Phosphate- secret weapon

[chilerelleno]

Simply gorgeous sliced Roast Beef!
Bravo on the whole process.
Like! Again and again and again.

 

[browneyesvictim]

Thanks Chile. Your no slouch yourself!
Appreciate the like.

 

[browneyesvictim]

Dinner tonight was 100% ground brisket. Of course I added phosphates at the appropriate amounts.

16 lb packer brisket. Boy was it fatty! I trimmed 6 lbs off for 10 lbs of grind. Went through the fine plate once and mixed in .8 oz of phosphate with a small amount of water dissolved. Then mixed. Five 2 lb pkgs of grind. All but 1 to the freezer and a package out for a late burger and a brew tonight for all my hard work.

 

[KrisUpInSmoke]

Thanks..now I want a meat grinder too.

 

[browneyesvictim]

Haha! Well maybe you can start with a patty press at least? Stick around here on SMF long enough sunshine, and suddenly you have a kitchen full of that kind of stuff! Fun!

 

[browneyesvictim]

This one is for @Bearcarver!

 

[Bearcarver]

This one is for @Bearcarver!
View attachment 371762

Not Nice to tease a Hungry Bear with Awesome Looking Sammies in your Pic-a-nic Basket!!
You better call the Ranger for Back-up!!
Nice Job.
Like.

Bear

 

[Jeff Wright]

So, a couple questions about your phosphate use... Where do you get it? I did a phosphate search and found tons of phosphate cleaning productso_O.

Actually I did find the 414 finally. Have to go to a butcher to buy?

Mainly though, is what your mixture use of this stuff is? One place I saw said to use 6-7 oz per 100# of meat. I think that translates to about 1/5 of an ounce for a 3# peice of meat?

That looks like some darn fine lunch meat.

 

[chopsaw]

Wow . That sandwich looks fantastic .

 

[browneyesvictim]

Not Nice to tease a Hungry Bear with Awesome Looking Sammies in your Pic-a-nic Basket!!
You better call the Ranger for Back-up!!
Nice Job.
Like.

Bear

It was Mr. RANGER that sent me, Yogi. He and Boo-boo said you liked homemade horseradish brown mustard on it too.

So, a couple questions about your phosphate use... Where do you get it? I did a phosphate search and found tons of phosphate cleaning productso_O.

Actually I did find the 414 finally. Have to go to a butcher to buy?

Mainly though, is what your mixture use of this stuff is? One place I saw said to use 6-7 oz per 100# of meat. I think that translates to about 1/5 of an ounce for a 3# peice of meat?

That looks like some darn fine lunch meat.

This came from Butcher Packer. A few of the places that normally carry it have been out. Daveomak uses an Ames brand called Amesphos, but is no longer available or something. The only food-grade I could find on Amazon was out of stock and has been for a couple of months. It was in my shopping cart a long time until I finally placed the order for the BP Phosphate.

Good question about the usage!

It took me a bit to wrap my head around how to calculate how much phosphate to use as a given percentage for injection Vs. adding to ground meat V.s. if dong an equilibrium brine. I thought it would be important to explain this difference. Through lots of patience and many PM’s with @daveomak, it finally sunk in to my thick skull!

On the label of the 414 Sausage Phosphate, it reads: ”2-TBS for 25 lbs. of meat. This is obviously for adding directly to GROUND MEAT. This is not helpful if you want to inject, or use in a brine! Even then, I recommend dissolving the STPP in a little water fefore adding to your grind.

The calculation for injection or brine is done by calculating your total weights INCLUDING THE WATER or BROTH or whatever liquid medium you are mixing the phosphate up in to inject. So I was stuck in understanding first:

• How much water/broth/liquid should I use? The answer for injecting is typically 10% of the weight of the meat. So for 10 lbs of meat you would typically use 10% of that which is 1 pound of water or 1 pint-(Remembering the old saying “Pint the pound the world around!”) or 453.592 Grams (454 rounded) or 16 Fluid Oz. If you are brining, you simply add the weight of the water to the calculation.

In this example, you have 10 lbs of meat and 1 lb of water (or salt free stock) for a total off 11 lbs. or 4989.5 grams. I created an XL spreadsheet calculator so I will always have it.

• STPP is calculated at .4%. So for 11 lbs you would multiply 4989 X .4% = 19.95 grams
• Sugar at 1% So for 11 lbs you would multiply 4989 X 1% = 49.89 grams
• Salt is figured at 2%. So for a 11 lbs you would multiply 4989 x 2% = 99.78 grams
• And any cure at 0.25%. So for 11 lbs you would multiply 4989 X .25% = 12.47 grams

Dave was very clear in that you want to dissolve the above ingredients ONE AT A TIME, AND IN THAT ORDER.

I will spare the commentary about how to inject and cure times etc, but I hope this helps.

Edit: fixed typos included in calculations

 

[motocrash]

Anyone try it for baking yet?

 

[Jeff Wright]

Thanks..that is quite the explanation. It would tend to disable the noggin going through those calcs!

 

[chopsaw]

Anyone try it for baking yet?

Not yet , but I've been reading up on it .

 

[browneyesvictim]

Thanks..that is quite the explanation. It would tend to disable the noggin going through those calcs!

Once the whisky buzz wears off, the math seems to make more sense! Lol! Once you convert your weights to metric in grams, the rest of those multiplication factors fall in place a lot better in my mind anyway. Obviously you need a good scale.

 

[mosparky]

Great explanation and very helpful to have in print. I too struggled with the full concept and proportions.

 

[zwiller]

Great explanation Browneye! Perhaps Dave will confirm but I recall he also has a simplified method where he does not include the weight of the water/stock in his injection calcs. That's what I do and works well. Another thing I try and remind people is that when running the numbers remember .4% equals .004. If you don't hit the percent button on your calculator you will be far off. Easy to goof.

 

[browneyesvictim]

Great explanation Browneye! Perhaps Dave will confirm but I recall he also has a simplified method where he does not include the weight of the water/stock in his injection calcs. That's what I do and works well. Another thing I try and remind people is that when running the numbers remember .4% equals .004. If you don't hit the percent button on your calculator you will be far off. Easy to goof.

By my understanding of Daves explanation is he believes:
From Dave O.:

Since I'm adding the individual ingredients to the meat product, and since the water will "mostly if not totally" evaporate, I don't calculate the water weight into the formula... I also didn't subtract the weight of the hide from the weight of the ham... If a slab of bacon is ~10% hide, a ham must be around 3% hide... insignificant... And then there is the leakage into the zip bag...

All things considered, this method is more accurate than the method employed by the "HAM" manufacturers.... They mix up hundreds of gallons of cure/spice mix and randomly inject meats of different weights and thickness...

If absorption is off by 20%, the values are still well within recommended values...

​

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/ham-from-fresh-picnics-update-10-21-money.236375/

 

[mosparky]

Just curious, why dissolve one at a time and in that order ?
If Dave says so, that's how I will do it, but I still like to know why.

 

[browneyesvictim]

I don't know, and I didn't ask. But I did notice that the STPP powder acted very strangely when I added it to water. It instantly wanted to concentrate into hard rock crystal(s) like big pieces of rock salt. It took a bit of time to get it dissolved. I did NOT heat the liquid at all, which is what instinct will try and tell you to do to help dissolve things. But I know better that heat will adversely affect the cure, and I only assumed this was true with STPP.

 

[zwiller]

I also noticed the same thing that it was hard to dissolve but I did it totally backwards and hot, salt first (no cure though). I will try and remember to add first. I could not find any info on whether heating STPP was not good. I assumed it was OK.