Bright pink spot on belly after curing--look right? ***PIC***


 
Monty House

Monty House

TVWBB Pro
Not sure why this happened. This piece was not crushed by something either. The rest of the belly piece looks like what I've always gotten before after curing. Anyone seen this before?

pinkbaconspot2.jpg
 
OK, I went through all the chunks, and, while they aren't as pronounced as this one, other pieces show some small bright spots. I'm guessing they're not fully cured yet....which is a surprise to me, given that 7 days has always done it for me in the past. Refrig temp around 38. Flipping every two days in 2-gal ziplocs. :confused:
 
I have the seen areas like this as well, I've always eaten them, and I'm still alive. What you do not want to see, is large grey areas. Then you need to give your meat more time before it is fully cured. The bright areas occur only when you use pink salt or something similar. I've never seen them if you are using only regular salt.
 
Last edited:
It's not difficult to explain at all. The red color is a nitrite/nitrate- reaction with the meat, just as the smoke ring you get when smoking low and slow.
One possible explenation to the bright spots can be a higher nitrite- concentration in that particular area, simply because the nitrite is not evenly distributed in the salt?
 
I did not mean to imply anything else, either.
As mentioned, I've also seen this reaction, and I can not offer anything else than pure speculations. Maybe that area of meat reacts stronger for a reason to nitrites. I do not know. I do know that it is not dangerous in any way.
 
Nitrite burn (excess nitrite) is usually olive green in color, it's something entirely different.
The bright areas seen above are where the meat hasn't oxidized yet because it's touching the bag in that spot, etc.
Again, it's nothing to worry about.


~Martin
 
MartinF DiggingDogFarm said:
Nitrite burn (excess nitrite) is usually olive green in color, it's something entirely different.
The bright areas seen above are where the meat hasn't oxidized yet because it's touching the bag in that spot, etc.
Again, it's nothing to worry about.


~Martin
Click to expand...

that was my guess. Differences in exposure to air.
 
I did not weigh out my ingredients when I made this bacon.....until today (with my new scale). I used dry measurements. So, I went back and dry-measured it again, then weighed. Would appreciate your opinions on a) what I'm seeing and b) whether you believe my nitrate level is within appropriate bounds.

Morton's Pickling Salt (2 cups or 32 Tbsp) 630 gm
C&H baker's sugar (1 cup or 16 Tbsp) 213 gm
Pink salt (5 1/3 Tbsp) 79 gm

I went by 2:1 salt:sugar ratio plus the contention that the pink salt should be 10% of the total (I realize this is supposed to be weight, not dry measures). My sugar weight is obviously not 1/2 of the salt. When I used Martin's calculator and held constant for 630 gm of salt, it suggested 356 gm of sugar (at a 1% level). It also recommended 89 gm of pink salt. I then manually entered the desired sugar level which got me down to my sugar weight of 213 gm, which turned out to be slightly less than than .6%. Also, the suggested Cure #1 amount of 89 gm did not change.

I've eaten very little of the bacon; it's all frozen. The samples I did have seem to taste fine with normal color. May have been a little "hammy," but I remember enjoying it. Do you see anything that I should be concerned about? I appreciate the advice.
 
Monty House said:
I had three full bellies which, in the box, weighed 45#. I used that much because it was easy to use the 2:1 cups salt:sugar ratio. I knew it was way more than I needed.
Click to expand...

Yep, about 242 ppm nitrite, way more than the recommended maximum safe level.
The USDA limits nitrite to 120 ppm in commercial bacon, most home bacon curers use the standard rule-of-thumb, one level teaspoon of cure #1 (6.25% nitrite pink salt) to 5 lbs. of meat, which equates to 156 ppm nitrite.

