Curing help please.

[MR64]

Several years ago I wet cured a 15# ham that turned out wonderful but unfortunately I lost my notes. Now I am curing another ham for the holidays and would like someone to look over the recipe that I used.

11# Picnic Roast with skin on one side
1 gallon plus 1 cup or 4000 g, Water

1.5 cups, or 350 g, Morton course Kosher salt.
2 cups, or 335 g, Light Brown Sugar.
1/2 cup or 52 g, Mrs. Wages Pickling spice.
7 tsp or 33 g, Prague Powder #1.

I mixed all ingredients together with 2 qts of water except the Curing salt and heated on the stove. I cooled the brine then added the remaining water and Cure #1 and stirred till dissolved.

I scored the skin side of the picnic roast in a square pattern and injected with the brine along the bone, through the scores and on the non skin side of the roast. I then placed it in a food grade bucket and poured the brine over it, placed a plate on top of the future ham to keep it submerged and into the fridge.

I was going to brine it 1 day for every 2#, this is meat and bone, so 5.5 days Then soak it in fresh cool water for 4 hours and cook it in the oven.

This is a start for me and any guidance on what I have done would be much appreciated. My end goal is to understand the wet brining process so I am confident and safe in what I am doing and understanding equilibrium brining, but for now I need to keep it simple. Thank you in advance

A pic of my first cured ham, The comments at the table were "So this is what ham is suppose to taste like".

 

[Cajun Smokes]

Several years ago I wet cured a 15# ham that turned out wonderful but unfortunately I lost my notes. Now I am curing another ham for the holidays and would like someone to look over the recipe that I used.

11# Picnic Roast with skin on one side
1 gallon plus 1 cup or 4000 g, Water

1.5 cups, or 350 g, Morton course Kosher salt.
2 cups, or 335 g, Light Brown Sugar.
1/2 cup or 52 g, Mrs. Wages Pickling spice.
7 tsp or 33 g, Prague Powder #1.

I mixed all ingredients together with 2 qts of water except the Curing salt and heated on the stove. I cooled the brine then added the remaining water and Cure #1 and stirred till dissolved.

I scored the skin side of the picnic roast in a square pattern and injected with the brine along the bone, through the scores and on the non skin side of the roast. I then placed it in a food grade bucket and poured the brine over it, placed a plate on top of the future ham to keep it submerged and into the fridge.

I was going to brine it 1 day for every 2#, this is meat and bone, so 5.5 days Then soak it in fresh cool water for 4 hours and cook it in the oven.

This is a start for me and any guidance on what I have done would be much appreciated. My end goal is to understand the wet brining process so I am confident and safe in what I am doing and understanding equilibrium brining, but for now I need to keep it simple. Thank you in advance

A pic of my first cured ham, The comments at the table were "So this is what ham is suppose to taste like".

View attachment 683811

Can't beat homemade ham

 

[thirdeye]

11# Picnic Roast with skin on one side
1 gallon plus 1 cup or 4000 g, Water

1.5 cups, or 350 g, Morton course Kosher salt.
2 cups, or 335 g, Light Brown Sugar.
1/2 cup or 52 g, Mrs. Wages Pickling spice.
7 tsp or 33 g, Prague Powder #1.

For a brine cure, you use the weight of the meat + the weight of the water as your baseline. But you need to subtract the bone weight.

When I run the numbers:
3600g meat + 4000g water = ~7600g baseline weight in the bucket. Using 2% salt, and 2% sugar would require:

19g Cure #1
135g salt
152 grams of sugar

It looks like your recipe would be above 4% for salt and sugar, and almost twice the amount of Cure # 1. Also, injecting and covering the ham with brine will likely raise the "uptake" of the curing brine. I'm hopeful some others will chime in, but it looks like you have a pretty hot brine, which could account for the 5.5 days of cure time. Meaning... the stronger the brine, the shorter the brine time.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Several years ago I wet cured a 15# ham that turned out wonderful but unfortunately I lost my notes. Now I am curing another ham for the holidays and would like someone to look over the recipe that I used.

11# Picnic Roast with skin on one side
1 gallon plus 1 cup or 4000 g, Water

1.5 cups, or 350 g, Morton course Kosher salt.
2 cups, or 335 g, Light Brown Sugar.
1/2 cup or 52 g, Mrs. Wages Pickling spice.
7 tsp or 33 g, Prague Powder #1.

