What happens if you go over the curing time?

[ped]

Many thanks Phil

[wheels]

Right, where to start?

Firstly, we can find details of how to calculate cures here:

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSI ... 7620-3.pdf

The info we want starts at the bottom of page 21 (of the document - the page number may appear differently in Adobe reader). We see here that there are two ways to calculate immersion cures. Much debate, messing about, and a bit of serious testing leads us to believe that 'method 2' is appropriate for your meat (even though some of the info may contradict this).

The formula we apply is therefore:



Using this will give the amount of nitrite in Parts Per Million (mg/kg) if the meat is left until it reaches equilibrium - a time we believe to be well in excess of 12 days per kg.

You say that you used 5% salt, 2.5% sugar and .5% cure per 1ltr water. For ease I calculated your 3 ltr brine as 3ltr water, 150gm salt, 75gm sugar and 15gm cure - 3240gm in total. You say your meat was 1780gm. We understand the cure #1 to be 1:16 nitrite: salt (5.88%).

So our calculation is:

(15 x 5.88%) * 1,000,000 / (1780 + 3240)

That's

0.882 * 1,000,000 = 822000 / 5020 = 163.74 PPM (mg/kg)

I said 175 PPM before - that's what comes of trying to work it out in your head!

The US rules tell us that when this happens the nitrite/salt/sugar etc in the meat will equal that in the water. That is, to gain any more the meat will actually be sucking the nitrite/salt/sugar out of the water against the natural flow (so to speak!).

As such, I believe that with this method of curing the maximum is unlikely to be more that this.

Yannis is of course correct that the "absolute maximum" is around 500PPM. You would know if that had happened though as the 'brine' you were left with would just be water!

HTH

Phil

[Yannis]

Many thanks Phil !!!

[ped]

Many thanks again Phil, will print out and inwardly digest so that I understand for the future, but to confirm (before I actually work things out for myself), it doesn't matter that the cure 1 nitrite % is lower in the EU (5.88%) than the US (6.25%), it is the formula that is the important thing?

p.s the pastrami is smoking over hickory as we speak, here's hoping

[ped]

Following on from my last post, if I used US cure 1 the result would be 186.75ppm (mg/kg). I suppose my next question then is,and if I have read the paper correctly, these ppm's seem to exceed the recommendation of 150ppm, am I correct and if so how high a ppm would be safe?

p.s. Pastrami out and the result is......seems ok, maybe a bit dry (can I do anything about this now it's cooked?), not too salty but perhaps more than I would want, otherwise, where are those pickles

[wheels]

The % of the curing salt doesn't matter - the US document just refers to the lb nitrite (or something similar) but you'll see that in the formula I put above I've put:
'weight of curing salt x Nitrite %'
This takes care of it.

The figure this calculates is the the level of cure at equilibrium. To reach equilibrium will take a long time. At 10 days per kg, the meat is approx 85% towards equilibrium, but the rate of nitrite etc entering the meat, having started with a mad rush, is slowing right down.

I don't recall you saying how long your meat cured for? You'll note that I didn't ask either. That's because even if it was ages and the meat was above the EU level of 150PPM it was still below the US level which is 200PPM. I work to EU levels but have no concerns as long as the cure is below the US ones. It gives a nice 'band' to aim for!

I realise that there may be many other questions; I purposely kept my reply just to that needed to answer the initial question posed. For more background you may wish to browse this thread:

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=6314

...and if you really want punishment, you could browse this one where Wheels even has a strop and throws his dolly out of his pram:

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=5762

(note to admin/mods: that's guarenteed they'll all read that one! )

Phil

[ped]

Well the first thread was ok but I have to admit my eyes were starting to glaze over after about page 4 of the second !, anyway I have copied and pasted for future 'possible' reference.

Thanks again all, and I'm sure I'll come back and ask the same question in the future