Very Old Farmers' Bulletins call for Saltpeter, can I use it?

[joe_indi]

My father bequeathed these to me long ago.
As a Rotarian he had a fellow Rotarian in the US mail him these bulletins in the early 60s
They all mention saltpeter as the curing salt
About 2 oz for 100 lbs of meat.
Is it ok to use saltpeter once in a way for the long dry cure that I want to do as given in one of these bulletins?

Cure Pork For Home Use 1957


Farmers' Bulletin 2138 1959


Farmers' Bulletin 1415 1924

[Bob K]

Jcflorida-
Your post was deleted in error could you please repost.
My apologies
Bob

And yes your calculations are correct. Mine was based on American cure #1 not pure nitrate

[jcflorida]

Bob,

No real need to re-post, I was just wondering if I was doing something wrong. Thanks for the response.

[Butterbean]

My mentor who got me started curing meat only used saltpeter. After his death I no longer had his expertise to fall back on and got away from using it. However, the more I learn the more I see he knew what he was doing and find myself using saltpeter in certain applications. From what I've gathered the use of it is not a bad thing but its overuse was the problem. I sure miss that man but I still have a pile of saltpeter he left me which I do use from time to time. Especially in large quantity brines.

[redzed]

I didn't see jc's deleted post, but that would be way way too much nitrate.

2oz = 56.6990462 grams, 100lbs = 45359.237grams

It means that the decimal is equal to 56.6990462 / 45359.237 = .00124999

For the PPM, multiply the decimal by a million: 0.00124999 * 1,000,000 = 1249 PPM

I would therefore not use that much KN03. What exactly are you making? What type of curing salt is available in India?

[joe_indi]

redzed

The only real curing salt that I can buy is Instacure or similar online through Amazon or, like I did once, I had a nephew in the US buy me some from Sausagemaker.com and bring it with him.
Potassium Nitrate is available in chemical stores but it is difficult to buy easily, with all the terrorist scare.
Fortunately I have some with me from long ago. I think it is still good because I made a bit of black gunpowder (wetted down and ground fine with sulfur and coal) and it worked.
It is 2 ounces of saltpeter for 100 pounds of meat. Not curing salt (Prague#2) which has about 6% Nitrate.
What I will do is take a picture of the exact page that shows the Salt, saltpeter and sugar required .
Maybe in a couple of hours.

Post Script:
I am not making anything specifically, but I have a few kilos of boneless meat from the hind leg and I thought I could try the old method of cure using potassium nitrate.

[Bob K]

I didn't see jc's deleted post, but that would be way way too much nitrate.

2oz = 56.6990462 grams, 100lbs = 45359.237grams

It means that the decimal is equal to 56.6990462 / 45359.237 = .00124999

For the PPM, multiply the decimal by a million: 0.00124999 * 1,000,000 = 1249 PPM

Just for the sake of discussion in dry cured whole muscle cuts the USDA does allow 625 PPM nitrite and 2187 PPM nitrate even though the amounts we normally use are much less, so the 1249 PPM nitrate in that recipe is safe.

Just for chuckles if you add cure #2 at the rate of 156 PPM nitrite, which is the amount that most recipes call for - you are only adding 26 PPm nitrate if the cure formula you have is 6% nitrite and 1% nitrate. Buts thats not comparing apples to apples in this conversation as the question is about pure nitrate.

[redzed]

Just for the sake of discussion in dry cured whole muscle cuts the USDA does allow 625 PPM nitrite and 2187 PPM nitrate even though the amounts we normally use are much less, so the 1249 PPM nitrate in that recipe is safe.

Only in America! In the European Union the limits for dry cured products range between 150-300 In Canada it's 200ppm. So for Joe's information, 200ppm is only 0.32 of an ounce in 100lbs of meat. So using today's world standards, 2 ounces per 100lbs is excessive. And I wonder who actually adds 2187ppm to their products in the US? I have made salami a number of times using pure nitrate and added 300ppm. Here is a good review of nitrite/nitrate use around the world:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... t_products

Just for chuckles if you add cure #2 at the rate of 156 PPM nitrite, which is the amount that most recipes call for - you are only adding 26 PPm nitrate if the cure formula you have is 6% nitrite and 1% nitrate.

Yes, very negligible. Therefore if you actually want the benefit from Cure #2 in dry cured products, you have to make sure it is the stuff with 4% nitrate.

[joe_indi]

Here is the chart



This was what my Dad noted down in his metric conversion

[redzed]

Is that a dry cure or brine cure?

[Bob K]

Only in America! In the European Union the limits for dry cured products range between 150-300 In Canada it's 200ppm.

I believe that only applies to commuted product although there are a lot of grey areas in the frozen lands regs.

Seems CA allows 1860 PPM nitrate for dry cure whole muscle?
In the production of slow cured meat products, sodium nitrate salt at a maximum input level of 20 g per 100 kg of meat products, i.e. 200 ppm, may be used in addition to the nitrite salts. An exception to the maximum level of use is permitted for dry rub cured meat products on racks. The maximum level of use permitted is 62 g of sodium nitrite salts and 186 g of nitrate salts per 100 kg of meat product.

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/food/archiv ... 0525354148

[joe_indi]

Is that a dry cure or brine cure?

It is a dry rub.