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Following a thread on saturated solutions I decided it would be possible to do a 6% pump
I decided to use 2% each maple sugar and salt
This worked OK so a 2%salt and 1% sugar would be a breeze
The joint I has was 3.02 kgs so I ignored the odd.
This meant I would need 60gms maple sugar and 52.5 gms salt and 7.5 gms cure#1
Normally I would have divided the ingredients in half and made a brine to inject at 6% but I decided I would inject all the cure#1 to see how it went.
So the brine was 30 gms sugar 7.5 gms cure#1 and 22.5 gms salt mixed in 120 gms water. I injected this and rubbed the rest of the salt and sugar as usual and wrapped in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 12 days.


Nice and even cure which pleased me as I had wondered how the cure would take with it all being injected
The picture shows the centre of the 2 halves and a gammon rasher cut off 1 end.
Id welcome comments, criticisms,abuse or whatever

So why 6%? well its easier to get in and from the measurements Ive been doing with my brine cured hams 6% is about what a piece of meat will pick up during curing.The gammon rasher was the biz.Worth slicing half a leg and freezingBeing injected it was a bit more tender than I would have expected from a dry cured joint
Cooked a treat

Jim

A superb job Jim. If you don't mind I'd like to use the principle, and most of the cure, (I don't have maple sugar) for a calculator on my blog. 6% injection will be so much easier than 10% with the rudimentary kit we have.

When I looked at it I couldn't see past the salt going above 100° if I reduced the liquid - I never thought of a combination cure - it shows how thick I am!

Phil

Very cool!
That's quite similar to the way that I do it, although with the ingredients in that concentration range I find that it takes far less than 12 days for an adequate cure, but there's certainly no harm in extending it.

Edited to add: I calculate the appropriate amount of salt sugar and cure for a given piece of meat. I them split it in half. Adding a small amount of water to one half to make it injectable.
I inject that, then sprinkle on the remaining mix which combines with any injection run-off to create a concentrated brine. Wrap tightly in a plastic bag.
The last piece of meat that I cured in that weight range was a pork butt of about 4 kg. It was done curing in 5 days.


Martin

Great job! I like that you injected all of the cure. It's a sloppy mess trying to inject much more than this.

Phil:
Feel free to use wherever and however you like.I would mention that the maple sugar didnt make for a great ham.Like I said the sweet cure made a fantastic gammon rasher.
With no maple sugar you could dissolve a load of honey in water together with the cure#1 and some of the salt.
I have dissolved honey before when I made some mead.
For regular ham I would go for juniper,pepper and maybe a clove boiled up as usual
DiggingDogFarm:
5 days is interesting.Did you leave it to equalise or was it ready to go?.I used the same method except I injected all the cure#1.
If 5 days is good I wouldnt think that the size of the joint would make any difference.
NCPaul:
the thinking behind injecting all the cure was to avoid the possibility of uneven distribution when rubbing.

Jim

It was done at 5 days.

When I inject (I don't have a fancy needle and syringe) I leave the needle in for about 20 seconds or so after injecting, the extended pressure seems to force the cure into the meat better.



Martin

captain wassname wrote:Phil:
Feel free to use wherever and however you like.I would mention that the maple sugar didnt make for a great ham.Like I said the sweet cure made a fantastic gammon rasher.
With no maple sugar you could dissolve a load of honey in water together with the cure#1 and some of the salt.
I have dissolved honey before when I made some mead.
For regular ham I would go for juniper,pepper and maybe a clove boiled up as usual

Thanks Jim

captain wassname,

I am confused by your figures? Did you use 2% each salt and sugar or 2% salt and 1% sugar. I don't see how you came up with 52.5 grams of salt for 3,000 grams of meat, 1% is 30 grams and 2% is 60 grams. I must be missing something.

For the brine I came up with 1% sugar, .25% cure #1, .75% salt, and 4% water for a total of 6%. For the dry rub portion I would use the same percentages except leave out the cure #1 correct??

Thank-you

Tommix

Jim's figures are correct. The 6% injection gives 147PPM Nitrite, 1% sugar, 1% salt. The dry cure adds 1% salt and 1% sugar.

As far as I can see Jim's hit it 100% correct.

OK, if I wanted to be pedantic I could argue that Maple sugar isn't 100% sugar: but that would be churlish.

Phil

Phil,

The light finally came on For some reason I was not taking into account that the cure #1 was part of the total salt content. In captain wassnames case he needed 52.5 grams salt and 7.5 grams of curing SALT #1 which of course comes up to 60 grams salt. So 1% sugar and 1% salt total, (curing salt plus plain salt), and 4% water = 6%.

At least that is how I think it should work. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I know its not technically correct to class the cure#1 as salt bur there is so little nitrate as to make no discernable to flavour.
But it is a lazy way of working

Jim

tommix wrote:Phil,

The light finally came on For some reason I was not taking into account that the cure #1 was part of the total salt content. In captain wassnames case he needed 52.5 grams salt and 7.5 grams of curing SALT #1 which of course comes up to 60 grams salt. So 1% sugar and 1% salt total, (curing salt plus plain salt), and 4% water = 6%.

At least that is how I think it should work. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Ah, No probs.

mixed up me nitrates with me nitrites sorry.

Jim

Interesting idea Jim. sure looks good. I have some loin I need to cure in the next day or two and might give this a shot.

Hi Dan I did a loin

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopi ... 03e8200885

Ive also done honey rather than maple sugar.or you could do maple syrup.
Its easier to inject all the syrup rather than end up with sticky all over.
I did an experiment with saturated solutions which showed that its possible to dissolve loads of sugar into a salt saturated brine.

Jim