Sausage Braiding

Use as follows:

Cure per pound of ground meat/fat:

tsp. = teaspoon; Tbsp.= Tablespoon;
oz.= ounce

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WedlinyDomowe
[h2]How to Apply Cures[/h2]
Well, there are two approaches:

• Like an amateur - collecting hundreds of recipes and relying blindly on each of them. You lose a recipe and you don’t know what to do. And how do you know they contain the right amount of cure?
• Like a professional - taking matters in your own hands and applying cures according to the USA Government requirements.

In case you want to be the professional, we are enclosing some useful data which is based on the U.S. standards. Comminuted products - small meat pieces, meat for sausages, ground meat, poultry etc. Cure #1 was developed in such a way that if we add 4 ounces of Cure #1 to 100 pounds of meat, the quantity of nitrite added to meat will conform to the legal limits (156 ppm) permitted by the Meat Division of the United States Department of Agriculture.

That corresponds to 1 oz. (28.35 g) of Cure #1 for each 25 lbs. (11.33 kg) of meat or 0.2 oz. (5.66 g) per 5 lbs. (2.26 kg) of meat.
Cured dry products - country ham, country style pork shoulder, prosciutto, etc. These products are prepared from a single piece of meat and the curing ingredients are rubbed into the surface of the meat several times during the curing period. Nitrite is applied to the surface of the meat or poultry as part of a cure mixture. If you look at the FSIS nitrite limits table on page 36 you will see that the maximum nitrite limit for Dry Cured Products (625 ppm) is four times higher than for Comminuted Products (156 ppm).

To cure meat for sausages (comminuted) and to stay within 156 ppm nitrite limit we have to apply no more than 1 oz of Cure #1 for each 25 lbs of meat. To dry cure 25 lbs of pork butts and to stay within 625 nitrite limits we need 4 times more of Cure #1, in our case 4 ounces. Keep in mind that when you add Cure #1 (there is 93.75% salt in it) you are adding extra salt to your meat and you may re-adjust your recipe.
The reason that there are much higher allowable nitrite limits for dry cured products is that nitrite dissipates rapidly in time and the dry cured products are air dried for a long time. Those higher limits guarantee a steady supply of nitrite.