Calculating Cure for Brines

[Saber 4]

Is there a chart or list that explains how to calculate the amount of Cure 1 to use in a wet cure or brine? Is it based on the meat weight or the amount of liquid? I can find the info on the different cures for sausage making and the Cure 1 package tells you how much to use for dry curing.

[beefmann]

for a wet cure there is a formula you can  use though max ppm is 200 ppm insta cure # 1 to a  gallon of liquid,,, makes it  just a  tad over 4 ounces,,, by weight,,,  most use 3 ounces  by weight per gallon along  with a few  other selected ingredients such as

brown sugar
garlic powder
onion powder
ground pepper
ground mustard
ground nutmeg
ground all spice

in place of water
apple juice
apple cider
some other beverage such as beer, pineapple juice cranberry juice etc.

[devo]

You also have to take into consideration if your going to pump or not.
Tenpoint5 has a good explanation for a ham he did.

http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?799-A-Tenpoint5-Ham-aka-Hamzilla

[Saber 4]

Thanks guy's I knew somebody would have the answers I needed.

[Habanero Smoker]

As Beefman pointed out, there is a formula that you can calculate how much cure you want in a brine, based on the ppm's of sodium nitrite you want to cure with, or to calculate the ppm's that are in a recipe that provides the amount of cure. But you don't need to use the formula to calculate the cure. You can use a range of cure amounts and stay within safe guidelines; anywhere from 50 ppm (minimum) to 200 ppm (maximum). It mainly depend on your taste and color you are looking for. For the minimum 1.5 ounces of cure #1 per gallon of liquid. This will provide food safety, give you color, but very little if any "cure" taste. For the maximum 4.2 ounces per gallon of liquid; which gives you better color and the maximum "cure" flavor. I prefer to use 3 - 3.2 ounces of cure #1 per gallon of liquid. This amount gives me a nice color, and the taste that I am looking for. You may come across recipes that use more then 4.2 ounces of cure #1 per gallon, as with the cured ham recipe in Kutas' book, but his is still considered a safe level, because during the cooking process enough of the residual nitrites in the meat are broken down during the cooking process to bring the ppm's back to safe levels.

Most recipes for pumping will state 10% - 12% brine of the green weight, and you may not get much more pumped in than that. Using 10% makes it much easier to calculate how much brine to inject. You are suppose to use the weight of the brine, and not just use the weight of water, but on a small scale you can take short cuts, and calculate it based on water, such as 1 fluid cup of water = 8 ounce in weight. So if you have a 10 lb. ham, that is 160 ounces x 10% = 16 ounces; 16 ounces = 2 cups of brine, and that is how much you will need to inject. Or if you want to maintain the accuracy of how much to pump, you can weigh out the brine.

[Saber 4]

Thanks for the details it will help a bunch.