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In Rytek Kutas' book, in the recipe for honey cured bacon, it says 4tbs of instacure for one slab (p.304). Does this seems excessive? I recently cured a 7 lbs belly and I reduced it to 4 ts. It seemed to cure fine....thoughts on the amounts?
hmmm, I got the 3rd edition. Not sure off the top of my head how many editions there are. The directions on the the Insta Cure 1 says 1 level tsp per 5 lbs of ground meat. No instructions for non-ground meat.
I tried to email the website, but no response. Just don't want to over cure, bad business there.
Anyway, I'd go with the 1 Tsp./5. With TQ the rates are the same. Inly the time changes, as with ground, it's mixed thru the meat, with solid, it has to permeate the hunk. And the 7 days per inch is the same I believe.
Yes, over cure is a bad thing. At your expected time, take a slice outta the center of the slab and give it a quick fry and check for the characteristic "pink" of the cure all the way thru.
hmm so based on the math, its should be 10 tsp's or 3 tbs, 1 tsp to get 2 oz. Man, that just still seems like a lot. Thanks for the input DL (wish the editions jived more!) :^)
Well, what this ignores is that the rates for ground meat and for slab meat are very different. Ground meat aborbs essentially 100% of the cure; slab meat only absorbs a fraction.
Go with Kutas' recommended rate; it is based on what the finished product will have in it (<156ppm).