I will be doing an equilibrium brine for my maple bacon.
This is the rough draft plan #1.
Looking for some input on the maple flavor aspect.
All weights and measurements are in grams.
Equilibrium percentages
% Salt 2.0%
% Sugar 2.0%
PPM Sodium Nitrite 156
Using Cure #1 Nitrite 6.25%
Meat 4536.00 ~10 lbs
Water 2098.00 ~ 2 1/4 quarts
Cure #1 17.33
Kosher Salt 122.58
Sugar 0.00
Maple Syrup 173.43 (this is about 3/4 cup)
My maple syrup contains 48 grams of sugar per 60 ml
This works out to 3/4 cup of maple syrup for 10 pounds of pork belly. I don't think this will add much flavor at all to 10 lbs of meat. I have read about adding 3/4 cup of maple syrup to ~3 lbs of belly and only count the syrup towards liquid only and then separately add sugar to your desired %. My concern with doing it that way is the fairly high concentration of total sugar and the bacon could scorch easily while cooking.
I have read about adding maple extract. Would this work in an equilibrium brine to add additional maple flavor? If so, how much extract would need to be added?
What has everyone else done?
****Please note my percentages do take into account the entire weight of the brine; including the Water, Meat, sugar, salt, cure, and maple syrup. I have created my own spreadsheet that gets the percentages to be a a few decimals over 99% accurate. I am an excel nerd.
This is the rough draft plan #1.
Looking for some input on the maple flavor aspect.
All weights and measurements are in grams.
Equilibrium percentages
% Salt 2.0%
% Sugar 2.0%
PPM Sodium Nitrite 156
Using Cure #1 Nitrite 6.25%
Meat 4536.00 ~10 lbs
Water 2098.00 ~ 2 1/4 quarts
Cure #1 17.33
Kosher Salt 122.58
Sugar 0.00
Maple Syrup 173.43 (this is about 3/4 cup)
My maple syrup contains 48 grams of sugar per 60 ml
This works out to 3/4 cup of maple syrup for 10 pounds of pork belly. I don't think this will add much flavor at all to 10 lbs of meat. I have read about adding 3/4 cup of maple syrup to ~3 lbs of belly and only count the syrup towards liquid only and then separately add sugar to your desired %. My concern with doing it that way is the fairly high concentration of total sugar and the bacon could scorch easily while cooking.
I have read about adding maple extract. Would this work in an equilibrium brine to add additional maple flavor? If so, how much extract would need to be added?
What has everyone else done?
****Please note my percentages do take into account the entire weight of the brine; including the Water, Meat, sugar, salt, cure, and maple syrup. I have created my own spreadsheet that gets the percentages to be a a few decimals over 99% accurate. I am an excel nerd.