Bacon Cure % (Ruhlman Method)

MattBTI

I just picked up 35 lbs of fresh pork belly. I am planning on starting the cure process tonight. I have tried meat heads method on one batch. All other batches I've used Ruhlman's basic dry cure recipe and have varied numerous ratios of cure to meat. I break each belly down into 3 sections which tend to weigh-in around the 3-5 lb ball park. I have tried as much as 5% cure to meat....3% cure and as little as 2%. I typically go 5 to 6 days cure time (taste a small cooked sliver) before rinsing, resting in fridge overnight and hot smoking to 150F. 5% was way too salty. 3 was a bit on the salty end for me as well....2% wasn't quite enough. I'm shooting for 2.5% this go around which, if you do the math, is what Ruhlman suggests. He doesn't break it down to percent but gives it in a 56g cure/5lbs of meat....aka 2.5%

I also do not add any liquid unless I'm doing a maple version....In that case I add about 1/4 cup maple syrup. 

Do any of you who follow Ruhlman's method have a certain percentage or ratio you follow? Also I'm going to cold smoke this batch for around 6 hours since it's winter here in KS before I add any heat to bring meat IT up to 150F. 

Thanks!

blind99

i've tried limiting the amount of salt with that method to 2% and did not get a good, even result.  i had to cure with more salt, and do some desalination  - some soaks in cool water, changed a few times until the bacon saltiness improved. 

(Most of the time now I do an equilibrium "wet cure" which is kind of a hassle, too, but gives me exactly the saltiness I want and is super easily reproducible)

lkapigian

neverdone his BUT Looks like ( I think) 

Salt .025%
.006 % Cure 1
.01 % Black Pepper
.0001 % Nutmeg 
.02 % Brown Sugar
1 Bayleaf Per 500 Grams 
1 Clove Garlic Per 500 Grams
Fresh Thyme 1-2 Sprigs per 500 Grams

He lists 2 TSP cure 1 per 5 LBS I use 1

Or just do 7 X everything in his recipe to hit your 35 # since its based upon 5 #

Here are a few helpful measurements:

1oz = 28.3g
1lb = 454g (0.454Kg)
1 liter = 1000ml (milli liter)
1 teaspoon =  5ml
1 tablespoon = 15ml
1/4 cup = 60ml
1 cup = 240ml

Cure #1 or #2: 1tsp   = 6.5g
Cure #1 or #2: 1tbsp = 20g
Morton Tender Quick: 1tbsp = 18g
Salt: 1tbsp = 20g
Salt: 1cup  = 300g
White Sugar: 1tbsp = 14g
Light Brown Sugar: 1tbsp = 12g
Light Brown Sugar: 1cup  = 190g

Pepper: 1tbsp = 7.5g

MattBTI

Thanks @blind99 do you use pink salt in your equilibrium brine or just NaCl? I'd like to try this method...I'll need some more containers for a 35 lb batch though haha. 

MattBTI

@lkapigian thank you. I mix up a bunch of Ruhlmans basic dry cure when ever I get low...I typically keep a couple pounds on hand of the following cure mixture: 

Ruhlman Basic Dry Cure

• 1 pound/450 grams kosher salt
• 8 ounces/225 grams sugar
• 2 ounces/50 grams pink salt

This is what I will add to the pork bellies at a 2.5%/meat weight ratio. I then add other seasonings as desired....Black pepper, bay leaves,nutmeg, paprika, garlic, cayenne, maple sugar or maple syrup...what ever it may be for what ever flavor profile going for. I think these ingredients can be varied in amount to achieve what ever i'd like...the basic dry cure is what I have yet to dial in just perfectly...

st¡ke

Read up on his "salt box method"

Basically, in a box large enough to hold as much cure as you made (i used to make large batches), drop in the chunk of belly to be cured.  dredge the meat in the cure, all sides, lift it up and shake whatever doesn't stick back into the cure.

And that's enough dry cure.  no weighing required.

I found it also makes for less salty bacon.

This is not his method, but rather an established "old way" of doing things that he is merely relating.

Bigger the meat, the more cure.

