Curing time confusion...

I use Buckboard and cure for 5 to 7 days depending on the thickness.

From another site:

Morton® recommends dry curing pork belly. The rate of cure is 7 days per inch thickness using one application of Tender Quick® or Sugar Cure® (Plain or Smoke Flavored) over the entire belly of 1/2 oz. or 1 TBS per pound of meat.

At 7 days per inch, it takes the cure 7 days to penetrate 1/2 inch from both sides to reach the center. This calculates to be 1/14 of an inch per side per day to reach 100% saturation.

A 2 inch pork belly would then take 14 days minimum to cure to the center, which is 1 inch.
Morton® then recommends a two day equalization period resulting in a minimum of 16 day's cure time for a two inch thick pork belly.

With some of the packaged kits, I read it cures 1/4" per day and to do buckboard (shoulder) for 10 days. For belly cureing recipes, I usually see 7 days and what I do.

Assuming you're curing belly. I would cure for 5-7 days, flipping each day. After you cure, rinse it very well, then you can keep in a cold water bath for 3-4 hours, then dry with paper towels. Then lay it out on a raised rack over a sheet pan to dry further in your fridge, usually overnight. Then smoke away. That will help with the salt.

I haven't used TQ in a while for bacon for that reason, the results were too salty for me. So I made up my cure with pink salt.

I haven't cured for the lengths of time mentioned above and been fine with penetration. When Shagdog and I make bacon, we generally cure for a week.

Good luck!

Morton website lists 5-10+ days for various cuts

http://www.mortonsalt.com/for-your-home/culinary-salts/recipes

I have a bag of TQ and it has the same times you mentioned. Weird that the instructions on the bag dont match their website recipes

sturev said:

Thanks, I didn't know that!! So using pink salt makes it less salty... wonder why?

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So, pink salt are the nitrates (and salt) that make up the cure. When you make your own cure, you can adjust the regular salt and other spices/aromatics in the cure to make it less salty. The pink salt however, needs to be a correct ratio to the poundage of meat you are applying it to.

Rule of thumb recommended by Stanley Marianski and Rytek Kutas is 1 day for every 1/4' when measured from the center point of the thickest part of the meat. A two inch slab of pork belly would take 4 days, 2' measured at center would give you 1" curing thickness divided by .25 would require 4 days curing time. The only exception is if the belly still has the skin in place. Because the cure does not penetrate through the skin in any efficient manner, you calculate the curing time from the entire thickness of the meat.

One of the main reasons people find Morton TenderQuick to be overly salty is because it contains no sugar. Morton TenderQuick is formulated as a general cure (meat, fish, poultry) and is also used for curing beef (corned beef), where sugar would be unwanted. For making bacon and ham, maybe the selection of Morton Sugar Cure would be a more suitable choice, but totally not necessary because you can add the sugar yourself to the mixture. Sugar helps to cut the salty edge in taste of the final product and can vary greatly in any recipe. Sugar is not necessary for curing, it is strictly for rounding out and balancing the flavors (salty, sweet, savory). Sugar levels can be adjusted to an individuals personal taste without affecting the curing process.

"Morton's TenderQuick" and "Morton's Sugar Cure" are brand names of another formulation of sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate, with salt, and sugars added. It is not the same concentration as "Cure #1. Since the amount of nitrite present in a recipe is essential for safety, one cannot take a recipe designed for Cure #1 and simply substitute like amounts of such products as "Morton's Tenderquick". To do so would invite the risk of botulism poisoning. Similarly, one cannot just substitute Cure #1 in place of "Morton's TenderQuick" without creating severe health risks. I do not advocate the use of substitutions, instead one should use a recipe designed for the specific cure being used.

Morton developed "TenderQuick" and "Sugar Cure", so that the home cook could safely cure meat. "Morton Tender Quick" is not a meat tenderizer, and the "Morton Sugar Cure" are not seasonings. They should be stored and locked far away from your normal everyday spice/salt cabinet. They do not have the red coloring agent, they should never be substituted for salt so be especially careful when using and storing these products to eliminate the possibility of poisoning your family.