~Martin
 
MartinF DiggingDogFarm said:
Yep, about 242 ppm nitrite, way more than the recommended maximum safe level.
The USDA limits nitrite to 120 ppm in commercial bacon, most home bacon curers use the standard rule-of-thumb, one level teaspoon of cure #1 (6.25% nitrite pink salt) to 5 lbs. of meat, which equates to 156 ppm nitrite.

~Martin
Click to expand...

Thanks. Re: the calculator, any idea why the 89 gm Cure #1 result I got?
 
The amounts I listed above (i.e., 2 cups salt, 1 cup sugar, 5.33 tbsp Cure #1) were applied as follows: 1/4 cup from that mixture added to 1/2 cup brown sugar per every 5 lbs of pork belly. Would that presumably lower your 242 ppm calcuation, Martin? Thank you.
 
Here are the results from the calculator for 45 lbs. (20411.55 grams) of bacon, 156ppm nitrite, 2% salt and 1% sugar.
50.95 grams of cure #1.

WIMCXnK.png


What did you enter into the calculator?


~Martin
 
Last edited:
Monty House said:
The amounts I listed above (i.e., 2 cups salt, 1 cup sugar, 5.33 tbsp Cure #1) were applied as follows: 1/4 cup from that mixture added to 1/2 cup brown sugar per every 5 lbs of pork belly. Would that presumably lower your 242 ppm calculation, Martin? Thank you.
Click to expand...

If you used it that way, it's closer to safe territory.
That's approximately 13.32 1/4 cups of mix.
79 grams of cure #1 divided by 13.32=5.94
5.94 grams of cure#1 per 5 lbs. of meat.
5.94 x 6.25%=0.37125 gram of nitrite.
0.37125 x 1,000,000=371250
371250/5 lbs.(2267.95 g.)=163.69 ppm nitrite.


~Martin
 
MartinF DiggingDogFarm said:
Here are the results from the calculator for 45 lbs. (20411.55 grams) of bacon, 156ppm nitrite, 2% salt and 1% sugar.
50.95 grams of cure #1.

WIMCXnK.png


What did you enter into the calculator?


~Martin
Click to expand...
I backed into the meat quantity that would equal 630 gm of salt. After doing so, the calculator showed 356 gm of sugar required for a 1% value and 89 gm of Cure #1. Since I had only used 213 gm of sugar, I accordingly decreased the desired sugar level down to .5966% which equaled 213 gm. However, when I did so, the Cure #1 amount remained constant at 89 gm.

I wanted to reiterate that I only used approx. 1/2 of the initial 3+ cup salt/sugar/Cure mixture for what ended up being I believe between 25-30 lbs of pork belly. Each 2 gallon bag held two 2.5 lb. hunks; I used 1/4 cup of the mixture and 1/2 cup brown sugar for each 2 gallon bag containing approx. 5 lbs. of meat. I had six 2 gallon bags with meat, or close to 30 lbs.

Thanks again for your help.
 
Last edited:
Monty House said:
I backed into the meat quantity that would equal 630 gm of salt. After doing so, the calculator showed 356 gm of sugar required for a 1% value and 89 gm of Cure #1. Since I had only used 213 gm of sugar, I accordingly decreased the desired sugar level down to .5966% which equaled 213 gm. However, when I did so, the Cure #1 amount remained constant at 89 gm.

I wanted to reiterate that I only used approx. 1/2 of the initial 3+ cup salt/sugar/Cure mixture for what ended up being I believe between 25-30 lbs of pork belly. Each 2 gallon bag held two 2.5 lb. hunks; I used 1/4 cup of the mixture and 1/2 cup brown sugar for each 2 gallon bag containing approx. 5 lbs. of meat. I had six 2 gallon bags with meat, or close to 30 lbs.

Thanks again for your help.
Click to expand...

Changing the sugar percentage will never change the cure #1 quantity.
The meat quantity (78.7185 lbs.or 35700 grams) and the ppm were the same, so the quantity of cure #1 remains the same.
So, you originally did something like this......

59OY2j2.png


~Martin
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top