Review my cure calculator

[Jcarter93]

Hey guys,

I made a cure calculator and unit converter in google sheets/excel. I was hoping I could get some feedback on it from you.

It lets you input gallons of water and pounds of meat (including 0 gallons for dry cure). Then you can use ppm or percentage to calculate required cure #1. You can also input the amount f cure #1 you used to get pp and percentage.

The unit converter does gallons>cups>grams>oz>pounds and back. All unit conversion values are from google search.

There's also a basic note of common percentages for a cure brine.

Only the green cells should be editable in the attached file, everything else will be based on formulas.

I'd love to hear what you think.

 

[thirdeye]

Is there a particular reason you left the values for salt and sugar fixed? Depending on the product, many folks like to change up those percentages.

 

[Jcarter93]

Is there a particular reason you left the values for salt and sugar fixed? Depending on the product, many folks like to change up those percentages.

Those are more suggestions I guess. You could always plug the percentage you want into the 3rd row of the curing salt #1 (%) column and get the weight of any sugar or salt percentage you wanted. In fact, that's what I did when I made a brine Sunday.

 

[olaf]

I would dump the calculations in ounces since you buy meat by the pound and measure your ingredients in grams also the results only need to be rounded to two digits after the decimal (2.77 vs 2.7700364257). This is mine although its still a work in progress
my cure is fixed at a lower rate, I may have to add a conversion calculator.

******************not sure of the rules, remove calculator if necessary***************

​

 

[Jcarter93]

I would dump the calculations in ounces since you buy meat by the pound and measure your ingredients in grams also the results only need to be rounded to two digits after the decimal (2.77 vs 2.7700364257). This is mine although its still a work in progress
my cure is fixed at a lower rate, I may have to add a conversion calculator.

******************not sure of the rules, remove calculator if necessary***************

​

All the actual formulas are in grams. Th converter has ounces in case that's the measurements someone has on hand. It makes it easy to convert and plug in on one sheet.

Rounding down on the sheet is a good idea, then no one will have to round in their head.

I like your calculator. It looks like you set the brine cure for bacon at 130 ppm, right?

 

[olaf]

All the actual formulas are in grams. Th converter has ounces in case that's the measurements someone has on hand. It makes it easy to convert and plug in on one sheet.

Rounding down on the sheet is a good idea, then no one will have to round in their head.

I like your calculator. It looks like you set the brine cure for bacon at 130 ppm, right?

Yes I'm at 130 ppm I may change it still working on the recipe.

 

[PolishDeli]

Looks like you are using the "equilibrium formula." In that case, the numbers check out.

However, some things about the layout seem like they would make the calculator confusing to a person not already familiar with the art.
For example: Cell J5 displays "156.25"
The column is labeled "PPM" but the row is labeled "%TARGET"

I think it'd be slik and simple if you remove some input options. For example: the only inputs could be "water weight", "meat weight", "target NaNO2 ppm". Then the output is "weigh of cure #1"

If you want the option to do the reverse calculation, split that into a differnt calculator.

The unit convert is a nice touch. Helps a lot when comparing different recipes that use different units.

Ultimately, what's most important is that it yields the correct numbers, and that it meets your needs. My calculator is also excel-based. It's overly technical. I've posted it before, but I'm sue noone else uses it. It works for me though.

 

[Jcarter93]

Looks like you are using the "equilibrium formula." In that case, the numbers check out.

However, some things about the layout seem like they would make the calculator confusing to a person not already familiar with the art.
For example: Cell J5 displays "156.25"
The column is labeled "PPM" but the row is labeled "%TARGET"

I think it'd be slik and simple if you remove some input options. For example: the only inputs could be "water weight", "meat weight", "target NaNO2 ppm". Then the output is "weigh of cure #1"

If you want the option to do the reverse calculation, split that into a differnt calculator.

The unit convert is a nice touch. Helps a lot when comparing different recipes that use different units.

Ultimately, what's most important is that it yields the correct numbers, and that it meets your needs. My calculator is also excel-based. It's overly technical. I've posted it before, but I'm sue noone else uses it. It works for me though.

That's a good point. Maybe I could label the rows as inputs and the columns as results. Reducing the inputs is also a good Idea.

I want to keep the option to put in grams of cure to evaluate recipes I find for various products but I probably should split that functionality off into another sheet.