How much pink/curing salt in a wet brine?

[CarolinaQue]

Does any body use pink/curing salt in a wet brine? Was curious as to a safe amount to use per gallon of liquid. I have a good brine recipe that I really like, so I'm sure that I'll have to reduce the kosher salt a bit to compensate for the curing salt...but I know that too much curing salt is not a good thing. I want to use just enough to give the meat that nice pink color with out curing it to much and making it to salty. I only brine/wet cure with my current formula for 4 days max.

I was thinking 1 tsp...maybe 2 tspns max. Is this about right, to much or not enough?

[hamiltont]

All I've ever done is a dry cure on hams & Canadian bacon. The hams I use the dry cure ratio with just enough water to dissolve the sugar, salt and Prague #1 and then pump the ham with it. I did find a decent article about brining at this web site. They talk about wet brining towards the end of the article. According to it 1-2 teaspoons would be way short. Cheers!!! http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-making/curing

[LM600]

I am, by no means, an expert in brining or wet curing as I prefer to dry cure.

However, when I have wet cured some pork loin for bacon I have used the same amount of mixed salt/cure I use when dry curing, that is to say 5% weight of mixed salt/cure to the weight of meat with enough water to cover the meat by about 3cms (just over an inch).

For example; 1kg of meat I would use 50g of the salt/cure mix and I would add this cure mix to the water then add the meat.

It was cured, but I prefer dry cure...that's just me.

[Jarhead]

What kind of meat are you curing?

Brine using Cure #1
1 gallon (8.33 lbs) of water - 4.2 ounces, 120 grams or 20 (6 Tbs) teaspoons

I think the ref that Hamilton gave is where I got this.

[expatpig]

What are you trying to brine , what do you want to end up with? What ever you brine with curing salts, will have a "hamlike" texture.

[boogiesnap]

i use this formula to cure whole hams. results are fantastic. copied from dizzypigbbq.com

The ingredients to create the curing brine were (from lower left):
- 3 tablespoons Pickling Spice
- 3 cups Salt
- 3 cups Brown Sugar
- 3 tablespoons Dizzy Pig Cow LIck Steak Rub
- 8 tablespoons Prague Powder #1 (aka Modern Cure)*
- 4 cloves Garlic (center)

Bring 240 ounces of cold, filtered water to a boil along with above ingredients until salt and sugar is dissolved and flavor from other ingredients infuses the liquid, about 10-12 minutes.

[CarolinaQue]

I'm making buckboard bacon again, so a slightly "hammy" taste and texture is fine. But I've never used a curing agent before in the recipe, just a high salt and sugar content.

[CarolinaQue]

These #'s seem kinda high in content to me. The package on the Prague #1 says that 1 lb of the powder will cure 400 lbs of meat. 6 TBL SPNS = 1/4 cup + 2 TBL Spns and 8 TBL SPNS = 1/2 cup. That seems high to me for only a gallon of water. Is this to much cure? I know that to much of it is not a good thing. Maybe I'll just stick with my original formula and reduce the kosher salt and use just a little of the curing salt for the color aspect?

[hamiltont]

I'm making buckboard bacon again, so a slightly "hammy" taste and texture is fine. But I've never used a curing agent before in the recipe, just a high salt and sugar content.
I would highly recommend pumping the Pork Butt with the brine. It will help insure complete saturation of the meat with the cure. You can pick up a Meat/Marinade Injector fairly reasonably priced at your local department or grocery store. I've even seen them at Menards... Something like this http://www.walmart.com/ip/Backyard-Grill-Cajun-Injector/19581276 Cheers!!!

[CarolinaQue]

I would highly recommend pumping the Pork Butt with the brine. It will help insure complete saturation of the meat with the cure. You can pick up a Meat/Marinade Injector fairly reasonably priced at your local department or grocery store. I've even seen them at Menards... Something like this http://www.walmart.com/ip/Backyard-Grill-Cajun-Injector/19581276 Cheers!!!


I have both types of injector's. A 1/2 gallon pump injector for comps and a small one like the Cajun Injector for home for these reasons. Thanks for the tip!

[hamiltont]

I have both types of injector's. A 1/2 gallon pump injector for comps and a small one like the Cajun Injector for home for these reasons. Thanks for the tip!
Perfect!! I've done quite a few hams using the following technique. In fact I currently have an 18 lb. ham curing right now. I use the dry cure ratio (Salt, Sugar & Pargue #1) for the weight of the ham and dissolve it in water. In this case it took about a quart of water to fully dissolve. I started with a pint. You'll find that there is a saturation point and the (Salt, Sugar & Pargue #1) will not dissolve completely. Just keep adding water a little at a time until it all dissolves. The object here is to dissolve it with the least amount of water. Then pump the ham completely. Then the ham goes into a ziploc bag along with any cure that ran out during the injection. The XL ziploc bags work great for these big hams. Rule of thumb is 2.5 days per inch radius. So if the ham is 8" at it's thickest height that's 4" times 2.5 days or 10 days in the brine. I flip the ham every day during this time. Hope this helps some. Cheers!!!

[Phrasty]

I use 60 grams of pink salt to a gallon with success. That's just over 2oz.

Cheers

[CarolinaQue]

Thanks Phrasty!!!

Here's what I did. I brought 3 quarts of water, 1 quart of apple cider and 2 cups of OJ to a rolling boil. I then added 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of pickling salt (it dissolves faster than regular kosher and I'm trying to get rid of it), a 1/4 cup of regular Kosher and 2 Tablespoons (came to 1 oz by weight) of pink salt and a tablespoon of ground ginger.

Brought it back to a rolling boil, reduced it to a simmer and added a cut up onion, about 10 clooves of smashed garlic, a few bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, broken up star anise, black cardamon pods, whole peppercorns, corriander seeds, some juniper berries and allspice berries.

It simmering right now for about another 20 minutes. then I'll take it off of the heat for about an hour before putting it into the fridge over night. I'll inject and submerge the boneless butts tomorrow and leave them in unti Tuesday when I'll smoke them.

Like I said, I'm interested in the curing salt more for the color and a bit of the unique flavor it gives, but not so much for the full cure process that it's normally used for.

I'll keep those interested posted with pics after and compare them to some pics of buckboard bacon that I've done with out a curing agent.

Thanks again for all of the replies!!! Just proving once again why this place is so awesome!!!