Okay fair enough.
SmokinEdge
gave you a great rundown of the science behind the scene of curing brines and the Marianski book goes into more detail about the strengths of various brines as well as using charts and a salometer.
That said, equilibrium curing can also be used when making a curing brine. You mentioned a 10% salt solution, and here is why curing brines need way more salt, sugar and cure than an equilibrium dry cure.
The short answer is weight. Instead of basing salt, sugar and cure on meat weight (when dry curing)....
when brine curing you have water in the bucket, and in the equation. A gallon of water for example is 8.3 pounds, so if you wanted to cure a 3 pound pork belly and it took 1 gallon of water to cover it,
you have to calculate salt, sugar and cure on 11.3 pounds total, not 3 pounds of meat weight.
In equilibrium curing, when you eventually find your sweet-spot recipe, say 1.7% salt, 2% sugar and 0.25% Cure #1 (or whatever you like for salt and sugar as the 0.25% of Cure #1 remains constant):
- For dry curing, base your percentages on meat weight.
- For brine curing, base your percentages on meat weight + water weight.