Question about cure #1 amount for corning in wet brine

[sudsandswine]

I'm looking at a DIY cure for corned beef - actually in this case, corned pork butt for pastrami. Referring to the trusty "Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages" book, it says I need 4.2 oz of cure#1 for 1 gallon of water, and the amount of cure #1 scales linearly based on the volume of water you need...unsurprisingly. I'm planning to corn a pork butt to make a "pastrami pork butt" a la JasonTQ and I determined I need 1.5 gallons of water to sufficiently cover the 8lb butt in the non reactive vessel I'm using....so ~6.3oz of cure #1...sound right?

The calculators I've used based on the thickness of ~4.5" say it may take 19 days in the cure, which I guess is based on ~1/4" per day of penetration. So my question(s) are if I choose to inject some of the brine to speed up the cure, do I need to adjust the amount of cure/salt or is it pretty much still going to achieve equilibrium and I just need to make sure the cure:water ratio is correct? I'm used to using cure #1 in small amounts for dry cures and I understand that only so much of the brine on a % basis will be pulled into the meat but going from a couple teaspoons to 6.3oz (176 grams) of cure #1 is a lot to me.

 

[Jason TQ]

I normally triple this recipe in terms of brine so it makes 3 gallons and I can get about 4 butts into a 5gallon bucket. I do inject and just pull straight from this brine mix.

After injecting I let sit 5-6days typically

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/beef-and-bison-recipes/home-made-corned-beef-recipe

 

[sudsandswine]

Yeah...I saw that recipe too - which is why I was confused to see 4.2 oz cure #1 per gallon...120 something grams per gallon? Yikes. Probably reader error?

I just measured a leveled off teaspoon of prague powder #1 and it was like 8.xx grams

 

[Jason TQ]

Yeah...I saw that recipe too - which is why I was confused to see 4.2 oz cure #1 per gallon...120 something grams per gallon? Yikes. Probably reader error?

I just measured a leveled off teaspoon of prague powder #1 and it was like 8.xx grams

So I will say I have the same book and it is awesome. The part that does get confusing is when injecting and scaling out recipes when using cure #1. It didn't make sense to me either. Not saying anyone shouldn't follow proper procedure here.

I use the same recipe for standard corned beef too or really when I corn anything. Does good for ribs.

 

[Bacchus2b]

You can use this Corned Beef recipe:

Water - 3 Gallons

Salt - 2 pounds

Sweetener - 10 oz. (Dextrose, Regular Sugar, Brown Sugar, etc.)

Tinted Cure Mix - 7 oz. (AKA Prague Powder #1, Instacure, TCM)

Garlic - 6 Cloves

Pickling Spice - 2 Tbs

You can either soak your Brisket for 7 to 8 days total OR inject 10% of the net weight in brine and soak for 3 to 5 days. If your Brisket weighs ten pounds, inject 16 ounces of brine. Once you have mixed your brine ingredients you can puree the garlic and pickling spices in a blender with some of the brine and add back into the soak. Easy!

 

[BuffaloDave]

I normally triple this recipe in terms of brine so it makes 3 gallons and I can get about 4 butts into a 5gallon bucket. I do inject and just pull straight from this brine mix.

After injecting I let sit 5-6days typically

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/beef-and-bison-recipes/home-made-corned-beef-recipe

Same here, never had issues.

 

[sudsandswine]

You can use this Corned Beef recipe:

Water - 3 Gallons

Salt - 2 pounds

Sweetener - 10 oz. (Dextrose, Regular Sugar, Brown Sugar, etc.)

Tinted Cure Mix - 7 oz. (AKA Prague Powder #1, Instacure, TCM)

Garlic - 6 Cloves

Pickling Spice - 2 Tbs

You can either soak your Brisket for 7 to 8 days total OR inject 10% of the net weight in brine and soak for 3 to 5 days. If your Brisket weighs ten pounds, inject 16 ounces of brine. Once you have mixed your brine ingredients you can puree the garlic and pickling spices in a blender with some of the brine and add back into the soak. Easy!

