Bacon using celery juice powder and fake salt

[jon2988]

I have a extremely low sodium diet I have to follow. I Started making my own bacon using the bearded butchers 506 celery juice powder. I’ve been making up a combination of brown sugar potassium chloride(fake salt) and seasonings, and the appropriate amount of the celery juice powder per pound of meat required. I do this in a dry rub manner and let it sit in the fridge to cure for four days. And then rinse the meat dry it and put it on the smoker at 200° until the internal temperature reaches 155 to 160. It only takes about 2 to 3 hours at that temperature. Can anyone provide me with info on if this is safe to do? I do slice freeze and then fry the bacon before eating.

 

[Colin1230]

Welcome to the forum Jon, glad you joined us. This sounds interesting and I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along to answer your question.
Again, welcome.

 

[dr k]

It's fully cooked and can be safely eaten at 145* for pork flavored bubble gum (it'll be chewy unlike back bacon) and your up to 155-160* in 2-3 hours. You can even slow it down uncured if you want more time in the smoke. With intact meat that's been seasoned and uncured there is no time to get it to 140 one shot smoking and cooking. Meat that's not intact that is uncured ground meat, deboned rolled and tied, stuffed and tied, injected with low salt, sugar, no alcohol or acids or spiked with blades to tenderize) has bacteria pushed into the meat and needs to get from 40 to 140 in 4 hours. An intact chunk of meat like yours I'm assuming just has seasoning on it and the inside has no pathogens. Plus, it's cured but I'm not familiar with curing with celery powder. 6.25% Nitrite equilibrium curing based on weight of the meat takes one day per 1/4" of meat plus 2 days for safety so 10 days or more but can't be over cured and not rinsed. Potassium Chloride can be bitter if using too much but it sounds like you know the recipe. There are pinned threads at the top of the Food Safety Forum on this you may want to checkout.

 

[jon2988]

It's fully cooked and can be safely eaten at 145* for pork flavored bubble gum (it'll be chewy unlike back bacon) and your up to 155-160* in 2-3 hours. You can even slow it down uncured if you want more time in the smoke. With intact meat that's been seasoned and uncured there is no time to get it to 140 one shot smoking and cooking. Meat that's not intact that is uncured ground meat, deboned rolled and tied, stuffed and tied, injected with low salt, sugar, no alcohol or acids or spiked with blades to tenderize) has bacteria pushed into the meat and needs to get from 40 to 140 in 4 hours. An intact chunk of meat like yours I'm assuming just has seasoning on it and the inside has no pathogens. Plus, it's cured but I'm not familiar with curing with celery powder. 6.25% Nitrite equilibrium curing based on weight of the meat takes one day per 1/4" of meat plus 2 days for safety so 10 days or more but can't be over cured and not rinsed. Potassium Chloride can be bitter if using too much but it sounds like you know the recipe. There are pinned threads at the top of the Food Safety Forum on this you may want to checkout.

Thank you for the reply, I will check out the pinned forums as well.

 

[Cajun Smokes]

Thank you for the reply, I will check out the pinned forums as well.

I cured some buckboard bacon (less than 2" thick) with CJP as a dry rub as well but it never made it to the center of the meat after 14 days. I seen the Bearded Butchers cure with an injected wet brine and it turned out find. Just something to watch out for when you slice. Hope it fully penetrated for you.

 

[SmokinEdge]

The potential problem I see with your method is that there is no sodium. Curing takes place because of diffusion of salt (sodium) and water in the meat. Sodium is the horsepower of curing. The more concentrated the faster the cure happens. Without any sodium, I’m not sure the process will work. With cure #1 you have 93.75% sodium in the product so some curing penetration will happen but with celery powder I’m not sure there is enough if any sodium. Without sodium the process cannot work or at least not very well.

 

[jon2988]

The potential problem I see with your method is that there is no sodium. Curing takes place because of diffusion of salt (sodium) and water in the meat. Sodium is the horsepower of curing. The more concentrated the faster the cure happens. Without any sodium, I’m not sure the process will work. With cure #1 you have 93.75% sodium in the product so some curing penetration will happen but with celery powder I’m not sure there is enough if any sodium. Without sodium the process cannot work or at least not very well.

It does seem to penetrate the whole way through. The pork belly I use is only about 1 to 1.5 inches thick. The 506 celery juice powder does have some salt in it. 20 grams per pack. So that must be helping the process along and the potassium chloride is a salt so I assume this is helping as well.

