Another cure question

[saucisson]

Yes, but as Phil mentioned elsewhere I would not recommend this approach. The commercial preps are blended to a uniform consistancy so that there is no (or little) settling. If you make your own the particle sizes are all different so you run the risk of one component settling out. So you could, in theory, end up adding 37.5g pure sugar, pure salt or pure saltpetre to your kg of meat.

If you want to make a smaller batch of 100g say, then you can easily shake it up before taking your 37.5g out and minimise the riks of settling.

I prefer to make up for each individual use.

Dave

[dave zac]

I'm sorry if I now regress but I am now a bit confused again...Here is the recipe and I don't have saltpeter

Basic Recipe for Dry Cure;
5 lbs non iodized salt
1 lb regular sugar
1 oz Saltpeter-(sodium nitrate-I get mine form a local mom and pop pharmacy, the pharmacist orders it for me)
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
1 small pkg whole mixed pickling spices

I thought by adding cure #2 instead of saltpeter at the 1 oz rate I would have to recalculate salt volume and cure #2 to accommodate the nitrite required (1 oz). So, by increasing salt in cure #2 to get 1 oz of nitrate, I would decrease the salt in the recipe...no?

Dave

[Batman]

Yes you are right.

You would need 25 oz of Cure #2 to get 1 oz of nitrate (4% of 25) , you would also get 1.56 oz of nitrite (6.25% of 25), and the remainder 22.44 oz (89.7% of 25) of salt. So instead of 5lbs of salt you would now need 3lbs 9.56oz.

You need to do the calculation on the usage rate and ppm of nitrate and nitrite.