Coppa Bacon

bluetang said:

Thanks Wayne, I like that formula big time. The page is 334 in my book. It calls for 4 tablespoons per 5 qts. I just now weighed 4 tablespoons and got 75g. Divide by 5 equals 15, 15x4 = 60 g/gallon. Check out his pastrami brine on pg 327. It calls for 2/3 cup cure for 5 qts. Dang!
I do believe I’ll be using the formula you provided, thanks for speaking out!

Click to expand...

Now that we have a recipe to work with, it's easier to reverse engineer it and see how the cure #1 amount comes into play. Ry's Capicola recipe is based on the weights below:
25 pounds of meat
5 quarts of water (22 pounds) plus additional ice if needed
And maybe 3/4 pound of salt and sugar

Let's say there is 48 pounds of mass in the brining bucket. And using the 1.13 g/lb of total weight, this gives us 54 grams of cure #1 (at 156 ppm) or 70 grams of cure #1 (at 200 ppm). This means that your calculation of 62 grams of cure #1 makes more sense.... but let's go one step further. Ry is only curing these 3 to 4 pound butts for 3 days. This means that the recipe is workable as Ry and Ben had intended when it was created and tested in the '80's. The important factor is the 3 days of brine time - a stronger brine needs less time.

With a lower strength curing brine, the brine time can be stretched out to 7, 10, 12, 14 days probably with better results. Of course, changing the amount of water or meat, would mean an adjustment in the amounts of salt, sugar as well as cure #1. It's simple enough to decide what percentages of salt and sugar you like (say 2% salt and 1.5% sugar) and this way all your meats come out the same.

All that said. Check out my article on Pop's Brine. It's a different way to get to the same place.

https://playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com/1999/07/pops-brine-universal-curing-brine.html

Man does that look tasty Mike. Way to go!!!

Chris

Mike, that looks just off the carts awesome! I'd love a plate of that goodness, day or night.