 

[Hijack73]

We had a very beloved member here who was very good at extremely low sodium wet brine curing as in his later years he was on an almost no salt diet. I'm about 99.99% positive he ended up going even lower salt than this towards the end of his teachings, to the point where the only sodium he added was the salt in the curing salt.

Low Salt Curing Brine

I am now using my low salt curing brine with pork and beef as well as poultry. To each gallon of water, add: 1 heaping tbsp pink salt #1 ¼ - ½ cup salt ½ cup white sugar or substitute ½ cup brown sugar or substitute any other flavorings...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

One more step you could completely do to eliminate even more salt is to do a 2 day soak in an ice/cold water only bath to leach out even more sodium.

 

[Hijack73]

Here is his thread on the ultra low sodium version.

"Clear Pickle" Ultra Lo-Salt Canadian Bacon

Ok, I can only have under 1500 mg of salt per day (a small teaspoon or less). So, I am experimenting again, like I did with Pop's Curing Brine, using only the salt contained in the Cure #1 ingredient! I also added ½ cup of sugar substitute (Stevia) 0 calorie. I named it "Pop's Clear Pickle...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[SmokinEdge]

It does seem to penetrate the whole way through. The pork belly I use is only about 1 to 1.5 inches thick. The 506 celery juice powder does have some salt in it. 20 grams per pack. So that must be helping the process along and the potassium chloride is a salt so I assume this is helping as well.

It’s the sodium that moves the nitrite, not chloride or potassium. There must be sodium for cure to move in the meat.

 

[Hijack73]

It’s the sodium that moves the nitrite, not chloride or potassium. There must be sodium for cure to move in the meat.

It does seem to penetrate the whole way through. The pork belly I use is only about 1 to 1.5 inches thick. The 506 celery juice powder does have some salt in it. 20 grams per pack. So that must be helping the process along and the potassium chloride is a salt so I assume this is helping as well.

Main ingredient in the 506 is salt.

KCl is a salt, just like NaCl. I do not know if it drives a cure like NaCl

EDIT: Some scientific info can be found that supports that it does. One example. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32496819/

 

[SmokinEdge]

KCl is a salt, just like NaCl.

KCI can be used “to partially replace NaCl” but not completely replace, and the reason is Na, or sodium. Your link states exactly that.

 

[dr k]

For those watching sodium and the label says 2,400/mg of sodium/day that=6,000 mg of salt since all salt is 40% sodium and 60% chloride. I'm sure docs are confusing sodium mg as salt mg.

 

[Hijack73]

KCI can be used “to partially replace NaCl” but not completely replace, and the reason is Na, or sodium. Your link states exactly that.

Yes, and his version of prague powder (the 506 stuff) is mostly sea salt. If all he was using were celery powder, then there would be no sodium.

 

[jon2988]

Yes, and his version of prague powder (the 506 stuff) is mostly sea salt. If all he was using were celery powder, then there would be no sodium.

Yes there is .728 oz or 20.638 grams of salt in the 506 powder pack. Takes a little figuring out of how much sodium that is but it’s extremely low when compared to store bought bacon. I also do the dry rub method as with a large brine solution I do not know exactly how much salt absorbed into meat and how much is left in water. I just calculate it using all the salt in the 506 powder to be safe.

 

[SmokinEdge]

KCl is a salt, just like NaCl. I do not know if it drives a cure like NaCl

EDIT: Some scientific info can be found that supports that it does. One example. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32496819/

This is what I responded to.

You don’t know if KCI drives cure like NaCl. It does not because it has no sodium.

Then you gave a link suggesting that in fact KCI does drive cure, however that link says that sodium must still be present. That is my original point. Sodium must be present. The amount needed can be debated, but the fact that sodium must be present is not debatable, at least not so far.

 

[pineywoods]

There are people who use celery powder and swear by it. With that said we go by USDA standards and celery powder is not accepted as an approved curing component. So SMF says don't use it to cure meat. We also know some people will do what they want and that is their choice.

 

[Fueling Around]

My wife and I have really watched our sodium intake. We don't use KCL as we don't like the bitterness it imparts and the need to over sugar to try and mask the bitterness.
I make fresh sausage at .5% salt and ZERO sugars.
I also cure at 1% total salt using good old cure #1 and ZERO sugar.
The lower salt does require longer cure times.