Homemade Sausage Making

I'm trying to refresh my memory on the use of cure #1. If you could double check my thinking below, that'd be great.

For adding directly to ground meat, it is 1 teaspoon (level) per 5# of ground meat.

Now to brine meat, it is 1/2 cup of cure per 1 gallon of water. Now the next question is the amount of salt added to the brine? I was watching The German Butcher on YouTube and in making his brine, he added the cure and then enough salt to bring it to 9% salinity as checked with a brine tester.

So I'm pretty clear on how to use the Cure #1. My only question has to do with the final desired brine salinity percentage. Is there a specific percentage of salinity you shoot for when brining meat chunks for the likes of liverwurst, blood sausage, head cheese, etc.?

The one teaspoon per 5 pounds sausage mince is about right.

In my opinion, 1/2 cup (assuming cure#1 at 6.25% sodium nitrite) is way too much for curing products like corned beef, bacon, or pork loin. I use this calculator for the amount of cure#1 in brine, and it's resulted in successful cure. https://genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/ ... lator.html

As to amount of salt, that depends on how salty you want the produce to be. Here's Dr. Blonder's salt brine calculator. https://genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/ ... lator.html

Both require that the meat be left in the brine long enough to reach equilibrium.

JC,
Your calculator works nicely. Anyone else use this calculator for their amounts?

Throw away your teaspoon and weigh the curing salt. For sausage you can add 2g to 2.5g per kg of meat batter. 2g/kg will give you 125ppm of nitrite which is enough to protect you from botulism and provide the colour and flavour. 2.5g/kg will result in a ppm of 156 which is the legal limit in the US.

A 9% brine means that there is 9% salt in the solution. To make this you add 90g of salt to 1 litre (1000ml). I usually brine my hams and loins in an 8% solution. As far as adding cure #1, I first prepare a mixture that is the same composition as a 0.6% European curing salt. I simply add 100g of Cure#1 to 900g of salt. To make an 8% brine I add 80g of this mixture to 1 litre of water. 8% brine is around 30 salometer degrees, Read the section on brining and everything will be clear:
https://www.meatsandsausages.com/hams-other-meats/hams

Thanks redzed, the article you pointed me to does explain it fully.

redzed wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 30, 2019 06:23

a 0.6% European curing salt. I simply add 100g of Cure#1 to 90g of salt

Redzed, did you mean 900 grams of salt (or 10 grams of cure#1)? 100g cure#1 to 90g salt is over 3% sodium nitrite, or am I missing something?

I guess I’m up in the air too until we hear back from redzed.

redzed wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 30, 2019 06:23

I simply add 100g of Cure#1 to 90g of salt.

it is typo - it should be 100 g cure#1 to 900 g of salt. (doing same way for years).

OOPS! Thanks jc for catching that. I corrected my earlier post. I'm currently in Vegas and wrote that last night after a crazy day of Black Friday shopping.