Does anyone know the minimum ppm cure level to achieve the colour effect of the cure? I don't want the meat cured...just to maintain the colour when the sausage is cooked (sausage).
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I know some curing will take place. What I want to avoid is the " ham" taste that you get with fully cured meat (nothing wrong with that - just don't want it in the summer sausage).The pink color that your talking about is actually the effect of the cure on the meat. The meat becomes "cured" causing it to retain it's color when it's cooked. If the meat doesn't "cure", then you'll have the same result in color as an uncured piece of meat.
Sounds about right . I saw 40ppm mentioned somewhere but can't remember where.All you need to get the pink/red color is .6g per kilo, maybe even a bit less. But .6 only gives you 40ppm nitrite and for obvious safety reasons you need 2 to 2.5g of cure to be in the safe zone of 120ppm minimum and 156ppm maximum.
But that's just it. The meat remaining that pink color is a product of the meat curing. If a piece of pork isn't fully cured, it won't maintain that color. I think there a great picture of an example of an undercured pork loin in Pop's Brine/Cure thread. There might be other chemicals to get this done, but I'm not sure the best way is the undershoot the cure amount. I could very well be wrong though.I know some curing will take place. What I want to avoid is the " ham" taste that you get with fully cured meat (nothing wrong with that - just don't want it in the summer sausage).
Also remember, since you're not fully curing the meat that the 40-140 in 4 hours rule now applies concerning spoilage and bacteria.
But that's just it. The meat remaining that pink color is a product of the meat curing. If a piece of pork isn't fully cured, it won't maintain that color. I think there a great picture of an example of an undercured pork loin in Pop's Brine/Cure thread. There might be other chemicals to get this done, but I'm not sure the best way is the undershoot the cure amount. I could very well be wrong though.
Well there ya go! Learn something new everyday. Now the question is regarding the cooking times. I'm guessing that by lowering the PPM you don't have the same protection to do a low and slow method....Viva Google. Got something from American Meat Institute:
"Addition of nitrite was the overall controlling factor on cooked product color. In general the cured color was not influenced by the addition of the non-nitrite antimicrobial ingredients. Treatments containing 30 to 120 ppm nitrite did not differ in cooked color. The minimum of 30 ppm nitrite was sufficient to produce a pink cured color in contrast to the absence of pink in the no nitrite control."
This was for poultry. Don't know if pork, beef need more.
Seeing as your in canada, if you're able to keep the chamber below 40 degrees...and of course above freezing, I think cold smoking would be ok since you're not risking spoiling.Cold smoked (maybe) and poached.