need a little help with cure ratio

[love the smoke]

Man me and math are not on speaking terms (are we ever ?)

Ok doing a ham with Country Brown Sugar Cure from Sausage Maker Inc

Recipe for 25 lbs of ham
2 pounds brown sugar cure to 2.5 gals water

well my ham is 4 pounds so ????

how much cure and how much water

LTS

[squirtthecat]

I get .32 pounds of cure and .4 gallons of water..

[squirtthecat]

Maybe 1/3rd pound of cure and 1/2 gallon of water would be easier to measure out?

[love the smoke]

found a pretty neet converter on line

http://www.ez-calculators.com/measurement-conversion-calculator.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/bc/incredible/weightmeasure.html

[Habanero Smoker]

For your purposes, don't worry about the total weight the 2 pounds of the mix can cure, what is important is the proper amount of cure for the volume of water you will be using.

I would not use less then an half gallon of water to brine with, but you may need more depending on what size container you will be using. You have 5 half gallons in 2.5 gallons, so 1/5 of 32 ounces = 6.4 ounces of cure per half gallon. For 4 pounds of muscle, you may only need 3 - 4 days of curing.

[KevinG]

I came up with the same as squirt - here's how you do it in case you're wondering.

4/25 = .16 (your ham weight divided by recipe ham weight = ratio)

.16 * 2 = .32 (ratio * recipe brown sugar cure = your brown sugar cure)

.16 * 2.5 = .4 (ratio * recipe water = your water)

But I also agree with Habs - you got to work with the container you're using. All you need to do is put your ham in the container, fill it with water so it just covers the ham by 1 inch, remove the ham, and measure the water. Than you can calculate from there.

[Habanero Smoker]

I use Sausage Maker's Maple Cure for my hams; the only premixed cure that I use. It has a same cure to water ratio as Country Brown Sugar Cure. You are using a wet brine (pickle) for curing, and for this situation the weight of the meat is not important, and doesn't have to be considered. The volume of water does not have to be in correlation to the weight of the meat. What is important is the cure mix to water ratio, the length of cure time - which the weight (mass) does matter, and the temperature it is cured at.

I would make it simple so that there are no errors and use .5 gal. water + 6.4 oz of cure; if you want to break it down further you can use 1 qt. water + 3.2 oz cure.

[love the smoke]

Thanks Everyone

Me and math don't get along to well so this explains it well. Kevin G thanks for telling me HOW to do it, now I can figure out for myself next time. Habs, great minds must think alike Maple ham cure is the only premix I have also besides this tryal of country brown sugar. Thanks for the explanation guess I got thrown off when they started talking about injecting the ham 10% of its weight with cure.

Anyway THANKS again EVERYBODY

LTS

[Habanero Smoker]

With a ham only 4 pounds you don't need to inject. You can if you want, but decrease the cure time. I have to reiterate, there is no need to do all that math. Use it in the amounts I have posted. I've been using the Maple Cure for many years in the amount that I have posted and it works out great. To make measuring easier; after I know how much water is needed to cover the meat, I will increase the water to the next even quart.