The amount of cure in that recipe sounds similar to the proportions I was reading in my handy book. Interesting, thanks.

 

[sudsandswine]

Same here, never had issues.

I ended up going with basically this recipe, scaling it to 1.5 gallons to cover the meat sufficiently. I used a trivet to keep the meat off the bottom and a bamboo skewer to keep it pushed down under the lid.

 

[thirdeye]

I'm looking at a DIY cure for corned beef - actually in this case, corned pork butt for pastrami. Referring to the trusty "Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages" book, it says I need 4.2 oz of cure#1 for 1 gallon of water, and the amount of cure #1 scales linearly based on the volume of water you need...unsurprisingly. I'm planning to corn a pork butt to make a "pastrami pork butt" a la JasonTQ and I determined I need 1.5 gallons of water to sufficiently cover the 8lb butt in the non reactive vessel I'm using....so ~6.3oz of cure #1...sound right?

The calculators I've used based on the thickness of ~4.5" say it may take 19 days in the cure, which I guess is based on ~1/4" per day of penetration. So my question(s) are if I choose to inject some of the brine to speed up the cure, do I need to adjust the amount of cure/salt or is it pretty much still going to achieve equilibrium and I just need to make sure the cure:water ratio is correct? I'm used to using cure #1 in small amounts for dry cures and I understand that only so much of the brine on a % basis will be pulled into the meat but going from a couple teaspoons to 6.3oz (176 grams) of cure #1 is a lot to me.

I ended up going with basically this recipe, scaling it to 1.5 gallons to cover the meat sufficiently. I used a trivet to keep the meat off the bottom and a bamboo skewer to keep it pushed down under the lid.

In a curing brine, the parts per million calculation includes the water weight so more cure is needed than when using a dry cure. And yes , this is a somewhat 'hot'curing brine, but there is a reason. Did you go with the 10% pump (injection) by weight and then add additional brine to cover? This is why this technique only takes 4 to 5 days for the meat to cure, and why the Marianskis can claim this is a proven method. However, there have been many discussions about returning the pumped meat to a container and covering it with the pumping solution rather than with a lower concentration solution. And most of these discussions revolve on the actual PPM.

Where I'm headed with this is..... when you use a brine with less cure #1, for a standard immersion brine, it takes more time than 4 or 5 days. This weaker immersion brine can also be safely injected into meats 2" and thicker in order to work from the outside in, as well as the inside out.

 

[sudsandswine]

Spent 8 days in the brine and 2 days in water...things got busy. I cooked it on the Mak 2* today, and it turned out pretty darn tasty :thumb: good balance from the rub, not overly salty on the meat, good flavor from the pickling spices I used. Just wish I had some rye bread and Swiss on hand.

Now I’m eyeing this brisket I have in the fridge as next up in the corning deck.

When I foiled it at 165*



When I tasted it after probing tender at 202*

 

[thirdeye]

You are certainly right about the color.

 

[Jason TQ]

Spent 8 days in the brine and 2 days in water...things got busy. I cooked it on the Mak 2* today, and it turned out pretty darn tasty :thumb: good balance from the rub, not overly salty on the meat, good flavor from the pickling spices I used. Just wish I had some rye bread and Swiss on hand.

Now I’m eyeing this brisket I have in the fridge as next up in the corning deck.

When I foiled it at 165*



When I tasted it after probing tender at 202*

Ya love that color. It's just a great way to do a pork butt. I prefer it to standard.

You are right about the rye and swiss. Love thousand island on it too.

 

[sudsandswine]

I almost never make Boston butts for myself anymore, just boring to me...but things changed today :thumb:

 

[Jason TQ]

I almost never make Boston butts for myself anymore, just boring to me...but things changed today :thumb:

I've also cubed up pork butt, put it in the same brine and made corned pork sausage. Corned beef sausage is good too.

 

[sudsandswine]

Just put a 4 bone section of beef chuck ribs into the brine, looking forward to some pastrami beef ribs :thumb: