Oops, I may have committed a major FUBAR on my Canadian Bacon

mneeley490 · Dec 14, 2012

Last weekend I cut up 2 pork loins into 6 pieces and laid them to rest in a variation of Pop's brine.

I started with ingredients to make 2 gallons worth, combined them into a 1/2 gallon of water, and heated it to dissolve the salt & sugars. Then I was going to add the other 1-1/2 gallons after it cooled, and pour over the meat in ziplock bags.

But it now dawns on me that I got ahead of myself, and injected the loins with part of the 1/2 gal. concentrate, instead of the 2 gal. solution. That 1/2 gal. included 2 Tbs. of cure #1. Uh-oh.

Will this work itself out, or do I toss over $35 worth of pork?

diggingdogfarm · Dec 14, 2012

What was the green weight of the pork?
How much of the 1/2 gallon did you inject?

It may still be safe depending on the answers to those questions.

~Martin

mneeley490 · Dec 14, 2012

Total weight of the pork was about 14 pounds, divided by 6 roughly equal pieces, so about 2-1/3 lbs. apiece. Pop's brine calls for 1 Tbs. of cure #1 per gallon of water.

I'm guessing I injected about 6-8 oz. into each piece, but I have no way of knowing how much may have leaked back out. I was getting some squirt and spray out the holes as I was injecting them. I then put 2 pieces each, into 3 ziplock bags. I evenly divided the concentrate into those 3 bags and then added 1/2 gallon of water to each for a total of 2 gallons.

I was just fixated with getting them injected before I put them into the ziplocks, so the bags wouldn't get puncutured, and wasn't thinking about the cure concentration. I had a bag failure in my fridge the last time I made BBB, and had to toss it and clean the mess.

diggingdogfarm · Dec 14, 2012

If the concentrated brine was about a 1/2 gallon, and you used 2 level tablespoons of cure at 15 grams per level tablespoon (30 grams total) and 6 ounces of the concentrate was retained in each piece (36 ounces total) .....in a total of 14 pounds of meat.

36/64=.5625 so about 56.25 percent of the concentrate was inject and retained.

30 x 6.25%=1.875 grams of nitrite.

1.875 x .5625=1.0546875 grams of nitrite injected into the meat.

1.0546875 x 1,000,000 =1054687.5

1054687.5/6350.26 grams of meat=166.085719325

If you're comfortable and feel confident that the weights and measures are all correct.....approximately 166 ppm of nitrite was injected into the meat.
That amount wouldn't bother me personally, but it's ultimately your decision, of course.

~Martin

davidhef88 · Dec 14, 2012

Martin,
Your wealth of knowledge with cure is a huge asset to this forum. When I jump into some cured meat do you mind if I PM you if I have any questions?

diggingdogfarm · Dec 14, 2012

Davidhef88 said:
Martin,
Your wealth of knowledge with cure is a huge asset to this forum. When I jump into some cured meat do you mind if I PM you if I have any questions?

Feel free to PM me anytime!

~Martin

davidhef88 · Dec 14, 2012

DiggingDogFarm said:
Feel free to PM me anytime!
~Martin

Thanks, if I recall your in the southern tier aren't you? I'm in Rochester and have some land just outside of Bath.

diggingdogfarm · Dec 14, 2012

Cool!
Yeah, I'm near Elmira.

~Martin

JckDanls 07 · Dec 14, 2012

Davidhef88 said:
DiggingDogFarm said:

Feel free to PM me anytime!
~Martin

Click to expand...

Thanks, if I recall your in the southern tier aren't you? I'm in Rochester and have some land just outside of Bath.

David... I'm originally from outside Rochester, in Albion... I have kin folk in Bath... still have a brother and sister that live in Brockport....

diggingdogfarm · Dec 14, 2012

Some of my ancestors lived in Avon area for quite some time.
On the other side of the family, ancestors settled in Steuben County not far from Bath in 1813., relatives are scattered all over the area to this day.

~Martin

mneeley490 · Dec 14, 2012

Martin, thank you! I'll certainly give it a fry test when they're done brining, but you've given me hope that it won't poison anyone outright.

Just ticks me off that I did that. This isn't my first rodeo or CB.

Mike

rstr hunter · Dec 14, 2012

Personally I think I'd toss them. No offense to DiggingDog and I'm sure his math is right as far as that goes, but my thoughts are when in doubt throw it out. Without being able to accurately say that you injected only 6 oz not 8 or more in each piece and while the meat soaked in a weaker nitrite mixture it could have still picked up a little there as well (likely did on the outer parts of the meat while the injection would be more concentrated near the middle. Sounds like a lot of questionable variables, and with the possibility of hurting or killing someone if you're wrong, and likely some one close to you, I'm not sure I'd do it. Not saying you might not be OK, but it seems like a lot of risk over $35 of meat. Just my 2 cents.

diggingdogfarm · Dec 14, 2012

Rstr Hunter said:
while the meat soaked in a weaker nitrite mixture it could have still picked up a little there as well

Here we go again. :biggrin:

I don't want to start an argument, but it doesn't work that way.
The natural process is for the salt and nitrate to equalize throughout the meat and brine
The ppm of nitrite would be much lower in the surrounding brine, so, in this case, if anything, the salt and cure will move out of the meat.
It's impossible for more nitrite to be sucked into the meat, unless the surrounding brine contains more ppms of nitrite than what's in the meat.

Additionally, no matter how much you pump, the meat will only take so much of an injection.

15% would be quite a bit.

Even if he had only used the concentrated brine to cure the loins, he's still would have been in safe territory.

As far as the brine strength goes, he's only about half the parts per million of a brine used for 200ppm 10% pick-up, which is perfectly safe.

"2 lbs. of sodium or potassium nitrite to 100 gallon pickle @ 10 % pump level.

To stay within established nitrite limits (200 ppm) our brine looks as follows:

1 gal of water, 5 oz Cure 1 (144 g = 0.31 lb) which corresponds to 1 gal of water and 8 flat Tablespoons of Cure 1."

Source: http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-making/curing/making-brine

If you feel uncomfortable, by all means, toss it out!!!!
I wouldn't.

~Martin

mneeley490 · Dec 14, 2012

No, besides the $$, I have almost a week's time invested in it now. Like I said, I'll do a fry test next weekend and we'll see what's what. If it's horrible, I'll toss it then.

pops6927 · Dec 14, 2012

Shouldn't be a problem at all. My brine cure is almost ¼ of full strength so there's a lot of room for leeway; it should be about full strength what you injected and no more. The curing allows for natural mistakes; I don't want anyone killed either and dad had his own theory of milder brine-longer cure time that was approved by the USDA, so I just followed his.

mneeley490 · Dec 15, 2012

Good to know, thanks Pops! And thanks for the recipe; I'll try not to screw it up next time.

smoking b · Dec 15, 2012

Well there you have it - direct from the experts! I have some loin in brine curing right now. I used the brine posted by Pops too. Good luck with your smoke & make sure to post some pics of the goodness!

mneeley490 · Jan 10, 2013

An update: I did a fry test after brining and it seemed to be fine. I smoked them in the MES 30" with apple and peach pellets to 160°-165°. Refrigerated overnight, and then sliced.

There were only two differences that I noted:

1) There were a few dark spots throughout, but I attribute this to the 2 Tbl or so of coarse black pepper, and crushed juniper, that was in the concentrate. In fact, I remember having a hard time getting it through the needle of the injector. That should have been a clue, I guess.

2) The flavor (perhaps due to my carelessness) seemed more intense than past efforts. Quite good, actually.

The wife and I have eaten a couple pounds of it so far (not at one sitting, of course), and have detected no ill effects, so I think it came out fine.

Thanks to all for your insight and comments.

Oops, I may have committed a major FUBAR on my Canadian Bacon

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