Bacon dry cure quantity delima

[Ron Frost]

I am making my first attempt at bacon and using the Charcuterie book recipe as a guide. I have a fresh 10 pound pork belly that I have been curing in the fridge since last Saturday. In the book it recommends 1/4 cup or 25 grams of dry cure per 3 - 5 pounds of meat. A little later it says to use 50 grams per 3 - 5 pounds of meat. I always use 28 grams = 1 ounce as a conversion so I am thinking 56 grams of cure per 3 - 5 pounds? I added only 50 grams to start with and by Sunday evening it did not appear to be giving off much liquid (it is in a big 2 gallon zip lock bag). I then noticed the difference in recommended quantities of cure so I added another 60 grams to the original 50 grams of cure and shook it around in the bag. This seems to be a very sparse amount for that much meat. I recently saw a blog from Ruhlman that recommends 5% of the total belly weight as a recommended amount of cure so (10 lbs. * 16 ozs. * 28 g) * .5 (5%) = 2,240 grams? That is way more than I have added (only about 110 grams) and it still does not look cured and is not giving up much liquid after 4 days. Maybe 1 or 2 cups of liquid at most.

Should I leave it alone? Add more cure? Any input would be appreciated.

 

[MartinF DiggingDogFarm]

Wow!!!! They make it MUCH more complicated and confusing than it needs to be!

Was it this mix of theirs?

Basic Dry Cure, from Charcuterie.....

1 pound/450 grams kosher salt
8 ounces/225 grams sugar
2 ounces/50 grams pink salt​

Combine, mix and store in an air tight container indefinitely.​

If so, that amount of cure mix (26 ounces) with that amount of pink salt (2 ounces) is enough to cure 50 lbs. of meat at 156ppm nitrite.

So, the correct amount of cure mix pure pound of meat is (26/50=0.52 ounce or 14.74 grams)

Something to note though, the amount of liquid released isn't a good indicator of how well something is curing because it can vary widely.

~Martin

 

[Ron Frost]

That is the recipe I am using. They recommended 2 oz of the mixed basic dry cure for each 3 - 5 pounds of meat which is what I used.

Wow!!!! They make it MUCH more complicated and confusing than it needs to be!

Was it this mix of theirs?

Basic Dry Cure, from Charcuterie.....

1 pound/450 grams kosher salt
8 ounces/225 grams sugar
2 ounces/50 grams pink salt​

Combine, mix and store in an air tight container indefinitely.​

If so, that amount of cure mix (26 ounces) with that amount of pink salt (2 ounces) is enough to cure 50 lbs. of meat at 156ppm nitrite.

So, the correct amount of cure mix pure pound of meat is (26/50=0.52 ounce or 14.74 grams)

Something to note though, the amount of liquid released isn't a good indicator of how well something is curing because it can vary widely.

~Martin