Smoked pork tenderloin.

[Wohoki]

As requested:

Trim a tenderloin of all fat and as much silvering as you can, then brine for about an hour and a half in an 80% solution.

(80% brine:- 265g of sea-salt and 50g of good brown sugar per liter of water, plus a few peppercorns and cloves, a stick of cinnamon and some lemon peel. Boil for a few minutes, then chill before use.)

When the brining time is up, hang the pork in the fridge for 24 hours to dry and for the salt-glaze to form.

Cold smoke too taste. I found 24-36 hours is a good compromise between moistness and smokiness. My wife prefers the lower end of smoking time, and my father would like it if I smoked it until the loin was the same size as a pencil, so do some experiments. I use beech chips, BTW.

Serve sliced thinly with mustard and good pickles on rye bread, or tossed into hot pasta with a bit of cream, pepper and some chopped capers.

[Oddley]

Can you explain an 80% brine solution too me please.

Is it 80% water 20% salt ie: 400 gm water 100 gm salt.

Cheers!

[Wohoki]

It's 80% saturated. Sorry, should have said.

100% saturated is water with the maximum amount of salt that can disolve in a given volume. This brine contains 80% of that amount of salt. I took this from the oft quoted Erlandson book on smoking.

[Spuddy]

100% saturated (for pure salt and pure water) is 2.987 pounds of salt per gallon of water (traditionally 3lb per Gal).
An 80% saturated solution would be 2.229 pounds per gallon.
All at 16C.

Hope that helps

[dougal]

This business of "% brine" is something I have referred to previously.
Unfortunately, I hadn't recognised the responses as indicating unfamiliarity or incomprehension.
There is an important difference between "% brine" and "% salt by weight in the brine" and it is vital to recognise which scale is being used.

"% brine" would seem to be the same as brine meter "degrees", but the practical use of *percentages* would seem to come when one makes up, or 'tops up' a working brine with a quantity of saturated brine.

One can make an "80% brine" by making an 80/20 mix of saturated brine and pure water.
So the working brine can be made up by simple volumetric measurements.
There is no need for accurate weighing of the salt.
I think this is the simple, traditional way of making up a brine.

All one needs is to have some saturated solution on hand.
Very simple to make up - chuck in plenty salt, warm it a little, stir vigorously. Ensure that there is still some "excess undissolved solute" (salt crystals that can't dissolve) otherwise add more and stir more, until some simply refuses to dissolve ("the presence of excess undissolved solute"). Then first cool to ambient, and lastly strain off the excess salt.

[Oddley]

Thanks for the explanation of the terms of reference.

[saucisson]

I learn something new, yet again, this is such a good site. If I had attempted to make an 80% brine without following the rest of Wohoki's post or the rest of this thread I would still be sitting here trying to make my 800g of salt up to a litre with water and wondering why it wouldn't dissolve

Dave

[Oddley]

For anybody interested, below is a link to a .pdf that has brine tables and info on salt brines.

http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/ ... h99002.pdf

[Wohoki]

I hadn't thought of making up brine as Dougal suggested above. I'll certainly do it that way when I next do a big batch.
Something I'd add is that you have to remove the exess salt before diluting the saturated brine, otherwise the undisolved salt will dissolve, and it's be best to cool the saturated brine before diluting it as the solubility of salt increases at higher temperatures and some will precipitate out as the solution cools. The brine strength quoted is at room temperature.
(I have to admit that I just add half a kilo of salt to just over a 2 liters of water: it's not vital to get it exactly right for this process: somewhere in the order of 75-85% will do just fine.)