Alternative cure

[Terry]

Good evening all,
Does anyone have any experience of Weschenfelders bacon cure, Supacure ? I thought I would try some on my last batch of belly pork and it has just come out of the cure after 6 days and is excessively salty.
I added 9 parts cure and 1 part sugar as instructed and then at 50g per kilo. The other thing I noticed when I opened the cure was that it was very fine almost like icing sugar and not really grainy like salt.

Any comments or experience would be appreciated as I am on my second bottle of beer now to wash away the salt

rgds

Terry

[wallie]

Hi Terry
I used Supracure on a kilo of belly pork last xmas and this was the amount I used to 1kilo:
40grams Supracure
10grams Demarara Sugar

That works out the same as yours.
I rubbed well in then vac packed it and left for 4 daysin the fridg turning every day.
It was definitly not too salty.

But since then I always use Oddley's recipe and its the best bacon I have ever done.
Works out cheaper an all.

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?p=30145&highlight=traditional+bacon#30145[/url]

wallie

[Terry]

Thanks for the reply Wallie. Can you confirm that the consistency was very fine compared with Franco's even allowing for the sugar already included in Franco's

Terry

[wallie]

Terry, I hav just had a look at what was left of the Supracure and yes it is very fine.
But saying that I bave used various cures in the past Pokelsalz, Instapic etc and they were all about the same texture.

wallie

[Terry]

Thanks for checking Wallie,
Maybe it will be better after it has hung a while now it is out of the cure.

Terry

[wheels]

Terry

Supacure is made by Blendex. Their spec sheets show the ingredients as:

Salt
Preservative E252 2%
Preservative E250 1%

E252 is Sodium Nitrate E250 is Sodium Nitrite.

At 40g Supracure plus 10g Sugar per 1kg meat you get nearly 4% salt, 1% sugar, 800 PM (parts per million) Nitrate and 400PPM Nitrite. Too much!

Whether they have altered the cure in the last month or so to reflect recent changes in legislation - I don't know.

To give a milder bacon I would use 15gm Supacure, 7g Sugar and 7g salt per Kg meat (not rind). This gives just over 2% salt, 0.7% sugar, 300PPM Nitrate and 150PPM Nitrite. This complies with EU rules prior to August.

For a similar effect to the one that Wallie links to above, increase the salt to 16g which will give about 3% salt. Personally, I would find this a little salty, as they say, "One man's meat ...."

I hope this saves you wasting the Supacure.

Phil

[wheels]

Terry
I forgot to mention - you can always soak the bacon in water - changing the water every so often - to reduce the salt.

Phil

[Terry]

Thanks for the scientifics Phil. If it is still too salty I will try soaking it as suggested.

Terry

[wheels]

Terry

I wasn't trying to bamboozle you! The crux of it is:

To give a milder bacon I would use 15gm Supacure, 7g Sugar and 7g salt per Kg meat (not rind).

You'll save chucking the Supacure away if you do.

[wallie]

Phil
I have never really went into the ingredients of the various cures but have been reading with interest your replies to Terry.
I would like to ask you a couple of questions:
I presume Saltpetre is Sodium Nitrate.
Is Cure #1 Sodium Nitrite?
Do these two chemicals contribute to the salt content or is this only defined by the amount of salt in the mix?
How do you calculate the amounts of Nitrate and Nitrite
I have pocket size electronic scales that measure to one decimal place.
Hope you don�t mind me picking your brains.

Thanks
wallie

[Terry]

Hi Phil,

I'm grateful for any explanation and your reply made perfect sense I understand now why it is saltier than the bacon I normally make. I will use the quantities you suggested next time.

Thanks again

Terry

[wheels]

Wallie
I'm sure I'm not the best person to explain all this but here goes anyway:

Saltpetre is Potassium Nitrate (KnO3) E251

Sodium Nitrate is sometimes called Chile Saltpetre and is NaNO3 E252

Cure #1 (also Prague Powder #1 and Instacure) is Sodium Nitrite NaNO2 E250 mixed with salt. Normally it is 6.25% Nitrite but the one Franco sells on the main site is 5.88% Sodium Nitrite. For the purpose of this, I will assume you use Franco's at 5.88%.

Saltpetre is 100% Potassium Nitrate so does not add salt.

Cure #1 being only 5.88% Sodium Nitrite, the rest salt, adds 94.12% of its weight in salt. So 100g of cure #1 has 5.88g Sodium Nitrite, 94.12g Salt.

To calculate the Parts Per Million (PPM) Nitrite that is going to be in a dry cured product I use the formula from the US Meat Inspectors' handbook:

weight nitrite � % cure mix applied � 1,000,000=ppm
                    weight cure mix

Let's take an example for cured meat with the following cure:
Salt 16gm
Sugar 9gm
Cure#1 2.6gm
TOTAL WEIGHT OF CURE 27.6gm
CURE USE PER KG 30gm

The weight of Nitrite will be 2.6g x 5.88% = 0.15288g
The % cure mix applied is (30 / 1000) x 100 = 3% (The US method expresses this as 0.03 in the calculation which may not make sense but it's how it works - for an explanation see here)
The weight of the cure mix is 27.6gm

So the calculation is:

0.15288 x 0.03 x 1,000,000 = 166.17 PPM
           27.6

Pocket size electronic scales are ideal for measuring the small amounts of cure and, in my view are essential when using saltpetre.

I hope this helps.
Phil

[saucisson]

Hi wallie,
As Phil says, saltpetre is a potassium salt. In the same way that these Lo-salts at the supermarket have potassium in them rather than sodium.

The cure will contribute to the salty taste but the amount there is negligble in that regard, if using them neat. If in a cure #1 or 2, which is simply the nitrate or nitrate diluted with normal salt then the contribution becomes more significant due to the extra normal household salt.

Pocket scales measuring to a decimal place are fine

Dave

[wallie]

Thanks guys
Excuse this thick geordie but looking at Phil's example for cured meat does this mean you can have a cure using only cure #1, no saltpetre?

wallie

[saucisson]

Yes, for anything you are planning to cook. Saltpetre can be added in small doses to give the authentic old fashioned flavour, but nitrates are only needed these days for air dried cured products designed to be eaten uncooked.

Dave