If you had accurate scales you could just make enough of the wet brine cure for what you require, rather than make a 'batch'.
Thanks very much for that snippet. Would that be equally true for both powder and brine?If the wet brine cure contained cure #1, I wouldn't save it as cure #1 loses it's potency very quickly.
Ianinfrance wrote:By the way, I've investigate what I can buy. There's a "rubbing salt" (which does contain nitrite) designed for curing parma type raw hams. The only snag is that it's only sold in 25 kg packs! Grin, even with my love of ham, I can't see myself justifying its purchase. So in the end I merely bought a kilo of saltpetre which cost me peanuts.
Glaven wrote:Ianinfrance wrote:By the way, I've investigate what I can buy.
Hi Ian
I wonder if you would mind sharing your French source for "rubbing salt" and salp�tre?
Nope, but to be honest I've not tried. That said, La Bovida do have a whole STRING of curing products mostly sold in 1 or 2 kg drums. I think that you would need to go in there, armed with the formulae of the commonest cures and see if there's anything suitable.Glaven wrote:PS: Have you managed to source any Prague Powder #1 in France? I had to order mine from the US.
Well I only understand, because I ask and ask until I do!! And of course a good grounding in chemistry helps. When you think about it, people have been curing with greater or lesser success for centuries and even millennia. I think there's a slight danger that we over-complicate things. Sure we need to know what is positively dangerous, and why. Which is why I was so grateful for what you pointed out about the instability of nitrite solutions, especially in the presence of ascorbate and erythobate (sp).Wheels wrote:What you did makes sense and you are correct about a certain amount of latitude - that's fine for guys like yourself who understand the process and what those latitudes are.
Ianinfrance wrote:... I think one would need to be blind not to be aware that the critical components are nitrate and nitrite. .
Leaving the nitrite to one side (lack of easy availability and accurate scales, discourage me) I'm looking at nitrate. And there we see old fashioned cures for rubs which use 450 g of salt, 200 g sugar and 50 g of saltpetre to start off a York ham, before brining in a brine with 350 g each of salt and brown sugar and 50 g saltpetre in 3 litres of water. These are HUGE proportions of saltpetre when compared with Odlley's cure, for example. So it's clear that there's got to be a wide latitude there too, much wider than the prevailing wisdom of this forum would suggest.
Which is why I've become much more relaxed about it all. As long as there's enough nitrate to convert to nitrite to kill botulism, and as long as there's not so much that I give myself cancer (nitrosamines) I think I can play to my heart's content!
I MUST point out that I'm talking about relatively simple brine/salt rub cures, not about making cured dried fermented sausages, which is a different ballpark altogether and one which I've not entered at all as yet
Ianinfrance wrote:The crunch question of course is whether there's a branch anywhere near to you not knowing exactly where you are. They've got branches in Bourges and Lyon. Let me know which is better for you and I'll give you their co-ordonn�es.
wheels wrote:Which is why I've become much more relaxed about it all. As long as there's enough nitrate to convert to nitrite to kill botulism, and as long as there's not so much that I give myself cancer (nitrosamines) I think I can play to my heart's content!
Exactly.
[snip]
Ian. I think we must agree to disagree on this You will do your thing, I will do mine, which to make clear to others reading this later, is to cure to the levels prescribed as safe by the EU scientific advisers.
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