however, salt doesn't appear to kill the "taint" smell t near as much as sodium bonzoate does, at least to my nose. I added a few drops of skunk essence and it brought out the taint again so perhaps I just needed a good fixative to begin with.

The question is does common salt give you the hard stop that SB does?
Or does it give you a soft stop that continues to slowly age?
I feel if you've stopped something with salt for storage purposes you better hit it with some SB once you are making finished product.

Bruce I feel like I grind everything fine enough that the salt definitely stops the decay completely. If it didn’t our ancestors would have been in trouble. They preserved meat and fish with nothing but salt before refrigeration was available, no doubt it works.

I always go a little further with my smell than I want the finished product because SB does mellow it out a bit.

Castor will mellow it some more.

Boone I agree. Let it age until you think it's right. Then let it age just a little bit more.