I mixed all ingredients together with 2 qts of water except the Curing salt and heated on the stove. I cooled the brine then added the remaining water and Cure #1 and stirred till dissolved.

I scored the skin side of the picnic roast in a square pattern and injected with the brine along the bone, through the scores and on the non skin side of the roast. I then placed it in a food grade bucket and poured the brine over it, placed a plate on top of the future ham to keep it submerged and into the fridge.

I was going to brine it 1 day for every 2#, this is meat and bone, so 5.5 days Then soak it in fresh cool water for 4 hours and cook it in the oven.

This is a start for me and any guidance on what I have done would be much appreciated. My end goal is to understand the wet brining process so I am confident and safe in what I am doing and understanding equilibrium brining, but for now I need to keep it simple. Thank you in advance

A pic of my first cured ham, The comments at the table were "So this is what ham is suppose to taste like".

View attachment 683811

The brine will work. The 5.5 days is iffy, it’s really hard to decipher random brines. If it works for you that’s great. Really will depend on how much you injected as brine. If you pumped it full, you are good.

 

[MR64]

For a brine cure, you use the weight of the meat + the weight of the water as your baseline. But you need to subtract the bone weight.

When I run the numbers:
3600g meat + 4000g water = ~7600g baseline weight in the bucket. Using 2% salt, and 2% sugar would require:

19g Cure #1
135g salt
152 grams of sugar

It looks like your recipe would be above 4% for salt and sugar, and almost twice the amount of Cure # 1. Also, injecting and covering the ham with brine will likely raise the "uptake" of the curing brine. I'm hopeful some others will chime in, but it looks like you have a pretty hot brine, which could account for the 5.5 days of cure time. Meaning... the stronger the brine, the shorter the brine time.

According to your Numbers yes, I have a hot brine and I assume safe? Even looking through this form people will suggest a range of days to cure a ham with a range of weights, it seems really hard to nail it down to hard numbers/weights I guess keeps notes and keep trying till you find what works. I noticed Pops brine that is talk about on this form has twice the sugar than what I used. Should I add another cup of sugar to my brine?

Thursday I will be 2 days into brining do you suggest I change something, should I brine it longer? I really don't need it the day of Christmas just Christmas week.

I see where weight measurements are way more accurate than volume measurements now. What is the best way to come up with meat weight if the product has a bone in it?

 

[MR64]

The brine will work. The 5.5 days is iffy, it’s really hard to decipher random brines. If it works for you that’s great. Really will depend on how much you injected as brine. If you pumped it full, you are good.

Then recipe I used suggested, if injected with brine 1 day per 2#. Do you think I should brine it longer and with the brine being hot will it still be safe? I have no idea what over brined meat will look like or taste.

 

[thirdeye]

According to your Numbers yes, I have a hot brine and I assume safe? Even looking through this form people will suggest a range of days to cure a ham with a range of weights, it seems really hard to nail it down to hard numbers/weights I guess keeps notes and keep trying till you find what works. I noticed Pops brine that is talk about on this form has twice the sugar than what I used. Should I add another cup of sugar to my brine?

Thursday I will be 2 days into brining do you suggest I change something, should I brine it longer? I really don't need it the day of Christmas just Christmas week.

I see where weight measurements are way more accurate than volume measurements now. What is the best way to come up with meat weight if the product has a bone in it?

I guess the term we all struggle with is "tried and tested", meaning something that has proven in the past to be effective and reliable. Like my Grandpaw often said, "There is more than one way to fall off a horse". I would like to think the recipe you followed was not made up out of thin air, and do agree that the cure time of 5.5 days, and the soak-out was recommended because of the amount of Cure #1 and salt was higher than usual. The stronger the brine, the shorter the brine time. I think I would roll with what you have, and if anything add a few more hours of soak-out time.

Pop's Brine has quite a range of recommended amounts of salt and sugar, and the one constant is the amount of Cure #1. Each batch is based on 1-gallon of water. I believe his intent was for each individual to find their personal sweet spot for amounts of salt and sugar (there is even a Splenda option that Pop's discussed too). And I really like the science and design of his brine.

Getting the correct meat weight after subtracting the bone weight is sort of a guesstimation. I think I used 3 pounds for bone weight when I ran the numbers for your recipe.

 

[gmc2003]

Honest question here: If you increase the amount of salt/cure in your brine. Will it draw out the meats liquid quicker and then be reabsorbed quicker and deeper into the meat. Than if you used the correct/acceptable amount of salt/cure?

