Did I use too much salt in the brine??


 
P

Paul K

TVWBB Guru
So, I've had some pork loin and butts brining since last Sunday for my 1st attempt at Canadian bacon and a cured butt product (don't know how that'll turn out...). Based on this thread I bumped up my salt considerably to about 1 lb. The thing is, I've rinsed/soaked that meat for a couple of hours last night, changing the water every 30 mins. Cut a small piece off, fried it to sample the salinity, and kept soaking. Finally I put it all back in the brine container with fresh water and let it soak overnight. This morning it's still pretty salty. What's the solution; continue soaking or is this meat always going to be real salty? I'm also wondering will this soaking leach out the excess salt from the interior area of the pork loin after 5 days of brining?

Paul
 
Just pulled the loins and butt off the smoker. They look good. I ended up soaking about 6 additional hours; frying and sampling as I went. I figured eventually the salinity would drop. Won't actually sample them for real till tomorrow AM.
 
The problem of saltiness is entirely my fault. In the volley of posts and juggling a few other issues at the same time I made a mistake in calculations. I normally do not weigh ingredients for brine cures but in an effort to give you a weight rather than a measure I made a conversion based on numbers in various recipes and gave you the wrong figure because I plugged in the wrong numbers. It should have been 12 ounces of salt/gallon of water. This ratio will provide preservative effects (though the typical amount is actually much more--1.3 to 1.6 lbs/gallon for commercial pump brines; I find this too much). If preservative effects aren't desired you can go lower.

If the salinity is still too much post smoking you can try slicing then blanching the slices a few at a time in simmering water for a minute. Remove, pat dry, then fry.

I sincerely apologize. My bad. I owe you!
 
No problem at all. The Canadian bacon came out quite nice. The butt, which is basically now ham, was still salty, however I soaked a few individual slices this morning which took care of that. Like I wrote in the OP, this was an experiment and I learned a few things which was the objective. I always appreciate the advice.

Paul
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top