#1 cure question


 

Len Dennis

TVWBB Diamond Member
Ruhlman makes no reference when adding #1 cure to either cold or hot water. Most other recipes (not from you and me but "reference sources") say to add it to cold water.

Can't find a reason via google.

Anyone know why to cold (and not warm/hot)?
 
I don't have an answer for you, but just posting to say that I find curing to be the most ambiguous process that I have run across. Maybe I need a good book.

I hope you find your answers. I'll be following your thread.
 
like, to make a brine? I would use warm or hot water for ease of dissolution. Cold water takes a lot of stirring. I'm not aware that the salt or nitrites in Cure 1 are affected by the temperature of the water.
 
I add to a small amount of warm/hot water, stir like crazy, and then add cold/ice water to bring to full volume. Not sure it's right but I do it to dissolve the solids in the liquid.
 
I'm not aware that the salt or nitrites in Cure 1 are affected by the temperature of the water.

Here's one reference:
Prague powder #1 (aka Cure #1)
Prague powder #1 is 1 part (6.25%) sodium nitrite to 15 parts (93.75%) salt, plus anti-caking elements.

It is used for all curing other than dry.

You use 1 teaspoon for 5 pounds (2 kg) of meat, or 100g per 100 pounds (45 kg), and mix it with cold water to use.

http://www.cooksinfo.com/prague-powder

Another:
Dissolve all the above but the Prague powder in 1 gallon of warm water and let cool or add some ice. Dissolve the Prague powder in a small amount of cold water and add to the brine mixture.
http://www.deckchef.com/2012/04/curing-and-smoking-ham.html

I know I found other references on more "meat" oriented sites but as I said, Ruhlman makes no specific reference to adding it only to cold water.
 
A book I like about curing meat is "Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design" by Stanley, Adam and Robert Marianski.
 
Ya don't! JB says "cool place". Where I grew up there was a little corner grocer owned by a Jewish fellow (I add that comment because the best CB I've eaten has been in Jewish delis - Wolfies, etc) who made his own corned beef. We used to go there and buy a couple of punds and Charlie would haul this big plastic pail out from the back and stick his hand into the brine and say "This one OK?"? We'd nod if it was sufficiently marlbed to our liking and he would then start shaving off the beef. If he was in a good mood we would get a sample, :) He'd wrap it all up in brown butcher paper, we'd pay and race home to make sandwiches on rye bread which sadly seems to be hard to find any more. At least decent caraway infused rye bread.
 
Never brine with warm water.....cold brines increase water retention.
That was not the question. It was whether to let/add the initial cure dissolve in the hot brine or wait till it cooled to add the cure. I had read NEVER add cure to hot solution and that it was ok to add it to hot.

I added it to hot and it turned out just fine.
 
That was not the question. It was whether to let/add the initial cure dissolve in the hot brine or wait till it cooled to add the cure. I had read NEVER add cure to hot solution and that it was ok to add it to hot.

I added it to hot and it turned out just fine.

Woah...my mistake!
 

 

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