Making back bacon


 

Len Dennis

TVWBB Diamond Member
Making back bacon question7

I've got 2 loins 10.5 lb total. Ruhlman's b.b. recipe calls for 10g #1 cure per litre of water. I can cover these loins with 4 litres of water with room to spare. So 40 g of #1 in 4 litres water (plus sugar, salt, etc).

BUT every other recipe say 20g #1 for 4 litres. I tried DiggingDog's s.s. but that gives me 28 g based on 200 ppm so I'm really confused.

It's been in brining since Wed noon in 4 litres and 40g #1.

Q1: is the #1 cure quantity too high for 4 litres of water? I can use a larger container if this needs to be diluted.

Q2: recipe calls for 3-4 days brine (plus 1 to 'dry' in fridge). Too long? Too short? I did not inject.

edit-->I've also seen recipes that say ~120 gm in a gallon (3.8l) of water.
 
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Recipe I used for 10.5 lb of loin

4 litres water
180 gm kosher salt
40 gm #1
250 gm brown sugar
spices

This brine goes 2" above meat

Temp is 33F.
 
A liter of water is 1000 grams, and you have about 4750 grams of meat. So, total weight of 8750g. You have 180g kosher salt + another 37.5g salt in your cure 1 for a total of 217.5g salt in your cure.

This is about 2.5% salt total, if you let it cure long enough to reach equilibirium I think it's going to taste great for you. I prefer bacon with 2.5-3% salt by weight. Let us know how it comes out!
 
Tks for the vote of confidence Dave! Been waiting all day to hear from you ;)

But my post was primarily concerned with the amount of #1 I used (or should have used). I found that probably 95% of the sites I visited say my 40 gm/4 litres is fine. My concern was with Diggindog's apparent difference in calculation result.
 
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Diggindog/Martin is a member of this site so maybe he'll see this and weigh in. I thought his cure calculator was customizable. If you're calculating for PPM of nitrite that's one thing. I try to calculate for salt content mostly.

According to the USDA the max ppm for immersion cured bacon is 120 ppm, not 200. For the dry cured method the max ppm is 200.

So if you do the math here you have 2.5g of nitrite in an 8750g cure, or 285PPM (based on 2.5g/8750g*1,000,000). I wouldn't really worry about this, but it looks like Martin's number of 20g#1 for 4 litres would be preferable, so long as you adjust your total salt content.
 
My only conern was that i didnt want too much cure for the water and meat combo. Salt I can hopefully wash out if the end product is too salty.

Looks like ruhlman's #'s are off. There are so many variations in recipes out there it's difficult to know which is right.

Thanks for coming back Dave.
 
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Turned out great. Brined for 4 days. Nice & pink. Rinsed once, cut off an end slice & fried it up [prior to smoking tomorrow].

Bit on the salty side but to be expected with no sides. I think I'll pass on the juniper berries next time [or use fewer].

In the fridge now: drying for ~18 hours.

Happy camper for 1st attempt :D
 
Turned out great. Brined for 4 days. Nice & pink. Rinsed once, cut off an end slice & fried it up [prior to smoking tomorrow].

Bit on the salty side but to be expected with no sides. I think I'll pass on the juniper berries next time [or use fewer].

In the fridge now: drying for ~18 hours.

Happy camper for 1st attempt :D

Sounds great Len.
 
Dried overnight. Did a 2 hr smoke with apple. Avg'd 200-250o-->internal temp went to 140. Pleasantly surprised that the juniper really mellowed out and it was decidedly less salty after the 18 hr rest and 2hr smoke.

Cooling off in the fridge overnight and then on to the Hobart for nice uniform slices. Then freeze those on wax paper on cookie sheets and then into freezer bags. I'm set till the fall.

A winner in the end!
 
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