This is why I don’t like cover brines. From here on in everything is a guess. What we do know right now is with injection, we have 60ppm nitrite, (this is actually enough to make a meaningful cure color) and we have .5% salt in the meat. Now we must guess how much nitrite and salt will build in the meat naturally from the brine, (no way to know exactly) but if this was my project, and knowing the meat is injected and less than 3 inch thick, I would leave in brine for 7 days. Then I would pull it out and into the refrigerator for about another 7 days. Then smoke and cook. Most of the added nitrite and salt from the soak in brine will be more towards the outer surface of the meat. The rest time of 7 days out of brine and in the refrigerator will allow that cure to move evenly through the meat and stabilize.
