Why this 2:1 ratio?

[EdwinT]

I am new to brine curing. I have seen the posts around the 2:1 meat:brine ratio being used all over the site and still can't figure out why the amount of brine liquid surrounding a piece of meat is of any importance.

Surely if I had a 1 kg piece of meat submerged in 0.5 litres of brine, that same piece of meat would absorb the same amount of the brine constituents if it was submerged in 1000 litres of the same brine mix.

Why is the volume of of brine so critical then?

[Titch]

I look forward to replies to this question.
Was wondering the same thing.
Cheers.
Titch

[Jogeephus]

The volume doesn't matter as long as you have plenty of room and the meat isn't crowded. The 2:1 gives you a good idea how much brine to make to fully cover the meat so you don't make too much and waste money or too little and not have enough to cover the meat. A 70% brine is going to cure the meat weather you have a gallon or a million gallons. Its simply for planning. Least that's how it works for me.

edit: BTW - I actually bump it up to 60% of weight of meat since I often pull 10% for injection purposes.

[wheels]

Surely if I had a 1 kg piece of meat submerged in 0.5 litres of brine, that same piece of meat would absorb the same amount of the brine constituents if it was submerged in 1000 litres of the same brine mix.

Believe it or not, the US scientists would have us believe otherwise (for smaller pieces of meat). Based on the premise that they are correct, the 2:1 ratio means that we can use a brine that gives a good compromise between the end result (i.e. not too salty etc) whilst still giving a brine that is classed as safe - around 10%(ish) salt.

HTH

Phil

[Jogeephus]

Sorry, I'm confused again. I've always used 2:1 as the weight of the meat to the weight of the brine and the salinity determined the length of curing time. Please explain.

[captain wassname]

when a piece of pork is immersed in a brine the whole system will eventually reach equilibrium.That is to say that the the brine and the meat will both contain the same percentage of salt (and nitrite/nitrate)
So a kilo of brine with 100 gms salt has 2 kg of meat immersed in it
left for long enough each kilo of the total will contain 1 third of the salt. that is 33gms per kilo or 3.3%

if we have 2kg of brine with 200 gms salt and the same 2 kg joint then at equilibrium each kilo will contain 50 gms salt (200 divided by 4)

In the first instance as we want 2.5 gms of cure#1 in each kilo we would need to add 7.5 gms cure#1 so 1 kilo of brine contains 7.5 gms cure#1
In the second case we would need to add 10 gms cure #1 to the 2 kg brine so only 5 gms cure#1 per kilo of brine.

The reason why 10% salt is because thats what the US authorities require.
I know the figures I have used are not exact (a 10% solution is 90=10 not 100+10) also no allowance for sugar.
But the point of Oddleys 2-1 brine is to ,as explained , minimise the salt while still covering the meat

Jim

[wheels]

Which bit?

[saucisson]

Sorry, I'm confused again. I've always used 2:1 as the weight of the meat to the weight of the brine and the salinity determined the length of curing time. Please explain.

I assume you were replying to that post Phil?

[wheels]

Thanks Dave, yes. My post crossed with Jim's.

Phil

[captain wassname]

Sorry to have butted in
My post was intended as a reply to Edwins original post which I thought had not been answered completely.
Im a bit worried that a brine cure should be judged by salinity rather than ingoing amount of nitrate/nitrate

Jim

[wheels]

Jim

Thanks you for replying, you've explained it so much better than I would've.

Phil

[EdwinT]

I deeply apologise for the lack of my response. For some reason I only received an email notification for Titch's first reply to my post. The same problem occured with a previous thread. Perhaps the site admin might investigate this (please send me an email if you do).

Thank you very much for everyboy's input, I think I am beginning to understand thanks to everyone.

captain wassname

when a piece of pork is immersed in a brine the whole system will eventually reach equilibrium.That is to say that the the brine and the meat will both contain the same percentage of salt (and nitrite/nitrate)
So a kilo of brine with 100 gms salt has 2 kg of meat immersed in it
left for long enough each kilo of the total will contain 1 third of the salt. that is 33gms per kilo or 3.3%

if we have 2kg of brine with 200 gms salt and the same 2 kg joint then at equilibrium each kilo will contain 50 gms salt (200 divided by 4)

In the first instance as we want 2.5 gms of cure#1 in each kilo we would need to add 7.5 gms cure#1 so 1 kilo of brine contains 7.5 gms cure#1
In the second case we would need to add 10 gms cure #1 to the 2 kg brine so only 5 gms cure#1 per kilo of brine.

