Salt Equalization?

[diggingdogfarm]

"The 10 day per kg curing period should be followed by an equalisation period to allow the cure ingredients to spread evenly throughout the meat. Within reason this should be lengthy probably a minimum of 5 days per kg – however we have no tests to show the movement after curing so these are our thoughts based solely on the movement during the curing period – they may be different post cure."

Times required for equalization depend on a lot of different factors and will be different for different classes of meat cuts or even individual cuts.
Temperature, size/thickness, fat content, geometry of the piece of meat, surface area in relation to the size/thickness of the meat, muscle orientation in relation to cuts, water percentage, diffusion coefficient of the piece of meat, etc.
Hundreds of papers have been written on the subject of diffusion of salt and cure in meats.

Home curers generally rely on experience and general rules of thumb to produce an acceptable product....patience certainly helps. :smile:

@inkjunkie,

For next time....
A reliable course of action would be to go with a combination cure...dry mix on the outside and some pumped brine on the inside...you can even leave the piece of meat whole.
To use a minimum amount of MTQ...measure out the total amount of MTQ required...divide that MTQ in half...add water to one half (to fully dissolve the cure it takes roughly 3 to 1, water to cure)...chill the brine and evenly inject. Rub the remaining MTQ on the outside.
If you do a good job injecting, it speeds-up curing and equalization time considerably.

 

[mr t 59874]

Thanks' DDF,  Very useful information.  I will start using it on my larger cuts of meat.

Thanks' again,

Tom

 

[wade]

Times required for equalization depend on a lot of different factors and will be different for different classes of meat cuts or even individual cuts.
Temperature, size/thickness, fat content, geometry of the piece of meat, surface area in relation to the size/thickness of the meat, muscle orientation in relation to cuts, water percentage, diffusion coefficient of the piece of meat, etc.
Hundreds of papers have been written on the subject of diffusion of salt and cure in meats.

That's great Martin. If you can point me in the direction of a couple of good papers on this that you would recommend they should be great as reference reading material.

Cheers

Wade

 

[diggingdogfarm]

Here's a good place to start.....
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=salt+nitrite+diffusion&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,33
As you know, papers reference other papers easily leading to even more information.

This is interesting.....
Simulation of salt diffusion in a pork (bacon) side using 3D imaging.

I have a bunch of information somewhere, but I think that most of it was buried (and is still buried) in a storage locker when I moved here 5 years ago.

 

[wade]

Here's a good place to start.....
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=salt+nitrite+diffusion&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,33
As you know, papers reference other papers easily leading to even more information.

This is interesting.....
Simulation of salt diffusion in a pork (bacon) side using 3D imaging.

Hi Martin - a very interesting mix of articles

The 3D imagery one was obviously a presentation and it would have been great to hear the dialog to go along with it. The slides were very promising but I bet the whole presentation was great. As this was from 2007 I guess there is little chance of getting that now 

. Some very interesting modeling and simulation work. I see that they conclude that they hope to use these models to see "how accurately we can predict salting time/final mean salt concentration". Do you know if they published the results showing how well their simulations modeled actual meat? It would be good to see how closely these modeled reality.

From the other link the only ones that looked as if they relate to the diffusion rate of salts into pork are the ones from the Journal of Food Science - but unfortunately they are subscription only. I don't mind paying to read an article but before I do which one of these two are you recommending?

Cheers

Wade

 

[diggingdogfarm]

Did you see both pdf files associated with the 3D project?

The cost of some of those papers is crazy.

I found a lot of free stuff while researching the subject over several years.

Try refining your search right in Google.....
salt diffusivity pork pdf

Google Advanced Search makes it easier.

I also found a lot of references in meat science books...there's a lot of information to be had via the available previews of some of those books in Google Book Search.


HTH

 

[wade]

Oh yes. That gives a bit more information regarding their simulation slides. I would now be great to see how close their simulation matched actual salt absorption.

Cheers

Wade