Despite the various warnings I have seen lately about how "deadly" all this stuff is if you mix up one tiny ratio, it isn't.

for one, the instacure or pink salt is so heavily skewed with salt, that if you use too much cure, the food is unpalatably salty before it ever gets dangerous (with regard to the sodium nitrite).

And since you are refrigerating the food the whole way through, and actually trying to cure it to permit long term storage at room/ambient temps, if you ever under-cured, you'd just have a piece of raw pork surrounded by an outer layer of bacon.  weird, but not dangerous.

MattBTI

@stike I agree with you...a lot of BS being spread about pink salt.....much like glyphosate, GMO's and other "ag evils" out to get us....smeh. If people just took some time to learn for themselves, rather than act as sheep! The real evils are those who are pulling the strings and planting these stupid ideas and fears into society. 

But that is all for a Friday.

st¡ke

MattBTI said:

@stike I agree with you...a lot of BS being spread about pink salt.....much like glyphosate, GMO's and other "ag evils" out to get us....smeh. If people just took some time to learn for themselves, rather than act as sheep! The real evils are those who are pulling the strings and planting these stupid ideas and fears into society. 

But that is all for a Friday.

It's not even that.  it's dire warnings about undercuring giving you salmonella.

Or that overcuring will essentially poison your family.

If you bought two pork bellies and cured one, and left the other alone, both side by side in the fridge, a week later you'd have bacon for one, the other would be still uncured belly.  both raw.

When you cut into the cured one you find you used too little nitrite in the cure. or not enough cure in total.  salmonella?  no.  you have nothing more dangerous than the uncured belly laying next to it on the same shelf.

And again, with over-curing...  the salt will keep you from eating it long before the cure would kill you.

Lots of people memorizing rules without understanding the logic behind them, is all.

Re the nitrite itself (sodium nitrite).  Pffff.  A bowl of salad, or a serving of beets, or spinach, have way more in them.

As I used to gleefully point out to those who choose to buy "uncured" bacon at Whole Foods, their bacon is just as cured as Oscar Meir bacon (or any other supermarket brand), because they (the uncured folks) used nitrites to do i too.  Their nitrites came from celery powder used in the "flavorings" of the uncured bacon.  Why use celery powder? That's an odd flavor to add to bacon?

It isn't for the flavor, it's for the nitrite, which ends up curing the bacon in the same exact way.

They are skirting a loophole where the government definition of "cured" requires sodium nitrite. 

st¡ke

re the salt box method.  Mix up JUST the salt and pink salt to the standard ratio.  no sugars, no flavorings (sweet or savory), and just put that in a large plastic bag with a twist tie on it.  put the bag in a large cardboard box.

Then, just dredge the meat in that stripped down cure.  That's all you need to cure the meat.

Then when you put the dredged belly into ziplocs for the curing time (I go 6 days for belly), THEN you can add sugars, garlic, or whatever flavorings you want.

That way you don't have to make a giant batch of sweet cure, or garlic cure...  Just add the flavorings after the dredge.  The pink salts and salt will effect the cure.  Everything else added after will affect the taste.

lkapigian

st¡ke said:

re the salt box method.  Mix up JUST the salt and pink salt to the standard ratio.  no sugars, no flavorings (sweet or savory), and just put that in a large plastic bag with a twist tie on it.  put the bag in a large cardboard box.

Then, just dredge the meat in that stripped down cure.  That's all you need to cure the meat.

Then when you put the dredged belly into ziplocs for the curing time (I go 6 days for belly), THEN you can add sugars, garlic, or whatever flavorings you want.

That way you don't have to make a giant batch of sweet cure, or garlic cure...  Just add the flavorings after the dredge.  The pink salts and salt will effect the cure.  Everything else added after will affect the taste.

what is the salt to pink salt ratio? I believe 1 is already 93.75 Sodium Chloride to 6.25 % Sodium Nitrite- I thought the salt box just used salt?

st¡ke

It's referred to as the "salt box" method, but it doesn't mean it's just salt.

