So the first try at buckboard bacon did not go well -- 6 days in and the meat was rotting. I went back to try and troubleshoot. The short version, i think the recipe I used didn't call for enough cure mix. Long version: I used the basic dry cure recipe in the book "Charcuterie, the Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing" by Ruhlman and Poleyn. It calls for 50g of the mix for every 2.25kg of meat. I made a mix per the book's ratios that resulted in this: 90g salt, 45g sugar and 10g Prague Powder#1. Using the ratio of 50g-per-225kg of meat, I used, for example, 24.7g of mix for a 1,122gram cut of pork belly. When I did the math after the fact, it's well short of the 0.25% Prague-Powder-to-meat-weight ratio that is generally called for, and also short on the salt.
I did not use
Bearcarver
's mix only because I had the pink curing salt on hand, not TQ, and am regretting it all now.
I also just picked up a thermometer for the fridge, and it's right around 40 degrees -- a smidge higher on the shelf above where the pork was curing, so I am shifting the fridge colder, too.
Going forward, I am going to weigh out the salt, sugar and curing salt for each piece of meat, using 2-2.5%salt, half that of sugar and 0.25% curing salt.
If anyone here has any other thoughts about what may have gone wrong, please share. Someone learning from my experience may be the only good thing that comes from 3kg of rotting pork butt!
One other question for the experienced folks on this -- I am wondering if the irregular shape of the pork butt would require a greater
I would use the cure calculator that has been referenced I have always used my own own calculator made up on an excel spreadsheet and I use a lower nitrite level than even the European standards and have no problem curing my pork butt. Don't pre make a mix and then measure from it because it may not be perfectly mixed. Weigh out each ingredient for each piece of meat separately, throughly mix, rub then ziploc.