Brine strength changes

[ssorllih]

A concept that i have be struggling with for some time has been the question of qualitatively determining the amount of salt absorbed by a piece of meat in a brine. I think that I have had an epiphany today.
When we weigh ingredients for sausage we use metric system but when we mix a brine we use american weights and volumes. The brine table does give us percentages for salometer values. So the percentage of salt needed to make a brine of a given stregth is equal to grams per liter.
If you want 2% salt in a piece of meat that weighs one kilogram you want to absorb 20 grams of salt from the brine. You will then shift the percentage of salt in the brine and by checking brine strength with the salometer find the proper line on the table.

[el Ducko]

Now yer talkin'! Just don't forget our recent round-n-round about grams per liter of mixture and grams per liter of pure water (meaning, 100 grams of salt added to one liter of water equals more than a liter of solution, because the salt has volume too.)

Also: "metric units are our friends."

Start with a measured volume of brine solution and a measured salt concentration. (The easiest way to make one probably is to add the salt to less than a liter of water, dissolve, then add water until you reach one liter of total solution.)

End by measuring both the salt concentration AND the volume of solution left over. In both cases, volume of solution times percent concentration gives amount of salt. You calculate starting and ending amount of salt, subtract the two, and the difference is what was absorbed by the meat.

Also: sharing is good! (Yum.)

[ssorllih]

Thanks Russ. I think that we are getting closer.

[el Ducko]

Thanks Russ. I think that we are getting closer.

Of course, the best way is continued experimentation and keeping a record of results, something that you are really good at. Keep up the good work, Ross. ...and the sharing, which is much appreciated.

[IdaKraut]

Ross and E.D.:

I'm intrigued with your discussion. I think the problem is that each cut of meat will absorb salt differently and thus makes this difficult to calculate. When I brined my beef tongues and pork hocks and snouts, I used a brine that had 2% salt in water solution and I did not need to soak the meats to remove excess salt. I never checked the final brine strength since I don't have a salinometer. My taste buds told me the meats absorbed the equivalent of about 1.8% salt. Oh, I guess I also added cure #1 to the brine, so the actual salinity strength of the brine was higher than 2%. Plus I injected the tongues with the brine which probably increased the salt absorption somewhat.

Can either of you suggest a good salinometer to buy? My eyesight sucks so I prefer digital meters, but I did not find any that tests salinity that cost less than $400.

[ssorllih]

Ross and E.D.:

I'm intrigued with your discussion. I think the problem is that each cut of meat will absorb salt differently and thus makes this difficult to calculate. When I brined my beef tongues and pork hocks and snouts, I used a brine that had 2% salt in water solution and I did not need to soak the meats to remove excess salt. I never checked the final brine strength since I don't have a salinometer. My taste buds told me the meats absorbed the equivalent of about 1.8% salt. Oh, I guess I also added cure #1 to the brine, so the actual salinity strength of the brine was higher than 2%. Plus I injected the tongues with the brine which probably increased the salt absorption somewhat.

Can either of you suggest a good salinometer to buy? My eyesight sucks so I prefer digital meters, but I did not find any that tests salinity that cost less than $400.

Rudy, If your eyes are good enough to read a ruler then you can read a hydrometer with no difficulty. It is precisely because different meats and different cuts absorb differently that I am working in this direction. 4 pounds of loin has a much different shape and surface area than 4 pounds of bacon(belly) but when we make canadian bacon we want the level of salt to be close to the salt in slab bacon. If we can determine how much salt is removed from the brine we can know how much the meat has absorbed. We determine this by knowing the brine strength when we start and checking the brine strength periodically during the curing process.

[ssorllih]

A little progress. I have a 1 quart apothacary flask so my volumes are accurate.
at the start:
28 ounces of water. Add:
52 grams of salt- Brine strength 22°, Add:
10.8 grams cure#1 Brine strength 26°,
Volume is now 28.5 ounces.
Add:
60grams sugar brine strength 41°
Volume 30 ounces Add:
60ml lemon juice
120 ml water
Brine strength 34°
total liquid to make brine 1 liter
total volume of brine 1060 ml.
Meat: 1.875 kg.
Meat: 8 pieces chicken thighs bone in, skin on.

[IdaKraut]

Ross,

You're quoting ounces, ml, quarts, grams, degrees. This is was is confusing, at least to me. If you could keep everything metric and percentage, it would make it easier, at least for me.