It is:

2 oz/50g pink salt

plus

1 pound/450g kosher salt

plus

2 oz/50g granulated sugar

He also mentions a dextrose alternative.  where you swap 13oz dextrose for the granulated sugar, and use 3oz/75g pink salt instead of 2oz/50g

To simplify, if you just had a bag of Morton's Tenderquick, you'd use what is in the bag.    THEN you can add whatever flavor stuff you want (sugars, herbs, pepper, etc.)

HERE'S THE THING

If you go on smokingmeatforums.com, there're guys on there p!ssing their collective pants because they cannot fathom that it is safe, given that so many other recipes use so much math re the weight of the meat.

But be sure, no one is curing this bacon to make it safe, we're doing it because it tastes good.  ...and the margin of error is such that it is very difficult to make it unsafe.

Undercured, you're still fine.  Overcured, it is unpalatable.

MattBTI

Agreed, with you ^^^ The pink salt & cure is providing the color an familiar hammy taste and texture we're so familiar with....If we were cold smoking and packaging from there it would be a different story. The fact that I am cooking the meat to an internal of 150F really eliminates the risk associated with under curing. 

Eggcelsior

MattBTI said:

Agreed, with you ^^^ The pink salt & cure is providing the color an familiar hammy taste and texture we're so familiar with....If we were cold smoking and packaging from there it would be a different story. The fact that I am cooking the meat to an internal of 150F really eliminates the risk associated with under curing. 

This. Beyond the color/flavor component, the pathogen risk is related to temps over 40f during cold smoking.

Also, the major risk with nitrite toxicity is with kids. Adults can typically manage a higher than normal dose but kids can be severly harmed from what nitrites do to hemoglobin in the body.

lkapigian

Thanks @st¡ke

st¡ke

Eggcelsior said:

MattBTI said:

Agreed, with you ^^^ The pink salt & cure is providing the color an familiar hammy taste and texture we're so familiar with....If we were cold smoking and packaging from there it would be a different story. The fact that I am cooking the meat to an internal of 150F really eliminates the risk associated with under curing. 

This. Beyond the color/flavor component, the pathogen risk is related to temps over 40f during cold smoking.

Also, the major risk with nitrite toxicity is with kids. Adults can typically manage a higher than normal dose but kids can be severly harmed from what nitrites do to hemoglobin in the body.

Again though.

If you used fifty times the cure required, your kid wouldn't get sick.

Why?

Well, for starters it would be fifty times saltier. They won't be eating that bacon.

But you'd have no worries feeding them a helping of spinach, right?  There's way more in spinach than bacon

To get even stupider...

You'd have to eat something like twenty packages of hotdogs to flirt with the amount of nitrates from a salad.

The guys in the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contests are just fine.

The issue with nitrites/nitrates in bacon and hotdogs is really that when they burn (not merely brown), the can form nitrosamines.  ...those can cause cancer in diets high in burnt-nitrite-containing meats.  There are now things like (I believe) ascorbic acid used in commercially produced hot dogs, to minimize nitrosamines being produced.

Bacon has 5.5 mg/100g of nitrate, and .38 mg/100g of nitrite

Spinach has 25-400mg/100g of nitrate, .073 mg/100g of nitrite

This is a newer article than the one I used to link to here, which goes into it in depth.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/10/08/cured-meat-nitrites-cancer

And here's a list of common foods and their nitrite/nitrate amounts.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/90/1/1/4596750

blind99

MattBTI said:

Thanks @blind99 do you use pink salt in your equilibrium brine or just NaCl? I'd like to try this method...I'll need some more containers for a 35 lb batch though haha. 

i absolutely use pink salt.  I have a cambro that holds roughly 7L.  My 10 lb pork belly weighs 4.5 kg.  so the 4.5 kg of meat plus 1.5 L of curing liquid will come up to the 6L mark.  

Overall I need the whole 6L mass  of water and pork belly to be 2% salt, 1% sugar, and I want 120 ppm nitrite.  

The math works out to be:
11.5 g cure #1
109 g salt
60 g sugar

Cure #1 is mostly salt, so that is how you get the total salt to 120 g, or 2% of 6000.

