Minimum Quantities for Brining Meats

Recipes and techniques using brine.

Minimum Quantities for Brining Meats

Postby Rambling Sid Rumpo » Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:45 pm

Hi. Is there a lower limit to the weight of a piece of meat for brining? I'd love to have a go at corned beef, pastrami or salt beef, but don't think my other half will be that keen on it.
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Postby Damo the butcherman » Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:33 am

G'day,
I have had sucess in brining small amounts, the trickest part is weighing up small amounts of ingreadents a couple of tips to help you,
1 if using a salinometer pour the brine into a long skinny bottle to check salt levels
2 use a marinate injector to pump in brine they can handle small amounts.
3 put the meat and the brine in a large zip lock bag expelling as much air as possible seal the bag stand it inside a dish to keep it upright and give it a massage every couple of days
Good luck, one thing for sure if it works well you will be making bigger batches from then on :lol:
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Postby Rambling Sid Rumpo » Wed Feb 01, 2012 12:07 pm

Thanks Damo. I don't have a salinometer or a marinate injector, so I have a couple of further questions. Can I just use a non-metalic container and 'soak' the piece of meat and (I think I the answer is no) is it possible to scale down a brine recipe without affecting its performance? I do have scales which measure down to 0.01g.
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Postby wheels » Wed Feb 01, 2012 3:48 pm

What sort of weights are we talking of?

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Postby Rambling Sid Rumpo » Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:48 pm

Probably about 500g Phil.
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Postby wheels » Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:54 pm

I can't see why it can't be done, I'd be happier with 1kg for immersion curing. But it's certainly "not outside of the realms of possibility" lets say.

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Postby Rambling Sid Rumpo » Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:37 pm

Thanks Phil. I might try a 1kg piece to start. Can I scale a brine recipe?
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Postby wheels » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:10 pm

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Postby salumi512 » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:16 pm

Brines are based on the amount of liquid as the base ratio, not the meat that's going in them. As long as you use enough to cover your meat then it doesn't really matter if you make a large amount of brine and only use part of it.
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Postby Rambling Sid Rumpo » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:24 pm

Thanks for all your help guys.
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Postby wheels » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:27 pm

Small amounts of meat in nitrite brines are likely to get near (or to) equilibrium and as such will absorb different amounts of salt/nitrite etc depending on the amount of brine that they are in. See the bottom para of page 21 et seq of the USDA Processing Inspectors' Calculations Handbook

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Postby salumi512 » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:37 pm

wheels wrote:Small amounts of meat in nitrite brines are likely to get near (or to) equilibrium and as such will absorb different amounts of salt/nitrite etc depending on the amount of brine that they are in. See the bottom para of page 21 et seq of the USDA Processing Inspectors' Calculations Handbook

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I stand corrected for itty bitty pieces of meat. I will remember that the next time I am brining pig snouts, as they use in an example ;)
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Postby wheels » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:47 pm

Yeah weird init!

But a particular issue for home curers who tend to cure smaller pieces of meat (That is for those who worry about such things! :wink: )

Phil :D :D
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Postby Damo the butcherman » Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:23 am

Rambling Sid Rumpo wrote:Thanks Damo. I don't have a salinometer or a marinate injector, so I have a couple of further questions. Can I just use a non-metalic container and 'soak' the piece of meat and (I think I the answer is no) is it possible to scale down a brine recipe without affecting its performance? I do have scales which measure down to 0.01g.

I don't see why you couldn't soak as you suggested If the meat is not completly covered by brine I would proberly put some plastic over the top so the expoesed meat does not dry out and then I would roll it everyday.
Good luck Damo :D
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Postby saucisson » Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:53 am

wheels wrote:Yes, I'd use Oddleys 2:1 method:

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?p=35912

For using cure #1 see:

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?p=35942

Phil


I've just added Oddley's 2:1 method to the Curing FAQs here:

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopi ... 9875#79875
Curing is not an exact science... So it's not a sin to bin.

Great hams, from little acorns grow...
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