[ssorllih]

Rudy, My apothacary is calibrated only in ounces. I recorded the volume to the lines on the flask. Degrees is the unit for expressing brine strength. The simple fact is that when I added 60 grams of salt it changed the lolume of liquid just marginally because the sodium ions and the chlorine ions from the salt fit into the spaces between the water molecules. You may note that the addition of the sugar changed the volume sunstatially more than the addition of the salt. I brought the finished brine to contain exactly one liter of water. I also noted that the finish brine had a volume of 1060 ml or 1.06 liters.
The added salt, cure and sugar are plainly percentages of one liter of lemon flavored water.
Thus 52 grams of salt equals .52% by weight
10.8 grams of cure#1 equals .108% by weight and
60 grams of sugar equals .60 % by weight
I have since added 2 grams of freshly ground black pepper. That will not alter the specific gravity of the brine.
In 24 hours I will sample the brine and measure the strength and report that.

[ssorllih]

It appears that I will need to have a reduction in brine strength of about 8 points to achieve 1.2% salt content in this weight of meat. The other calculation that I made indicates that this will yield 110 ppm nitrite absorption.

[el Ducko]

Be really, REEELY careful assuming that the itty bitty ions fit in without volume change. The problem is, depending on how finely a powder (like salt) is ground, the weight of salt will take up quite a different volume. With a powder, you talk about a bulk density because the void volume (the part of the salt which is NOT salt, strange as that sounds!). For a dramatic example, weigh a tablespoon of Kosher salt and a tablespoon of table salt. And nope, the ions DO take up room, so that's why there's a difference between grams per liter of solution and grams per liter of pure dissolving liquid.

So, let's do a couple of things which will make things simpler. (That way, you can invent other clever ways of messing the recipe up!)
1) Weigh your salt, sugar, pepper, etc. If your recipe is in teaspoons or another volume measurement, weigh a tablespoon and divide by 3 to determine weight per teaspoon. From then on, use weights instead of volume.
2) Weigh your liquids, too. That way, you know how much an ounce weighs, say. Or, you can convert from fluid ounces to liters or milliliters.
3) To make a solution, weigh in the solid first, then add enough solvent (usually water) to make up a the required volume of solution. This gets around the problem of the solid having its own volume (which cannot be ignored).
4) Use metric units where possible. If you can't measure in grams and milliliters, measure in whatever you have to, then convert.

For your computing enjoyment, here are a few of my favorite factors. There are a bazillion of 'em, by the way, so look 'em up on the internet if you need other units.
---454 grams per pound, or 2.2046 pounds per kilogram
---29.57 milliliters per US fluid ounce, or 33.81 US fluid ounces per liter (USA & Myanmar)
---28.41 milliliters per Imperial fluid ounce, or 35.2 Imperial fluid ounces (Real World)
Just multiply by the appropriate factor to convert to metric. ...then sanity check. And like the carpenters say, "Measure twice, cut once." (That would be "mix once," CW. Got that, Son?) (Attaboy.)

[ssorllih]

That is a good plan because adding 60 grams of salt did not increase the total volume as much as adding 60 grams of sugar increased the volume. In this case I treated the lemon juice the same as water and kept track of the total water.

[Baconologist]

Rudy,

There's no need to buy a salometer, unless, of course, you really really want one.

Relying on brine charts and salometers is a pretty antiquated way of doing things.

There's a much better method called Equilibrium Brining that eliminates nearly all the guesswork involved in other forms of brining and produces consistent predictable results.

Here's a good definition that I found......

Equilibrium brining is a method of brining that makes it impossible to over-salt or over-cure meat when using a reasonable percentage of salt and the proper amount of cure. In equilibrium brining the submerged meat and the cover brine (or cover brine and injected brine, in larger pieces of meat) act as a single system and are considered a single unit when calculating salt, sugar and cure amounts. Over time, the ingredients in the brine migrate into the meat until levels in the meat tissue and in the brine are balanced and equal via osmosis and diffusion. Therefore, the calculation for ingoing salt, sugar and cure is based on the weight of the meat plus the weight of the water or other liquid used in the brine.

So, as a simple example, if you like Canadian bacon that's about 2% salt, you'd add together the weight of the meat and the weight of the water for the brine and calculate 2% of the total. When all comes to equilibrium, your Canadian bacon will be ~2% salt. Pretty simple.

Equilibrium brining is nothing new, in fact, it's presented to a certain extent in the Process Inspectors' Calculations Handbook.

HTH

[ssorllih]

Bob , That would seem a good method but what is the time line for reaching equilibrium? It follows the question of traversing 50 % of the remaining distance in each time period. When do you get there?

[Baconologist]

Experience plays a part, but it doesn't take long to get the hang of it.

Brining time depends on the size, muscle fiber orientation and fat/connective tissue make-up of the meat, but size mostly.

The process can be sped up by injecting and/or adjusting the brine strength.
In the case of equilibrium brining, the smaller the quantity of water used for the brine, the stronger the brine will be.

You can, of course, measure the salt level in the brine to determine if the meat has absorbed all that it'll take, but that's not necessary with experience.

HTH