Dry Cure Bacon Recipe

[Oddley]

DarrinG are you sure your butcher didn't say 1 teaspoon per 5 lb meat in a dry cure.

I'll do my best to explain, what exactly don't you understand?

[DarrinG]

He told me that its better to brine the bacon vs. a dry rub. He found that the bacon didn't have an even cure on it when it was a dry cure. Then he said that I should use 1 tsp for every 10 lbs. of meat.

Then your formula where did you get it and the other numbers? Also what should the ppm be in a brine to be effective.

Thanks

DarrinG

[Oddley]

Hi DarrinG I am having a session with the TV and the nectar of the gods. So if you will excuse me I will answer your questions tomorrow.

[DarrinG]

Sure thing. Based on your dry cure recipe for 6.8 kg. which is what I usually brine at one time. I get a parts ppm of 592.83.

That would mean to get the same ppm for the brine I would need 426.9g/6.8kg or 62.78g/kg or 1 oz./lb. of meat to brine? So for the 15 lbs. of meat I am going to need 15 oz. of cure. I think my butcher is going to have a heart attack.

Could you check my math.

Thanks

DarrinG

[Big Guy]

What we really need to know is the PPM of salt in brine, the PPM nitrate, and the PPM sugar. With this info we can make our own consistant and safe brine solutions. Looking forward to the proper #'s

[Oddley]

OK DarrinG we will use your brine as the example.

1kg meat
120 oz clean water = 3548 gm about 7.5 Pint's
1 1/2 cups coarse salt - 7.8 oz. = 1 cup = 346 gm
1 1/2 cups brown sugar = 346 gm
2 Tablespoons Prague Powder = 30 gm just over 1 oz

Total Brine weight = 4270 gm

To find the amount or ppm of nitrite that will be the ingoing amount in a brine, You must first accept that the meat will pickup between 8-10% (as the link below will confirm) of that brine during the curing time.

http://www.yeagerspice.com/FAQ.htm

Right we have made our brine with the recipe above, and we know that our 1kg of meat will pickup between 8-10% it's own weight, I will use 10% I always use the upper limit for safety.

So the amount of brine picked up by our 1kg piece of meat will be 100 gm. All we have to do now is find out what the weights of ingredient's are in that 100 gm of brine.

We know our brine weight is 4270 gm so if we divide that by our 100 gm pickup weight we will have a constant with which we can divide the 100 gm pickup brine with to get the constituent parts of the brine ie.

Constant = 4270 / 100 = 42.7

Ingoing cure #1 = 30 / 42.7 = 0.7026 gm

Now if we find the 6.25 % nitrite of the ingoing cure #1 that will be the ingoing nitrite level.

Ingoing nitrite = 0.7026 * 6.25 / 100 = 0.044 gm/kg or 44 ppm

This is exactly the same as using the FDA formula.

I have explained this in as simple terms as I can using the recipe and method above you can use any size piece of meat up to the brine exhaustion weight and the ingoing amount of nitrite will not change try it. calculate the ingoing amount of nitrite for say 3500 gm piece of meat.

I hope this all makes sense.

In Britain the max allowable amouint of nitrite is 150 ppm

In the USA the max is 200 ppm.

[DarrinG]

That perfect I just wanted to know how your numbers were working. Sorry I can be a bit slow. I did some extra searching and found that instacure #1 is equal to Prague Powder #1. I have a 5 lb. pail of instacure #1 and its label shows that for a brine you should use 3 oz. of Instacure per gallon of water. According to the book by Rytek Kutas 6 tsp of instacure equals 1 oz. So I would need 6 tablespoons to equal 3 oz.

Therefore for based on all of the information I have 3 oz. is 85.04 gm which would then give me a cure of 127 ppm.

It all makes sense now.

Thanks Oddley,

DarrinG

[Heather]

I use Oddley's formula :

Meat 1 kg
Saltpetre 0.5 Grams (500 ppm)
Salt Weight 20 grams (2%)
Sugar Weight 10 grams (1%)
Sodium Ascorbate 0.55 grams (550 ppm)

So can I assume, in the absence of a pre-mixed cure from Franco, the above quantities are correct?

(Panic due to half pig ready on Thursday, cannot place phone order for more stock of skins and cure etc.)

[saucisson]

Yes, and if using cure#1 instead of saltpetere:

Meat 1 kg
Prague #1 3.2 Grams (200 ppm)
Salt Weight 20 grams (2%)
Sugar Weight 10 grams (1%)
Sodium Ascorbate 0.55 grams (550 ppm)