Oddley's dry cure bacon.

[Salmo]

If possible, would one of the site boffins be kind enough to convert this recipe to use cure#2 instead of pure Saltpeter please?

Oddley writes:

Bacon cure

Meat 10 kg

Sodium Ascorbate = 5 gm
Salt 2% = 184 gm
Sugar 1.02% = 102 gm
cure #1 = 17 gm (100 ppm)
Saltpetre = 2 gm (200 ppm)


Weight of Cure = 310 gm

Usage 31 gm per kg

Many thanks

[captain wassname]

Do you just want it for ordinary

Jim bacon or are you intending to air dry it?

[Salmo]

Just ordinary fry up bacon Jim.
I'm working my way through the various recipes & want to try this one.
Must say,I haven't found a bad recipe yet,though the last one I tried was a little pale in colour-----am I right in thinking the inclusion of Saltpeter into an ordinary bacon cure is simply to give a "better" colour?

[captain wassname]

You shouldnt need saltpetre or cure no2 but I think Oddley likes a bit of salpetre in his bacon
If you dont want to order some salt petre you can just use cure#2.
Usage of cure#2 is the same as cute#1 so you will not get the same amount of nitrate as Oddleys cure Which is a good thing as you should be aiming lower
You need the ascorbate and you need 10-12 days cure as nitrate is slower
You should use cure#2 a t2-2.5 gms per kilo

Jim

[captain wassname]

Let us know about the colour

Jim

[Salmo]

Cheers Jim
I do have saltpeter,it's just that cure#2 is so much easier to weigh!

Will be a while before I get to try it, as my freezer is bulging

[captain wassname]

Go with 2gms cure#1, 0.1gns saltpetre 0.5 gms sodium ascorbate 18.4 gms salt and 10 gms sugar per kilo.

Jim

[ComradeQ]

Probably a bit late but I do make a lot of bacon so ... my advice, don't use cure #2 for applications like bacon. That is not the correct cure to be using. Cure # 1 is the right cure. Cure # 2 uses sodium NITRATE and is for longer dry cured applications like salami, etc and slowly converts the nitrate over to nitrite. Think of it more like a time released pill that lets a little out at a time and lasts longer. Cure #1 uses sodium NITRITE and doesn't rely on slow conversion to nitrite it cures fast and starts immediately. It is very important to use the correct cures as it can be dangerous otherwise. If you use cure # 2 instead of # 1 for bacon you stand a very real chance of not curing your meat to a safe level since the relatively short curing time (5-10 days) isn't really enough to release sufficient cure from # 2. Also, as far as quantities go, a very good guideline is to use one (1) level teaspoon of cure # 1 per five (5) lbs of meat. There is no need to use any more, a little goes a very long way. Remember, nitrites are safe if used correctly, but they are a poison and you don't want to over do your levels of it. Hope this helps!

[captain wassname]

cure #2 contains the same amount of nitrite as cure#1 so no chance of undercuring
Nearly all bacon in this country is cured with nitrite and nitrate
The OP was advised to cure for longer also to use sodium ascorbate
As long as you cook at a reasonable temp I dont see a problem

Jim

[ComradeQ]

cure #2 contains the same amount of nitrite as cure#1 so no chance of undercuring
Nearly all bacon in this country is cured with nitrite and nitrate
The OP was advised to cure for longer also to use sodium ascorbate
As long as you cook at a reasonable temp I dont see a problem

Jim

Sorry, I stand corrected, you can't really undercure. However, while you are technically correct the big problem with using cure #2 is that it doesn't allow enough time for the nitrate to break down. Since it is a slow release product it requires a few weeks for the nitrate to be converted to nitrites so they can then be converted into nitric oxide. While you are correct about the levels of nitrites the issue then becomes, do you want to ingest nitrates that haven't been converted over? When cooked, pure nitrate forms nitrosamines in the meat, predominately within fat deposites. Nitrosamines are extremely carcinogenic and in North America nitrates are banned entirely from products that aren't slow dry cured for weeks, like bacon. You can cure your bacon using #2 but is it worth the risk to your health to ingest nitrosamines? Your call I suppose just trying to present a safety concern.

[BriCan]

Nitrosamines are extremely carcinogenic

It is my understanding that this comes about with cooking at high temperatures -- it is a know fact that most if not all North Americans love to cremate there bacon where as most Europeans like to cook there bacon proper like

[Salmo]

It was my (albeit poor) understanding that the Sodium Ascorbate was added in order to prevent the formation of Nitrosamines,thus rendering the recipe safe.

[NCPaul]

From this document:
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare ... 994web.pdf

Ascorbates (sodium ascorbate or sodium erythorbate) are used to speed the curing reaction by faster color development through more rapid reduction of nitrates and nitrites to nitric oxide. The nitric oxide combines with the meat pigment, myoglobin, to form nitrosomyglobin, dark red color. When the product is heated to 130-140°F the nitrosomyoglobin is converted to a stable pigment, nitrosohemochrome light pink in color. Also ascorbates are used to stabilize cure color of meats. The most frequently used cure accelerator compounds are sodium ascorbate or sodium erythorbate. Curing pickle containing these compounds should be used within 24 hours because their reaction with nitrite will lower the nitrite level of the pickle and its effectiveness.

captain wassname's advice is exactly in line with this. The nitrosamine problem is ,I think, more likely to occur in industrial produced bacon where the curing time is in hours instead of days. ComradeQ is right to point out that there are some safety concerns to be aware of when using Cure #2 in bacon.

[Salmo]

I knew I'd seen it somewhere

Researchers at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) found that the addition of vitamin C (also known as ascorbate) and vitamin E (also known as tocopherol) reduced the levels of nitrosamines in fried bacon and in nitrite-cured products. The findings led to changes in Federal regulations and industry processing to minimize consumer exposure to nitrosamines. USDA now requires adding 550 ppm (parts per million) of either sodium ascorbate or sodium erythorbate to pumped bacon. This addition greatly reduces the amount of free nitrite and, thus, minimizes the formation of nitrosamines. This regulation is found in 9 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 424.22 (b)(1).

If I read this correctly it is a legal requirement,in the USA, that "pumped" bacon has Vitamin C or E added.
I wonder if dry cure bacon in the USA doesn't require it,& if so,why not?

[captain wassname]

My understanding is that nitrites are the source of nitrosamines but there is a danger of unbroken down nitrates breaking down in the cooking process.
I think that this is more likely when as BriCan says high cooking temps are involved.
There are recipes out there with shovel loads of nitrate for hams that are cured for ages but no advice as to when all the nitrate is converted and the resulting nitrite is broken down.
I think that the reason why there are no percieved health hazards if that they are either eaten raw or cold smoked.

Jim