All I do is bring about a liter of water to a boil and add the salt, sugar, and pink salt and stir and dissolve.  then I add ice cubes and water, and pork belly, to my container and it's done.  It sounds complicated but really only takes a few minutes.

this calculator has been lingering on the interweb for years.  amazingly still works.  http://diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html

35# would be doable in a big cooler kept outside in the cold, if you're in a cold climate.  Just put some spacers between the bellies so fluid can circulate, and rotate the bellies daily. 

MattBTI

@blind99, thanks I went ahead with my usual Ruhlman method. 2.5% is what i'm trying. I was diligent in the cure application to evenly coat all side of each slab. Its a good looking batch. Probably about 12 lbs of a savory garlic pepper bacon, 12 lbs of maple bacon, 5 lbs of maple black pepper and 5 lbs of what I'm dubbing "Sweet Heat". Its 1/4 cup maple syrup, two teaspoons cracked pepper, one teaspoon paprika and a half teaspoon of cayenne per 2 lbs.

For the Savory Garlic Pepper Bacon I used one 3 table spoons crushed and chopped garlic, 1 teaspoon sage, 1 teaspoon rosemary, 1 teaspoon oregano, 2 teaspoons black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon paprika to about 4 lbs meat. 

Looking forward to Sunday, Monday or Tuesday when it comes time to smoke them up. Probably going to be Monday if I were a betting man. I'll post some pictures when I get the bacon out of the cure. 

blind99

sounds good to me!

Eggcelsior

st¡ke said:

Eggcelsior said:

MattBTI said:

Agreed, with you ^^^ The pink salt & cure is providing the color an familiar hammy taste and texture we're so familiar with....If we were cold smoking and packaging from there it would be a different story. The fact that I am cooking the meat to an internal of 150F really eliminates the risk associated with under curing. 

This. Beyond the color/flavor component, the pathogen risk is related to temps over 40f during cold smoking.

Also, the major risk with nitrite toxicity is with kids. Adults can typically manage a higher than normal dose but kids can be severly harmed from what nitrites do to hemoglobin in the body.

Again though.

If you used fifty times the cure required, your kid wouldn't get sick.

Why?

Well, for starters it would be fifty times saltier. They won't be eating that bacon.

But you'd have no worries feeding them a helping of spinach, right?  There's way more in spinach than bacon

To get even stupider...

You'd have to eat something like twenty packages of hotdogs to flirt with the amount of nitrates from a salad.

The guys in the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contests are just fine.

The issue with nitrites/nitrates in bacon and hotdogs is really that when they burn (not merely brown), the can form nitrosamines.  ...those can cause cancer in diets high in burnt-nitrite-containing meats.  There are now things like (I believe) ascorbic acid used in commercially produced hot dogs, to minimize nitrosamines being produced.

Bacon has 5.5 mg/100g of nitrate, and .38 mg/100g of nitrite

Spinach has 25-400mg/100g of nitrate, .073 mg/100g of nitrite

This is a newer article than the one I used to link to here, which goes into it in depth.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/10/08/cured-meat-nitrites-cancer

And here's a list of common foods and their nitrite/nitrate amounts.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/90/1/1/4596750

I’m not talking about in food, I’m talking about accidental ingestion of the curing salt itself. Standard cure amount is 1 tsp/5lb. A tsp of curing salt is around 5.5 gm. At 6.25% nitrite, that’s approx 350mg of nitrite in a tsp. It is not outside the realm of possiblities that a small child would attempt to eat at least 1 tsp. That is many orders of magnitude higher than what’s in any properly cured meat or what naturally occurs in vegetables. Sorry I did not clarify this in my initial post.

Ultimately, the moral is not “don’t eat bacon”, it’s “keep your curing salt safe and well out of reach of young kids”.

nolaegghead

LDL50 for sodium nitrite is 180mg/Kg in rats, they set the limit to 22mg/Kg in humans.  The 0.625% in pink salt is designed to keep it below lethal levels if someone accidentally uses that salt in their food as....salt.  Generally your cured food should have less than 200 ppm of nitrite.

I use the dredge method, works like a champ.

Nitrite does make the belly taste like bacon, safety-wise, it's really not necessary but it inhibits botulism bacteria.  Not sure about salmonella.