Martin,
Thanks for the input. I appreciate the help in understanding all of this. Just so I am clear on how to do the calculation.
If I have 4000g of water, 20g of cure #1, 100g of salt, 20g of sugar, 10g of spices, and 2000g of beef:
Pickle weight = 4150g
Meat weight = 2000g
Sodium Nitrite weight = 1.25g
This equates to a 203.25 PPM of Sodium Nitrite, which is slightly higher than the 200PPM allowed (I made up the weights of the ingredients for this example). If I need double the amount of brine to cover the meat in my brine container I would just double all of the ingredients. Is this all correct?
No, the formula for standard pumped brine is on on page 19.
The calculation is the same for immersion, but % pick-up is used instead of % pump.
ppm nitrite = g. nitrite X % pump X 1,000,000 ÷ g. pickle/brine
g. nitrite = g. cure #1 X 6.25%
In your example; g. pickle/brine = g. water + g. cure #1 + g. salt + g. sugar + g. spices
20 g. cure #1 X 6.25% = 1.25 g. nitrite
1.25 x 10% pump x 1,000,000 = 125,000
125,000 ÷ 4150 g. pickle/brine=
30.120 ppm nitrite
Remember, it's assumed that just 10% of the pickle/brine enters the meat, in this case by pumping and brining.
So if the beef in your example is either pumped or immersed at 10%, the amount of ingoing nitrite is only
~30 ppm.
A very low amount of nitrite, as I pointed out upthread.
If I have 2000g of meat, and want to use your meat:brine ratio of 4:1 than I would need 500g of water. I would then calculate the amount of cure #1, salt, sugar, etc for the 500g of water (to keep sodium nitrite under 200PPM), then multiply by however much I need to cover my meat in the brine?
This is all assuming a injecting a portion of the brine into the meat, then immersing the meat in the brine for 7 days or so?
No.
You need to add together the weight of the meat and the weight of the water.
That equals 2500 g.
You can then use the calculator on my site to determine the cure, salt and sugar amounts required for a desired level of each.
We'll use 200ppm nitrite, the recommended maximum in this case.
2% salt and 1% sugar.
Inject half the brine and place in a plastic bag with the remaining brine, remove all the air, brine for about 7 days turning at least a couple times a day.
I hope that makes sense.
~Martin