FDA Processors calcs.Is method one viable for home curers.

[wheels]

Jim

You are correct that we can't calculate an exact figure of pick up, any more than we know how much of the cure stays in an injected piece of meat, or how much cure is absorbed by a dry cured piece of meat.

It certainly can't be done by weight as juices will be leaving the meat as cure enters, how much of each is anyone's guess - unless that is you have the know how/equipment to test for levels of salt etc.
Phil

[Oddley]

wheels, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not out to insult anyone, my sole aim is to put out what I think I know...

If anybody can shoot it down, then we have all learnt something.

I'm always working on the edge..

[wheels]

Sorry if it's come over that way Oddley; short of time I thought that this was a good way of reinforcing your observations - not criticise them.

If it reads any differently please accept my apologies.

Phil

[Oddley]

No not at all wheels. When one puts radical ideas out there, I suppose it can make one a bit paranoid...

[wheels]

Join the club mate!

[Ianinfrance]

It certainly can't be done by weight as juices will be leaving the meat as cure enters, how much of each is anyone's guess - unless that is you have the know how/equipment to test for levels of salt etc.

And even if one could - I could easily devise a method for determining salt levels in a sample of meat - you still would have to know how much salt the meat contained before you started curing it.

I really do think that to some extent this is a storm in a teacup. I'm pretty sure that the figures will have been obtained empirically. "If you do this, you get that and it works out to be safe"

As for small vs large pieces of meat and surface area. Surely it HAS to be obvious that the guidelines are referring to relative surface area. Think of a whole leg, weighing something like 15 kg or so. It's really pretty compact for its weight, isn't it. Now compare that with a 15 kg side of pork for making into bacon and gammon. Isn't it obvious that although it classes as a "large" piece, weightwise, the surface area is vastly more than that of a leg. It's only to be expected that it would pick up salt etc faster than a leg.

Or am I missing the point here?

[charles]

Is this right?

Method 2

This is for small pieces of meat that are able to reach equilibrium before spoiling. This method relies primarily on a relatively slow process of diffusion of solutes from a high to low concentration. i.e from the brine in to the meat.

Method 1

(My slightly nerdy boyfriend came up with the explaination below, based on the fact that the same calculation is used for % pump and % pickup and the much higher concentration of nitrite used in method 1)

This is for large pieces of meat that cannot be left long enough to reach equilibrium (or in a commercial setting where time is money). This method relies on a mass movement of water (whether by pumping or by natural pickup) in to the meat. This water carries salts with it by solute drag and the brine is sufficiently concentrated that enough salts move with the water to cure the meat. The movement of water is relatively rapid in comparison to the diffusion of solutes relied upon in method 2 therefore the meat is taken out of the brine long before equilibrium is reached.This is important because if left to equilibrium the meat would contain dangerous levels of nitrites.

The only way (for a beginner without practical experience) to gauge when to take the meat out of the brine is to weigh it and take it out of the brine when it has gained the required pickup percentage.

In a 1:1 meat to brine cure calculated under method 1 you would therefore use a cure 5 tines the strength of an "equilibrium" cure.

What Charles can't explain to me is how the 10% pickup is achieved in solutions of the strength used in method 1 brines. These brines are strong enough to draw water out of the meat by osmosis. The only possible (and even he admits unlikely) way this could occur is for the brine to be soaked up in to the gaps between muscle groups by capillary action, a mechanical rather than chemical action.

Help... we keep arguing about this in to the small hours and I need some sleep.....

[jane]

Sorry - that last post was by me - Charles had logged in without me noticing......

Jane

[NCPaul]

It's not a water pickup (change in weight) that is key to method 1. This may happen to some extent (an is used as a "quality control" measure); the method calculates on the % pickup of the nitrite. This is a very tricky point and is frustrating to people wanting to cure small pieces at home. In order for the % pickup of the salts to occur at the 8-10 % figure, the brine must be very strong as your example shows. The two methods, I believe, converge at about 1 part brine to 9 parts meat, which is a very low pickle amount (maybe could be done in a vacuum bag). I plan to set up a cure, using the famous "Oddley 2 to 1" recipe, and monitor the decrease in salt (NaCl) in the brine solution to model the pickup of the nitrite (the assumption being that they are being picked up at the same rate). I will try to use a typical size of meat for someone doing this at home and will try to be specific as possible about the conditions. I will check the meat at the end of the cure (never tried this, the boys in the lab will not be happy if I muck up their autotitrator). This may give us a starting point from the data to get a better understanding of what happens. I promised to do an experiment, I didn't promise to do a good one.

[Oddley]

Hi NCPaul,

Wow, someone with some kit to try this crap out. I'll be waiting with bated breath.

Well done NCPaul...

[wheels]

What Oddley said!

[captain wassname]

Hi Im sorry not to have posted earlier I have not light the blue touchpaper and retired.
We seem to be agreed that the weighing theory is nonese. I quoted this as the method as in chapter 11.
It made no more sense to me than it did to others which was one of the reasons why I started this thread.(dont shoot the messenger)
I would be grateful if anyone could explain if I have missread or missunderstood chapter 11

Oddleys thoughts seem to be logical and above all calcuable also seem to address my concerns about time.
Ilook forward to further discussion after NCPauls experiment,for which I thank him profoundly.

Jim.

[wheels]

Jim

Thank you for raising this point again. I've only had a cursory glance at it and it appears to relate to added water/oil rather than cure, but if a correlation can be drawn between the two you may have a point.

My problem would then be that I know that two pieces of meat (even a ham cut in half) can have different % gains in the same cure. I also know that more cure than the % gain would indicate has entered the meat; so how do I accurately assess the safe level of cure?

I'll read it more thoroughly, tommorrow.

Out of interest, does anyone know how UK FSA/Trading Standards calculate it, or do they rely on tested samples?

Phil

[captain wassname]

Phil
It was chapter eleven that really raised doubts

Jim

[wheels]

Yes, that's the one I looked at - It appears to be related to calculating added water/oil rather than a brine cure?

Phil

22.06 - Oops, I've just seen the nitrite calcs - please ignore the above