Curing salt weight and cure # 1

[A Kokkinos]

Hi to all. I will cure my first piece of pork belly today and I have a last question - possibly a little stupid, and apologies for that.
Assuming a 2 kg slab then I will need 5gr of cure # 1. 93.75% of the 5 gr is salt, or about 4.7 gr.
Assuming a 1.0% salt content in the rub (I do not like salty food - I believe it does not allow other flavors to emerge), I would need 20 gr of salt.
So the stupid question: How much salt do I add: 20 gr or (20-4.7)gr when considering the salt content of the cure.

Thanks to all

Andreas

 

[Steve_A (Tatoosh)]

Do you have a recipe you are working from? You can check out MartinF's calculator that will figure amounts and consider the salt content of the cure as it does it. I like my pork belly bacon around 3.5 percent salt and the same for sugar. Martin likes less, I think he said 2.5 percent was his standard. Also, do you plan to do your pork belly with the skin removed? Most folks do, but not all.

Check out the Calculator --> Here


One of the things I do to limit the saltiness of my bacon is to rinse it, then soak in water for a couple of hours, changing the water once. I've never had much problem if I do that. I like salt, but my wife is much more sensitive to it and she doesn't complain as long as I do the rinse and soak routine.

 

[Steve Cole]

For a 2kg belly, you would use 5gr of cure (.3gr sodium nitrite + 4.7gr sodium chloride), PLUS 35gr Kosher salt, PLUS 20gr sugar. That is the %2 salt recipe. 2.5% salt level would use 45gr of Kosher salt.

The 1% recipe would use 15gr of Kosher salt, but I'd make sure it's ok to use that little of salt.

**I re-read the original post and understand the question now. MartinF's calculator takes all sodium chloride salt into consideration for a 1%, 2% or 2.5% cure recipe. You would add (20 -4.7) gr of Kosher salt for a 1% cure.