Red, Just finished reading the paper and it answered all of my questions. It also explained why the canned Polish hams we used to get 60 years ago were so very good.

.25% cure#1 calculated against the total meat works out to 156 PPM. A little less seems to be effective for taste and appearance. I know that as little as 50PPM will influence the color of the dark meat in chicken and turkey.

Thank you.

Does anyone here know the lower effective level of nitrite?

Just for what it may be worth for my bacon from Butt slabs I use 3% salt and .3% cure#1 for my dry rub/cure, sugar and syrup are optional extras and I usually plan those as half as much as the salt.

Thank you Maxell!

Slicing bacon with a sharp knife is easy when the bacon is cold and properly dry.

my tablet is paper but after that small detail we work the same way.

Everyone has strengths and knowledge none of us have complete knowledge. In the case of Chuckwagon and Ducky there is a strong knowledge of microbiology and chemistry and both of them are very competent sausage makers. There are many others here that are also excellent sausage makers. In our parish ...

Mark you could poach a small piece and check for omissions.

Can't afford bellies. I buy the butts without the skin and carve out a slab and cure that. at less than $2 it is very good bacon.

Today I made 3 kilograms of chunk turkey ground chicken sausage. Fried a couple of test patties and thought they needed salt. They DID! I had slipped a decimal point and used 1.5 grams/kilogram instead of 15 grams/kilogram. I had not yet stuffed any.

Thanks! You can cut the slab from the skin side of the butt. It usually come in at about 2.5 to 3 pounds.

Rather sad to see that some people can't be civil in their discontent.

If you want a slab of bacon you can make a pretty good substitute with a skin side slab from a Butt as I usually do.