Cure confusion

[bundy]

Bought some High Country Seasoning today that came with a cure pkg. It says use 5/8 tsp per 5# and it says on the cure pkg 6.25% sn, so I have always used 1 tsp per 5#, Kind of confussing for a NEWBY. ??? ??? ???

[punchlock]

I just looked this up and it does say 5/8 of a tsp? Who uses 5/8 of a tsp as a measure in a recipe? You would think they would have given a measure by weight.

Sorry can't help but I am sure someone will be along shortly...

[punchlock]

I just did a measure with my scale and using my 1/4 tsp (it's the smallest one I have) I get 4 grams.

Hope this helps and I hope you have a kitchen scale.

[Sailor]

I think I would use 1 tsp of cure per 5lbs

[BuyLowSellHigh]

I have no experience with Hi-Country seasonings or kits, but the chemist in me had to check this out.  It does seem weired.  From their instructions you're right - they publish 5/8 tsp of the Cure per 5# when used with their seasoning kit.  Separately, they sell their Cure Packets (18 g each), which appear to be the same as they incldue in their kits.  For the Cure Packets alone they recommend the usual equivalent of 1 tsp per 5 # of meat) -- one packet (18 g) per 15 lbs (one tsp of Cure # 1 / pink salt is 5.6 g (~ 6).
http://www.hicountry.com/store/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16551&category_id=268

One thing I notice is that their kits include ascorbic acid (good old vitamin C) as an ingredient.  Ascorbic acid is a common cure accelerator used at ~ 500 ppm in combination with sodium nitrite.  MY WAG is that in their kits they have intentionally reduced the recommended amount of sodium nitrite because of the inclusion of ascorbic acid.  If you could measure 5/8 tsp you would be getting about 100 ppm of sodium nitrite.

You might want to call them and ask  (1-800-433-3916)

punchlock - I'm curious what you were measuring.  For Cure # 1 / pink salt, 1 tsp is about 6 g.  If you're using a fairly high capacity kitchen scale (like 9-13 lb), it may have trouble with accuracy at very small amounts.

[Hoss]

This may help.

http://www.csgnetwork.com/cookmeasuretable2.html

Edit:  This is pretty good too.

http://www.kitchenmath.com/

[Habanero Smoker]

Hoss;

Thanks for your links, but the first link is good for most liquid conversions. The second is just to generic to use for a specific items. For example one ounce of ground sage would take up more volume then one ounce of salt.

A better type of calculator(s) to use would be the type located at the following link.
Calculators

[Hoss]

And thanks for that one Hab.  Was looking for something like that and couldn't find it.  Bookmarked now though.

[punchlock]

punchlock - I'm curious what you were measuring.  For Cure # 1 / pink salt, 1 tsp is about 6 g.  If you're using a fairly high capacity kitchen scale (like 9-13 lb), it may have trouble with accuracy at very small amounts.

Yes your right that is the kind of scale I have, it's good to know about the accuracy...

[BuyLowSellHigh]

punchlock - I'm curious what you were measuring.  For Cure # 1 / pink salt, 1 tsp is about 6 g.  If you're using a fairly high capacity kitchen scale (like 9-13 lb), it may have trouble with accuracy at very small amounts.

Yes your right that is the kind of scale I have, it's good to know about the accuracy...

For measuring small amounts, such as cures, spices, yeast, etc., I have one of these - cheap and works well.