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Curing Tips

 


Making brine by using floating egg method

Floating egg is an old traditional trick to measure the strenghth of the brine. As
there is no reliable information on how the egg behaves when immersed in brine
and we have seen some sources saying  that 80 degrees brine is achieved
when the solution will just float an egg,  we have decided to research the
matter ourselves. Five different size fresh eggs were used: medium, large and extra
large white eggs and large and jumbo size brown eggs. The room temperature was
75 F (24 C) and the water temperature was 55 F (13 C). Morton Canning and
Pickling Salt was used and the strenghth of the brine was measured with
salinometer.



Eggs
10º
20º
30º
35º
40º
45º
50º
60º
70º
80º


Med-White
sinks
sinks
will bouncebut sinks
standing up on
the bottom
standing up
on the bottom
breakingsurface
above thesurface
tipping overon the surface
well on
a side
layingsideways


Large-White
sinks
sinks
will bounce
but sinks
standing up
on the bottom
standing up
on the bottom
breakingsurface
above the
surface
tipping over
on the surface
well on
a side
layingsideways


XLargeWhite
sinks
sinks
will bounce but sinks
floating 1" abovethe bottom
breakingsurface
breakingsurface
above thesurface
tipping over
on the surface
well ona side
layingsideways


Large-Brown
sinks
sinks
will bounce but sinks
floating 1" abovethe bottom
breakingsurface
breaking
surface
above thesurface
tipping over
on the surface
well on
a side
layingsideways


Jumbo-Brown
sinks
sinks
will bounce
but sinks
standing upon the bottom
standing upon the bottom
breakingsurface
breaking
surface
tipping over
on the surface
tipping
over
layingsideways



 



















10º
- 30º
45º
60º




Conclusion

Between 10º and 20º degrees the eggs layed  prety much on the bottom. At 30º
degrees they tried to float when touched with fingers. The first ones to
raise of the bottom were X-Large White and Large-Brown at 35º degrees. They were
also the first ones to break the surface at 40º degrees. The most defined point
was achieved at 45º degrees when all  eggs swam to the surface.

Why people make brine using egg as a meausuring device ? In some countries it
is not an easily obtainable item, some people does not know it exists and others
don't want to buy it. Salinometer is made of glass and can break at any time.
Though an egg does not provide accurate readings it at least can help in case of an
emergency.



When curing is completed it is advisable to
test the meat for color and saltiness by cutting a tiny piece and looking at the
cross cut section. It should have a uniform pink color. In case it is too salty,
place the meat in cold water in refrigerator for 12 hours and taste again. It is
much easier to fix the problem now than to eat sausage later with tears in our
eyes.

Amount of water needed
for making brine
about 40% of the
meat weight


Add an extra 24
hours of curing time if needed.


About 1 level teaspoon
of Instacure #1 is needed  for 5 lbs of meat ( there are 5-6 teaspoons
to 1 oz of cure) or 2.5 grams of cure
for 1 kilogram of meat


Keep seperately different types of meat (lean and fat pork, beef)) as some of
them might go again to the grinder to be ground through a different plate



Cured ground meat will be drier and harder to
stuff into casings because of the actoin of the salt. It is
advisable to dice the meat or grind it through as big a plate as possible (3/4 or ½) and after
curing regrind it with a proper size plate before stuffing.

The two premixed cures, Instacure #1, and
Instacure #2, are not interchangeable

Containers for curing are to be made of stainless steel,
food grade plastics or stone. Nitrates react with aluminum and it should not be
used for curing.

Add sugar only when curing at refrigerator temperature  -
38
40 F (4
5 C), otherwise it will start fermentation and will spoil the meat


Recommended wet curing temperatures
36
40 F ( 2
5 C)
at 90
95 % humidity

Brine tester is a great tool for checking salt content


Special additives are added by commercial plants to speed
up curing and to keep it at low temperatures (sodium ascorbate
vitamin C and
sodium erythorbate)


Dry
curing is the prefered method to cure meat for production of sausages.


When rubbing ham make sure the cure is rubbed into the
aitch bone joint and hock end of the ham.

Sodium nitrite is used where curing time will be short :
sausages, small pieces of meat

Sodium nitrate is used in production of meats  that will be
cured for at least 4 weeks
large hams or dry sausages

A characteristic quality of fresh cured meat is its grey
color wchich comes on minutes after adding nitrite to the meat.

Salt dissolves much faster in hot water and that is why
some people boil wet brine, then clarify it, and refrigerate it one day
before intended use

The cured meat will achieve its characteristic pink color
when heated to 130 F (54 C) or higher. Best curing color achieved by cooking
cured meat to 161  F ( 72 C) inside temperature

Sugar counters the harshness of the salt , improving the
flavor. Normally we add 3% sugar in the salt (that means that for  100 kg of
the mix
we have 97 kg salt and 3 kg sugar)

When making dry sausages dextrose is prefered
to sugar as it is more active in the fermentation process.

When using sodium ascorbate or sodium
erythorbate in curing solution, it should be used within 24 hours because their
reaction with nitrite will lower the nitrite level of the solution and its
effectiveness.

Phosphates should be used only with wet cure.
They increrase the water holding capacities of cured products.

The length of curing (dry cure method) is seven days per
inch of thickness of meat

For pumping solution it is advisable to have reading of 70

85, quite salty

For cover solution the solution might be reduced to 55
65
as the meat will be immersed in it for longer time

Pumped at 10% of meatłs weight
means a 10 lbs ham requires 1 lb of brine solution

It is advisable to place meat on a scale when pumping to
control amount of pumped in brine.

The 100 degrees brine
(saturated) equals 26.4 % salt and a useful formula for calculating percent
salt in a brine is to multiply the salimeter (brine tester) reading by 26.4
percent

For exammple the percent salt in 60 degrees  brine is :


60 x 26.4 percent (0.264) = 15.84 percent salt in brine


When doing those calculations we can ignore the influence
of the water temperature on salt. The reason being the fact that there is very
little difference for the amount of salt to dissolve at different temperatures,
for example at 32 F (0 C) 26.2 % of salt makes a saturated solution, and at 212
F (100 C) about 28.9 % salt will dissolve in water.

 
If it canłt be cured donłt smoke it
 
More information related to nitrates/nitrites can be found at the:

nitrates
 


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