Educate me on salt content and use of #1 cure

[ihocky2]

I have been making jerky off and on for several years, a lot more in the last 2 years. I have always used the Hi Mountain kits. I like the flavor and it is what I grew up expecting jerky to taste like. I am ready to branch out and start trying some other recipes. One that interests me is the chili lime. While at the store I found a dry seasoning for chili lime that sounds really good that I am going to give a try.

This will be my first time using #1 cure. The Hi Mountain kit contains either some type of maple cure or something similar to tenderquick I suspect. For 1 pound of meat their recipe is about 1-1/2 teaspoons of seasoning and 2 teaspoons of cure. With #1 cure I need 1 teaspoon per 5 pounds (by weight I believe it is 0.2 oz), so less than 1/4 teaspoon per pound. This is nowhere near the volume from Hi Mountain.

How much salt flavor can I expect the #1 cure to add? I know with sausages a common method is to season and then fry up a little to taste it. I imagine there is no reason I cannot do the same for jerky. If I remember correctly you should not add the cure and then fry it. I don't want to add salt to the seasonings, test it, and then come back and add cure and find it too salty.

 

[Fueling Around]

Ignore the premix cures recipes for going on your own . They add a lot of ??? so it is not cure #1
As I remember, cure #1 adds about 0.5% salt to the mix.
Jerky needs to cure at least a day

According to LEM you can interchange sausage and jerky seasoning to make either sausage or jerky depending on your meat prep and finishing

 

[SmokinEdge]

So with a tender quick type cure, you have the salt already figured in along with cure. In the case of High Mountain, you have salt, sugar, and cure all blended.
To go it alone here is what to do.
1) weigh your meat. Convert that weight to grams. It’s just easier to work with. 1 pound = 454 grams.
2) now figure salt. I like 1.5% salt, but others like 2.0% or even as much as 3.0%. Too high for me. So in my example. 1 pound of meat =454 grams. I would multiply that weight by 1.5% or 0.015x454= 6.81 grams of salt.
3) sugar, I like 1.0% so this goes like this for one pound: 454x0.010=4.54 grams sugar.
4) you have the cure right at 1tsp per 5# but if you want to break that down to per pound at 156 ppm it would look like this: 454x0.000156=0.070824 now take that divided by 0.0625 (the amount of nitrite in cure #1) =1.133 grams of cure per pound.
I hope this helps. Any questions, just ask.

 

[Fueling Around]

Forgot to add the calculator I use for adding salt
Blonder

 

[ChuxPick]

SmokinEdge seems to have you covered, but if you don't like mathing you could try this cure calculator

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[Brokenhandle]

I'd also add to get a small scale for measuring ingredients out...especially cure #1. Or any cure whether it's tenderquick or cure #1 or #2. Much more accurate, more so if you're doing small batches, than using teaspoons

Ryan

 

[ihocky2]

So with a tender quick type cure, you have the salt already figured in along with cure. In the case of High Mountain, you have salt, sugar, and cure all blended.
To go it alone here is what to do.
1) weigh your meat. Convert that weight to grams. It’s just easier to work with. 1 pound = 454 grams.
2) now figure salt. I like 1.5% salt, but others like 2.0% or even as much as 3.0%. Too high for me. So in my example. 1 pound of meat =454 grams. I would multiply that weight by 1.5% or 0.015x454= 6.81 grams of salt.
3) sugar, I like 1.0% so this goes like this for one pound: 454x0.010=4.54 grams sugar.
4) you have the cure right at 1tsp per 5# but if you want to break that down to per pound at 156 ppm it would look like this: 454x0.000156=0.070824 now take that divided by 0.0625 (the amount of nitrite in cure #1) =1.133 grams of cure per pound.
I hope this helps. Any questions, just ask.

And here it finally is, that day they warned us about in high school when algebra saves our life. Sorry, had to do it. Thank you for the very thorough answer. I do follow your formula very well, and it makes sense.
Thank you to all other replies as well. Being used to the premix I wasn’t sure how much salt flavor came from the cure itself, seems like very little. The rest is just table salt.

I do have a good scale already that I use for seasoning meat products, so I am headed in the right direction. I do ageee that going by weight is more accurate. Now just to work the seasonings and the salt content to create a recipe I like.

thanks again.

 

[BGKYSmoker]

If you use cure 1 to a 5 pound batch there is not enough salt in the 1 tsp to make your sausage too salty.
If you use TQ yes there is more salt in it and you will need to cut any salt in your recipe. This also includes jerky

 

[doongie]

I'd also add to get a small scale for measuring ingredients out...

^^^THIS^^^
I have a few friends interested in curing after tasting some of the dried beef/venison I’ve made, and I stress using a scale with a resolution to tenths or hundredths of a gram. I got mine on amazon for like $10, so it should not be a dealbreaker.

Some of the size pieces of meat I work with, resolution of 1 gram could easily put my measurement off by as much as 100%.

Even with a 9# piece of meat, 1 gram is 10% of the amount of cure needed. That’s a fairly significant amount.