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i recently bought some "hungarian" smoked bacon. the ingredients include: salt, sugar, nitrite, garlic powder, and sodium lactate and ascorbic acid. the amounts are not listed.
for the heck of it, i tried to make some of this cure. i had everything except the sodium lactate. but so what. i mixed the ingredients [sans sodium lactate] together and got a horrible smell of chlorine. any thoughts as to how/why this happened? as kids, we used to make chlorine gas by mixing drano and chlorine bleach, so i know the smell.

oops-sugar was not an ingredient in the listing, nor was it used by me.

Oh, err! That don't sound nice.

How much of each ingredient did you use? Was the mixture rubbed on or did you create a brine?

That's very odd. Nothing unusual in the cure, and nothing that should react to liberate chlorine. Did you use any tap water? It could be that you had some freshly-chlorinated water. Chlorinated tap water can smell strongly of chlorine, depending on how close one is (along the main) to the chlorination source.

for 1 pound meat, i made a dry rub as follows: i tblsp morton sugar cure [so, there was sugar in the mix]; 1/8 tsp garlic powder; 250 mg ascorbic acid powder. no water was added. when i started to mix everything together, i did think it seemed kind of moist, and then i started to smell the chlorine.

tossed it.

made the same dry cure without ascorbic acid, and lo! no chlorine smell. hmmmmmmm??

i googled any possible reactions between salt and ascorbic acid, but the internet claims no reaction is possible. hmmmmmmmm??

Hmmmm.... I have those ingredients, I'll attempt to replicate the problem.
If you don't hear back from me...well....LOL

Okay, I combined 1 tablespoon MTQ, 1/8 tsp. garlic powder and 250 mg. ascorbic acidic powder.

It does seem to have somewhat altered the smell of the garlic (especially at first), I personally wouldn't call it a chlorine-smell, but I can see how it's in a way similar.

My best guess is that the ascorbic acid has in some way reacted with the garlic powder.

thanks...i didn't like the smell either...couldn't see ruining 2 pounds of great looking fresh belly...went back to my old standard cure and got wonderful results...used apple wood cold smoke...yahrrr

I remember reading somewhere (I'm pretty sure it was in the Marianski books) that ascorbic acid will create fumes when added directly to nitrate.

There it very is!

Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages, p. 118 wrote:...Ascorbic acid should not be added with sodium nitrite at the same time, as they react violently creating fumes.

Hmm. I'll leave it to those with a better grasp of inorganic chemistry to figure out how sodium nitrite, ascorbic acid, sodium chloride, and water might combine.

this is great information. thanks to all, but how could the ascorbic acid be added, separately, to avoid all of this??? it was liseted as an ingredient in the bacon.

vagreys wrote:There it very is!

Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages, p. 118 wrote:...Ascorbic acid should not be added with sodium nitrite at the same time, as they react violently creating fumes.

Hmm. I'll leave it to those with a better grasp of inorganic chemistry to figure out how sodium nitrite, ascorbic acid, sodium chloride, and water might combine.

I mix everything dry and apply it. Sure enough, one can smell the nitric oxides when the stuff gets wet (smells like chlorine), but those small amounts are hardly toxic. Unless one is making tons of dry cured meat at the same time, I don't see a problem.

The problem as I see it is that the nitrite may get depleted in the reaction. Therefore it may be better to apply the acid at a later stage in the process, when most of the cure has been absorbed.

grisell wrote:The problem as I see it is that the nitrite may get depleted in the reaction. Therefore it may be better to apply the acid at a later stage in the process, when most of the cure has been absorbed.

Makes sense!

I wonder if this is specific to ascorbic acid - I've never noticed it with sodium ascorbate - or have I just been lucky?

Phil