Chris

 

[tallbm]

Several years ago I wet cured a 15# ham that turned out wonderful but unfortunately I lost my notes. Now I am curing another ham for the holidays and would like someone to look over the recipe that I used.

11# Picnic Roast with skin on one side
1 gallon plus 1 cup or 4000 g, Water

1.5 cups, or 350 g, Morton course Kosher salt.
2 cups, or 335 g, Light Brown Sugar.
1/2 cup or 52 g, Mrs. Wages Pickling spice.
7 tsp or 33 g, Prague Powder #1.

I mixed all ingredients together with 2 qts of water except the Curing salt and heated on the stove. I cooled the brine then added the remaining water and Cure #1 and stirred till dissolved.

I scored the skin side of the picnic roast in a square pattern and injected with the brine along the bone, through the scores and on the non skin side of the roast. I then placed it in a food grade bucket and poured the brine over it, placed a plate on top of the future ham to keep it submerged and into the fridge.

I was going to brine it 1 day for every 2#, this is meat and bone, so 5.5 days Then soak it in fresh cool water for 4 hours and cook it in the oven.

This is a start for me and any guidance on what I have done would be much appreciated. My end goal is to understand the wet brining process so I am confident and safe in what I am doing and understanding equilibrium brining, but for now I need to keep it simple. Thank you in advance

A pic of my first cured ham, The comments at the table were "So this is what ham is suppose to taste like".

View attachment 683811

Hi there and welcome!

That ham looks amazing!

I have a feeling you will get into Equilibrium (EQ) brines/cures pretty quickly.

A few of major things I learned that helps a ton to understand this all is that:

• Salt and Cure travel through meat at 1/4 inch every 24 hours, so this helps estimate time to cure/brine
  • So now when you mix up the solution and inject it and then soak in the solution you know how fast it's traveling outside in and inside out!
• A good not too salty salt % for me is 1.65%, which means you can brine this thing for as much time as you need/like and it will never get too salty
• This webpage with it's calculators make things so much EASIER to figure out how to do an EQ cure/brine: http://diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html?result=3.03+++8.333+=+11.363&secret=
• Once you nail this you will never be too salty or have to guess whether thing will fully cure through safely or not

Get your head wrapped around those concepts and you will be like 95% of the way there.
The last 5% to me learning how to figure out how much water to use (I have a simple trick for that) and then figuring out if/when to add other stuff to the cure/brine.
I normally don't add things except when doing Pastrami or Ham. Those have aromatic things like my ham having clove and star anise and such.

Let me know if any of this makes sense and continue absorbing all the great info here. You have been getting great info from the guys so far :D

 

[SmokinEdge]

Honest question here: If you increase the amount of salt/cure in your brine. Will it draw out the meats liquid quicker and then be reabsorbed quicker and deeper into the meat. Than if you used the correct/acceptable amount of salt/cure?

Chris

The short answer is yes. The higher the sodium concentration the faster diffusion and osmosis occurs. Sodium is like horsepower in cure.

In the old days with no refrigeration salt concentration of cures were very high to prevent spoilage Weather in brine or dry mix. The salting times were rather short then the meat was removed rinsed dried and left to “cure” or equalize for a week or up to 30 days Depending on thickness. So salting was a step, then all salt cleaned off and equalization was a step, something we don’t much practice today but I find it still helps even with equilibrium cures.

 

[SmokinEdge]

The brine will work. The 5.5 days is iffy, it’s really hard to decipher random brines. If it works for you that’s great. Really will depend on how much you injected as brine. If you pumped it full, you are good.

I wish I knew about how much brine was injected, but that said I agree that the 5-7 day window will work but I would then remove it from the brine wash it off and bag it or wrap it up go back into the fridge for another week to equalize. That step will make a big positive difference on the final ham flavor.

 

[MR64]

I wish I knew about how much brine was injected, but that said I agree that the 5-7 day window will work but I would then remove it from the brine wash it off and bag it or wrap it up go back into the fridge for another week to equalize. That step will make a big positive difference on the final ham flavor.

Can I ask what do you mean by equalize? Is this because I have way to much salt and cure?

 

[SmokinEdge]

Can I ask what do you mean by equalize? Is this because I have way to much salt and cure?

