Curing on the bone

[wheels]

A great piece of work Oddley - as my kids say: "Respect".

Phil

[saucisson]

Fantastic, nice job Oddley, I was just going to try and come up with how much stout to use, now I might have to go out and buy some meat instead

Edit: What beer are people planning on using with this? I'm tempted to use stout, but I may see if I can relieve my brother in law of some of his stocks of Adnams Broadside

Dave

[Oddley]

Please be aware, that the size of meat used was 9072 g - 20lb ham I just took off the bone skin and fat weight ie: 5897g meat left.

This cure is pretty tolerant, it will be fairly stable with most size meats, if you cure to half equilibrium.

[saucisson]

Can you scale down the volume to suit a smaller piece of meat? It's a lot of Broadside to waste on a pig

[Oddley]

Dave, to be honest I don't know. Maybe tomorrow, I'll try to calculated different sizes to see how this effects ingoing amounts.

Unless someone else wants the job.

[quietwatersfarm]

Thats excellent Oddley,

Its bacon I'm after, given the probable higher percentage of fat, what would be the best way to adapt this do you think?

[wheels]

Other than trying to convert this to an 'Oddley's 2:1 ratio immersion cure', the cure would have to be calculated for each individual piece of meat. Although, no doubt a spreadsheet could be designed to do it.

I am happy to do calculate the cure on an individual basis for people.

I'll have a think about a spreadsheet, but at present I'm still playing with the 4 weeks cure, 6 weeks marinade (or similar dry/pump cure) for the Emmet's bacon/ham in pepperpig's original post - don't hold your breath though - I may never get there!

Phil

[Oddley]

I'll leave this to wheels as he seem enthusiastic about it...

[PepperPig]

I have faith, Phil.


Colin

[wheels]

Ooh err, me and my big mouth!

[saucisson]

Yup



Dave

[Oddley]

Sorry guys I Posted an incomplete post. Pressed the wrong button (Submit instead of Preview). So if anybody read my post it had some inaccuracies in the calc's so please ignore.

[Oddley]

I think there is probably some concern about the 1/2 the equilibrium time, on the SUFFOLK TREACLE CURE. I calculate equilibrium, on 10 days per Kg. So how do I know it's 10 days per Kg, simple answer is, I don't!, It's an estimation, through experience. I could be 5 -10% off, or if you don't believe me, more! fortunately, even if the Suffolk treacle cure goes to equilibrium, the amounts of nitrates are not enough to cause any problems. Unless you use silly little pieces of meat. Like under 1 Kg.

There was some concern about the formula I was using, the FDA formula for equilibrium ie:

Grams premixed cure # 1 × % Nitrite in mix × 1,000,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------- = ppm
100 × (green weight (gram) meat block + gram pickle)

Which is a equilibrium calculation. I believe that the meat will cure by having a start and through dissipation and osmosis will slowly absorb the chemicals at approx 10 days per Kg until equilibrium.

It was questioned that, perhaps I should be using the FDA method one, recommended for hams bacon and such ie:

Grams premixed cure × % Nitrite in mix × Pickup × 1000000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- = ppm
100 ×100 × Weight of Brine

The only trouble I have found with the above formula is, that unless you pump to a certain level, how do you know how much pickup there is on an immersion only cure? You cannot take an initial weight, and weigh the meat every so often, as there is no correlation between the exchange of chemicals, and the weight of the meat plus chemicals. Notice I say exchange of chemicals. Up to about 100g of salt per litre of water there will be a gain of weight in water after this, any more salt per litre, will result in an overall loss of water, thereby making the meat lighter.

So taking any concerns into account, I have calculated an equilibrium cure, using my two to one method, that I hope you will agree is safe. Although, if you don't believe my, 10 days a Kg to equilibrium, I don't know how you will know when this stage is reached. I leave that to you.

Suffolk Treacle Ham 2-1 method To Equilibrium

IMPORTANT, ONLY USE THESE RATIOS
2 parts Meat
1 parts Brine

Percent of Brine Weight Only:
69.7684 % Water
7.7521 % Beer
7.98 % Salt (10.1% Brine Concentration)
9.9 % Treacle
3.5 % Soft Brown Sugar
0.765 % Cure #1 (5.88% NitrIte)
0.09 % NitrAte (Saltpetre - Potassium NitrAte)
0.2445 % Pepper
100 %

Ingoing Amounts:
2.9 % Salt
3.4 % Dry Sugar
150 mg/Kg Nitrite
300 mg/Kg NitrAte
0.0815 % Pepper

Method:
Make the brine, by heating the water and beer to boiling point, add all the ingredient's except the cure #1 and saltpetre. Boil until sugar, treacle and salt are dissolved. Cool the brine to room temperature, then add the cure # 1 and saltpetre, stir well, with a sterilised wooden or plastic spoon.

Cover the meat with the brine, cover container with a lid and leave in the bottom of the fridge, or other cold place 2 - 3 °C for 10 days per kilo of meat (not fat, skin or bone). Remove from brine and air dry, or leave in the bottom of the fridge to dry, and cook. You could of course smoke this product when a suitable pellicle forms.

I have included the worked example below using the 20lb ham in the original recipe. I hope this helps.

Worked example.

Suffolk Treacle Ham 2-1 method To Equilibrium

2 parts Meat (5897 g Meat - Calculated without bone fat or skin)
2 parts (2948.5 g brine)

Percent of Brine Weight Only: (In this case 2948.5 g brine)
2057 g Water
229 g Beer
235 g Salt
292 g Treacle
103 g Soft Brown Sugar
22.56 g Cure #1
2.7 g Saltpetre
7 g Pepper

Total Weight Meat + Brine = 8845.5g

Method:
Make the brine, by heating the water and beer to boiling point, add all the ingredient's except the cure #1 and saltpetre. Boil until sugar, treacle and salt are dissolved. Cool the brine to room temperature, then add the cure # 1 and saltpetre, stir well, with a sterilised wooden or plastic spoon.

Cover the meat with the brine, cover container with a lid and leave in the bottom of the fridge, or other cold place 2 - 3 °C for 10 days per kilo of meat (not fat, skin or bone). Remove from brine and air dry, or leave in the bottom of the fridge to dry, and cook. You could of course smoke this product when a suitable pellicle forms.

[wheels]

I never cease to be amazed by your 2:1 method Oddley - such a brilliant solution to the perenial problem of immersion curing.

I hate the 'two method' system for these cures as a what stage time-wise during the process a method 1 cure becomes a method 2 (even partially) is anyone's guess.

Going 'all the way' to equilibrium at least removes this quandry.

Phil

[captain wassname]

I am V.busy at the moment but have been keeping half an eye on this thread.As mentioned prev.when I cured with tracle I used 20%At the time I did some reseach on treacle and came to the conclision that it probably contained as much as 30% water which would make a differenceto the brine concerntration calcs.I used no water only beer (IPA) but can see you may need less if you used something like stout or Newcastle Brown.
Hope this is of some help.

Jim