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bacon cure questions
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2Fategghead
Posts: 9,624
Soon I want to cure a pork belly. Tomorrow I will get a side to cure and smoke for bacon.
I have more than 2 boxes of High Mountain bacon cure to use.
I also have a bag of Tender Quick.
I have been reading over past posts and recently found Michael Ruhlman's blog http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2.html and I have been looking it over.
Here is my question. Can I use tender quick in place of pink salt in this recipe?
—Mix the following together in a small bowl:
2 ounces (1/4 cup Morton or Diamond Crystal coarse kosher) salt
2 teaspoons pink curing salt #1 (I use this DQ Cure from Butcher-Packer, $2)
4 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
4 bay leaves, crumbled
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup brown sugar or honey or maple syrup
5 cloves of garlic, smashed with the flat side of a chef’s knife
2 tablespoons juniper berries, lightly crushed (optional)
5 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
I have more than 2 boxes of High Mountain bacon cure to use.
I also have a bag of Tender Quick.
I have been reading over past posts and recently found Michael Ruhlman's blog http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2.html and I have been looking it over.
Here is my question. Can I use tender quick in place of pink salt in this recipe?
—Mix the following together in a small bowl:
2 ounces (1/4 cup Morton or Diamond Crystal coarse kosher) salt
2 teaspoons pink curing salt #1 (I use this DQ Cure from Butcher-Packer, $2)
4 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
4 bay leaves, crumbled
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup brown sugar or honey or maple syrup
5 cloves of garlic, smashed with the flat side of a chef’s knife
2 tablespoons juniper berries, lightly crushed (optional)
5 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
Comments
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2Fategghead wrote:I want to cure a pork belly . . .
Have him take two aspirin and call me in the morning. :laugh:
Sorry Tim, I couldn't resist.
Blair
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Ha Very good Blair. :laugh:
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Tim,it is my understanding that pink salt or prauge powder is pure.Tenderquick has sugar and other stuff premixed in.If I were gonna do it,I would find a recipe that calls for one or the other and stick with it.I'm sure with more research you will be able to comprise your own concoction but I would take baby steps until I learned more of the do's and don'ts.JMO You may send stike an email.I am sure either he or thirdeye can you much helpful guidance.
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pink salt has nitrite AND salt in it.
tenderquick has nitrite, salt, sugar and glycol.
you need to refer to morton;'s own directions re: curing bacon with tenderquick. there's a PDF on the web. moderate googling required.
frankly, although you do need to be careful when using nitrites, both pink salts and tenderquick are mixed so as to reduce the concentration. you won't kill anyone by using slightly differing amounts. but last time i did the math, i found it was not exactly a 1 to 1 ration. one or the other (tenderquick vs. pink salts) had a little less than the other.
if you took a cup of tenderquick, and made a cup's worth of of the correct amount of pink salts PLUS kosher salt, you would end up with close to the same nitrite concentration. but the problem for me was i had no idea how much salt and sugar was in the tenderquick.
which made it hard t understand how much more salt/sugar i needed to finish mixing the cure.ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante -
Tim, I used the hi mnt. cure.Molly
Colorado Springs
"Loney Queen"
"Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it."
Bill Bradley; American hall of fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar, former U.S. Senator from New Jersey
LBGE, MBGE, SBGE , MiniBGE and a Mini Mini BGE -
I'm like you Hoss I want to be careful and understand all this Charcuterie. I need to get this book.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393058298/ruhlmancom
I hope Thirdeye or Stike will chime in. -
Thanks Molly. We liked HM cure on boston butt. I am thinking about curing it different ways and see what I like best. I feel like a sweet and smokey flavored bacon.
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Jeff, Thanks I'm looking for that .pdf file
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well. i foudn the older one, when the sugar cure (what they called tenderquick) contained salt petre. no good.
tenderquick advises using 1 tablespoon per pound of meat.
pink salt is used at the rate of 1/4 teaspoon per pound of meat (it is much higher in nitrite concentration).
for ten pound of bacon, you would end up with ten tablespoons of Tenderquick.
for ten pounds of ruhlman's bacon, you'd have 8 table spoons salt PLUS four teaspoons pink salts, that's NINE and a third tablespoons an equal measure of tenderquick is very very close to an equal measure of ruhlman's salt and Pink salts.
kosher salt plus pink salts are what are called a basic cure. anything else is up to you. the meat will be cured by this, it's just whether you want sugar and other flavors added.
keep in mind, some of the tenderquick is sugar.
based on what i can tell, you can essentially swap tenderquick for the same amount of pink-salts-PLUS-kosher salt. that does NOT mean the same amount of pink salt alone. pink salts must be cut even further with kosher salt. (2 ounces kosher salt to 2 teaspoons pink salts).
THEN you add sugars, and other flavor ingredients.
double check my math. i don't want tyo be wrong here.
but keep in mind that both ruhlman and morton are working their recipes to essentially give you the same amount of nitrite per pound of meat, so it shoul make sense that the basic cure (salt plus pink salts in the correct ratio) equals tenderquick in the same amount
got it?
so.ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante -
I am curing two pork bellies using Tenderquick directions from back of bag as we speak. One is just the Tenderquick and will be smoked Saturday morning with applewood smoke. To the second bellie I added equal amount of brown sugar as Tenderquick and also poured on an unmeasured coating of pure maple syrup (I know, a bad practice).It will also be smoked on Saturday using maple wood smoke.
The bellies have been curing for 7 days and I plan to rinse tonight and place in the fridge to dry.
I am definitely just experimenting albeit a rather lengthy time frame if it fails.
I'll post results here this weekend. -
The recipe calls for 5 pounds of pork side
2 ounces (1/4 cup Morton or Diamond Crystal coarse kosher) salt
plus
2 teaspoons pink curing salt #1 (I use this DQ Cure from Butcher-Packer, $2)
equals
2.5 oz or 5 tablespoons tender quick
I believe this may be close except the sugar
And thanks -
Thanks Steve i'll be watching for your post.
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that matches my math....
sugar is almost irrelevant. you can very the sugar widely, so i would say "forge on"!
have fun.
TQ is a good universal basic cure, but it is amazing how little info there is for its use.ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante -
Will do. and thanks again
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Careful with your kosher salt, I have found that Diamond Crystal weighs quite a bit less when measured by volume than Mortons kosher.
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I don't have a scale either. :unsure:
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Here we go-
7 days in TQ cure with brown sugar and maple syrup added
Maple wood smoke, 3hrs 15mins at 200-215 deg to internal of 150 deg.
Color, smell and taste all very pleasing!
Breakfast is served!
Second bellie had to wait till today for cooking as the weather was perfect yesterday for 9 holes of golf. Sleet, rain and snow this morning.
Just pulled the second one cooked over applewood at a little lower temp and a litle longer time. Can't wait to try this one. -
Thank you Steve. That gave me a boost for sure. hehe
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