When curing with stronger salt mixes time in the mix is important. To long and the meat is over salty, not long enough and it doesn’t cure all the way, but once you think you have enough time you remove the meat from the cure and let it rest, this is the equalization time for salt and cure to balance across the whole piece. At this stage the meat is no longer taking in nitrites and salt, what’s in the meat is it but the surface can be higher in salt than the center, different muscles take up salt at different rates and it takes time to even out. Sodium will continue to gravitate towards low sodium areas and water from low sodium areas with continue to move towards high sodium, this diffusion process continues until the meat piece reaches equilibrium with sodium and water.

This is why so many of us use the equilibrium curing method. Instead of using random amounts of salt and cure we apply exactly the salt and cure we want in the finished meat, we do this by applying salt and cure by percentage to meat weight. This is all weight measurement and no volume measurements. With this method the same balancing or equalizing is taking place but it doesn’t matter if in cure 10 days or 20 days the meat can never be more salty than the percentage we apply. We usually stay in cure about 14 days, that’s enough time to cure and equalize.

 

[tallbm]

Can I ask what do you mean by equalize? Is this because I have way to much salt and cure?

Like SmokinEdge is stating.

Q: Can I ask what do you mean by equalize?
A: The salt and cure want to travel and spread out evenly/equally to where it is not.

Think of it like if you had a flat square container and you poured a mound of pudding into the center of it.
The pudding would start in a mound at the center and start to seep down and spread out until it evened out equally along the bottom of the container.

Same concept with the salt and cure but it will penetrate the water and meat evenly/equally.

This also clears up the mystery of why you need both the water weight AND the meat weight for the TOTAL WEIGHT used in the calculation.
When you get that total weight and use 1.65% salt of the total weight, this means the salt well spread evenly/equally among the water and the meat, and everything will have no more than 1.65% salt content.
The water helps provide an environment for the salt to travel all around the meat and into the meat easily and equally. If no water was used then you might have more salt on top of the meat that could not get to a spot needed at the bottom part of the meat. With the water the salt will just move through the water and more easily find that bottom spot of the meat that needs more salt.

Yes some reddit nerd would say "technically it is impossible for the salt and cure to spread equally at 1.65% because the weight of the salt itself was not taken into consideration and bones wont absorb all the salt, etc. etc. etc." but you get the idea that it is very very close. Close enough to ignore such a nerd and for it to not really matter in brining/curing your food in the end :D

Q: Is this because I have way to much salt and cure?
A: It's not really "too much" it's more that it just takes time for the salt and cure to do it's natural travel thing. If it moves into meat at 1/4 inch ever 24 hours then it just takes some time for any amount of salt and cure to make the trip until it finds it has equalized among all the stuff (meat and water) in it's environment (the curing bucket/tub).

Let me know if this answers the questions well, and keep them coming. It's nice to resolve the mystery of this stuff so that it all makes sense and allows you to brine/cure with complete confidence and understanding :D

 

[MR64]

Here is is a follow up and thank you all for the help.

I ended up going an extra day on the brine and when finished brining I soaked it in clean cool water for 4 hours. I do not know why the skin did not look as good or cook like the first ham I did, that's a mystery. I brined it in pickling spice and it had a good holiday flavor. My wife made some ham spread that was really good too.
The only spice I could not locate was Star anise so that was omitted when I baked it.

 

[tallbm]

Here is is a follow up and thank you all for the help.

I ended up going an extra day on the brine and when finished brining I soaked it in clean cool water for 4 hours. I do not know why the skin did not look as good or cook like the first ham I did, that's a mystery. I brined it in pickling spice and it had a good holiday flavor. My wife made some ham spread that was really good too.
The only spice I could not locate was Star anise so that was omitted when I baked it.
View attachment 685446View attachment 685447View attachment 685448View attachment 685449

That looks fantastic, great job! Looks like you got this down and won't need to buy a premade ham from the store ever again... unless you want to :D

 

[thirdeye]

I ended up going an extra day on the brine and when finished brining I soaked it in clean cool water for 4 hours.

Because I grew up around exposure to stronger brines, a soak out step is still part of my technique even though I'm more brine-smart or salt-smart... or whatever. It makes me feel better.

The only spice I could not locate was Star anise so that was omitted when I baked it.

Anise is a liquorice (sp?) flavor that I can take or leave on any given day. Cloves and juniper berries are other spices I feel the same about. Sometimes I'm surprised how they contribute to the "background" flavor of certain things.

Anyways, that turned out GREAT