"Morton TenderQuick" and "Morton Sugar Cure" are bonded premixed formulations of salt, sodium nitrite, and sodium nitrate to be used directly from the bag for the curing process, no additional salt is required for the cure, sugar is also added into the formulation in the case of "Morton Sugar Cure". Morton products contain 0.5% sodium nitrite, 0.5% sodium nitrate, and also includes propylene glycol to keep the mixture stable.

Because Morton products are pre-formulated to be used according to the manufactures recommendations, I highly recommend the use of this curing agent for someone curing for the first time, as well as for the beginner. The premix formulation makes it easy to measure the correct amount without having to purchase a scale or calculate the required amounts of each ingredient. Because it is pre-mixed it also makes it a little harder to make mistakes.


Cure #1 is a bonded mixture of 1 part sodium nitrite to 16 parts salt. Cure #1 must be mixed with additional salt (usually 3%) to safely and evenly distribute the curing agent during application.

Cures are commonly used in curing, smoking, air-drying, or dehydrating.

sturev said:

Thanks IamMadMan! My cure was TQ & brown sugar on most of the BBB, a couple I did savory. Do you have any insight as to the time aspect of my question?

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Rule of thumb recommended by Stanley Marianski and Rytek Kutas is 1 day for every 1/4' when measured from the center point of the thickest part of the meat. A two inch slab of pork belly would take 4 days, 2' measured at center would give you 1" curing thickness divided by .25 would require 4 days curing time. The only exception is if the belly still has the skin in place. Because the cure does not penetrate through the skin in any efficient manner, you calculate the curing time from the entire thickness of the meat.

Keep in mind that when using a dry cure with the proper amount, it is almost impossible to "over-cure" or get nitrate burn because the cure is measured to the specific weight of the meat. It cannot absorb any additional nitrates because they are all absorbed and turned to gases. So a few extra days or even a week will not hurt anything as long as the meat remains cold and fresh. This is not the case with curing brines or wet cures, because they contain extra nitrates to speed up the curing process.

sturev said:

That makes more sense to me!!! So I ran mine 10 days and only needed 6. :loco: Some of mine were only an inch thick and they also ran 10 days in the cure. :crazy: I'll adjust on the next run and see how that works out. Thanks a TON for your input!!!! :clap2:

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Keep in mind that when using a dry cure with the proper amount, it is almost impossible to "over-cure" or get nitrate burn because the cure is measured to the specific weight of the meat. It cannot absorb any additional nitrates because they are all absorbed and turned to gases. So a few extra days or even a week will not hurt anything as long as the meat remains cold and fresh. This is not the case with curing brines or wet cures, because they contain extra nitrates to speed up the curing process.

sturev said:

I'd like to be able to cure the meat but I'm also trying to figure out how to keep the salt on the lower side. We are a "low salt" household and the last batch of bacon I did was way to salty.

Any help would be much appreciated!

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Did you by chance do a fry test before smoking? Slice off a small piece from one end of the bacon and fry it up in a pan. If it is too salty, soak the slab for an hour in cold water and re-check with a fry test. Repeat as necessary.

sturev said:

Oh, well then that blows my thought out of the water... Once the meat is cured, is there harm in soaking it in water to leach the salt out? Can you "uncure" it this way?

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No, soaking in fresh cold water is not wet curing, and it will not "un-cure" as you thought. Once the meat is cured, it is cured (IE: once meat is cooked, you can't uncook it). When the meat is cured, the nitrates have dissipated, they no longer exist as the same compound. After all we boil/steam corned beef and it remains bright red from being cured.

Feel free to soak out some salt, this is a common practice.

As Okie said, test fry a piece....

sturev said:

Yes, I did do a test/soak/test/soak, but the misses still thinks it too salty :blah:

Is there such a thing as soaking to long?

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The saltiness will also slightly diminish with smoking, as smoke will alter normal flavors..