The reason why 10% salt is because thats what the US authorities require.
I know the figures I have used are not exact (a 10% solution is 90=10 not 100+10) also no allowance for sugar.
But the point of Oddleys 2-1 brine is to ,as explained , minimise the salt while still covering the meat

Jim

Thinking in more detail about the chemistry and physics of it, as you pointed out, Cpn. Wassname, I now understand what you are saying ... (correct me if I am wrong) :

Because the volume of brine is small enough to significantly affect the percentages at the equilibrium of the system, the strength of the brine solution does become significant and importnat to the osmotic balance of the system (for want of a better expression).

This explains why Jogeephus is correct:

The volume doesn't matter as long as you have plenty of room and the meat isn't crowded. The 2:1 gives you a good idea how much brine to make to fully cover the meat so you don't make too much and waste money or too little and not have enough to cover the meat. A 70% brine is going to cure the meat weather you have a gallon or a million gallons. Its simply for planning. Least that's how it works for me.

But this explanation begs a further request from me:

Assuming that it is clinically safer to pickle a ham for too long rather than too short a time, it would make sense for a small commercial ham producer to have a barrel of brine with a number of small loin or shoulder hams curing at any one time in that barrel, what quantities of salt, sugar NaNO3 and/or NANO2 would make a good starting point for someone who wants to make up a curing system with 50 litres of brine being used to cure say upto 10 kgs of pork. I might even want to allow another, say 3 or 4 kgs of meat to be cured in the same bucket after I pull out out some of the first batch of hams.

Is there any advice on an answer to:

Would this system be safe and productive? If so then I would like to ask for the volumes of each constituent of a basic brine that would yield satisfactory results.

Using such a system would surely be safer (and therefore more liekely to tempt a first-timer to attempt to pickle a ham) because small errors when weighing the chemicals on the scales would be less significant to the overall brine composition.

So what would be a good basic 70% brine formula to place in a 50Kg barrel in which there are say 20 kg of meat being cured at one time?

I hope I am not being too presumptive to ask an additional question

I hope I'm not being too demanding

[wheels]

OK, no problem, here's my position:

Curing commercially is completely different to what I do. No commercial curer would cure 1kg of ham like our members want to do. They cure whole hams, whole sides etc

They don't tell me how to do it my way: I don't tell them how to do it theirs

Sorry!

That's the way I see it.

Phil

[captain wassname]

Hello Edwin
You seem to have a decent understanding o what I was saying.
Im not too clear as to what a 70% brine solution may be.
The salt content is not too relevant other than statuatary requirement that a brine should be 10%,What is important is the ingoing amount of nitrite which needs to be 150 ppm.
Immersion curing to equilibrium is dealt with to a certain extent by NCPauls experiment.
It suggests that for 1 kg piece of pork equilibrium will be reached in well in excess of ten days,
At this point thoughts as to what happens with larger pieces diverge.
My own opinion is that large pieces probably take 12-14 days per kilo to reach equilibrium
My research such as it is has been confined to single pieces for my own consumption
Different pieces will vary dependent upon water content so you need to allow a margin of plus or minus 25% of ingoing nitrite
Also to further complicate matters we know that the road to equilibrium is not a straight one
If we estimate for a 1kio piece equilibrium will take 16 days it does not follow that 50% of equillibrium will be 8 days It will be much closer to 2 days.
Commercial curers have graced this forum with their presence from time to time and they seem to use cures with lots of nitrite and salt to enable shorter curing times but they seem to be reluctant to share information.further
Im sorry I dont have the knowledge to help you further but Im willing to try to assist further

Jim

[captain wassname]

sorry Phil been struggling with my reply

Jim