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Thank you all for your responses. It's the OCD and the engineer in me that not only wants to know exactly why and how it works, but also thinks that everything in the world should have a very specific formula operable within a defined set of parameters. Looks like the complexities of curing are...

Daveomak – Like I said, I am slow, so stick with me here. I have poured through the document you linked for days and hours on end. I find it to be ill contrived, at the very least confusing, and in many ways conflicting. I have not found answers to my various questions therein. I guess I...

Hey all, thanks for the replies. Apologies that it has taken me so long to get back to this, but work keeps interfering with my hobbies. So Dr K – can I deduce that the cure formulation at 6.25% nitrite and 93.75% salt has sufficient salt to carry the nitrite and that for absorption...

DrK, That is very interesting, thank you. I’m not sure where the second post is taken from, but I was interested to read that; “sodium nitrite has had varying degrees of effectiveness for controlling growth of other spoilage or disease causing microorganisms”, but they do not mention what if...

Okay I have a series of questions related to Brine (salt) / Sweet (sugar added) Pickle Cure formulation and process specifically to whole fresh bone-in hams, so I wanted to start this with what seems a rather simple / straight forward question: “What is the cure meant to cure?” The National...

Thanks for those links. You are an evil man. That is way too much to over think about. I'm going to go plug in the old Brinkmann, drink a beer and smoke some ribs over some water soaked chips - Doh! I may even fire up and season the new MES today.

Lots of good feed back everyone - thank you. Was just thinking of stripping out the bad, but didn't consider that I may be removing much of what is good as well. I am definitely buying in to the remote with scrubber pads concept. Looking to do an interchangeable remote with a Masterbuilt Slow...

They say it is better to remain quiet and appear stupid than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt. I never seem to learn that lesson, so here it goes. I see a lot of discussion on wood chips, chunks, pellets, charcoal, and dust as well as things like low oxygen fires, creosote, condensation...

Donr – I thought about building a box off of a Brinkman replacement element, but: a) I am the king of unfinished projects and don’t really want to start another one (anything leaning towards mostly plug-n-play is my friend) b) If I built it myself from wood, I would probably burn the house...

Holly – that is actually a great idea. I had thought of using a double throw switch arrangement for switching between PID and factory controls, but that would still involve mucking about with the factory wiring. A separate heating element may be just the ticket for PID runs. It does not solve...

I should have been clearer. I would like the smoker to be "sausage capable" (thus the whole PID thing), but I am really looking for an all-around replacement smoker. I like the 2.5 MES 40 BT especially with with the option for remote ducting a side car smoke generator for cold smoke (chips) and...

I am looking for recommendations for an ideal smoker that I can add a PID controller to for sausage making. I really like the size of the MES 40, but they do not appear to make that size with an analog element. As nice as everyone here makes 2.5 gen MES 40 with Bluetooth sound; it seems rather...

Okay JJ – so the link to the USDA site is very informative, and while it appears to be directed at mass producers of huge quantities of product rather than small home smoking / curing / sausage making operations, the information and concepts remain absolutely valid for small batch preparations...

Bear – thanks for the correction. So, with Tender Quick 1/2 oz. (or 1 Tbsp. = 3 tsp.) would be the amount for whole meat, and for 5 pounds of whole meat that would be 5 Tbsp. which at 0.5% nitrite works out to: 0.5 oz. x 5 lbs. = 2.5 oz. TQ for 5 pounds of meat 2.5 oz. TQ x 0.005 (0.5%...

You are correct, I don't know how I got it right to 156 ppm, but forgot to multiply by 100 for the remainder. That makes the ppm much closer and makes more sense.

I thank you all for your quick responses, and please bear with me as I fall ever further down the rabbit hole; So by regulation, it appears that due to the possibility of toxicity that nitrite concentrations are generally given in maximum values (i.e., 120ppm in brine, 200 ppm dry, and 156 ppm...

Harleykids – you provide a general rule of “0.25% the weight of the meat for Cure #1.  Just multiply your total meat weight (in grams) by 0.0025 and you have the weight of Cure #1 you need for that weight of meat.  Simple.” Is that universal rule for both dry rub and wet cure? Matters not the...

So I have some questions on curing concentrations and time in cure. Since it is a fairly complex, long winded series of questions, I’m going to break it down into a couple of messages. Let’s start with some recommended concentrations. It appears, as a general rule, that; 1 tsp. (.20 oz.) of...