Sodium Erythorbate Woes

[geostriata]

I think you are confusing what Marianski said. He said not to use cure accelerators with semi-dry or dried products. I agree with him for sure. But cure accelerators such as sodium erythorbate are fine otherwise. Just because it’s called a “dry rub” does not equate to a semi-dry cured or long dry cured meat product. 7-14 days is not considered as either.

You might be right. I was thinking he was talking about air dried in general:

"Curing accelerators are of little use in air dried products as by increasing nitrite reaction they deplete its amount. As a result, less nitrite is available for long term curing."
​

But maybe it only applies to semi-dried or dried, as you say.

​

 

[chopsaw]

Never mind bud ,,,,,,

 

[geostriata]

Never mind bud ,,,,,,

Sorry if I was annoying there. I just wanted to be absolutely certain.

If cube-cure-then-grind was undeniably better, than it would have been a really devastating blow to me. It would've meant I wasted countless hours doing things the wrong way. My aim is highest quality, so there's any step in my process that can be made better, I want to be doing it.

 

[SmokinEdge]

1. We cube meat with cure and then let it cure for 24hrs. Then we grind it
2. We grind meat, and then mix cure with it and let it rest for

Marianski does not say to cube meats and cure 24 hours. Here is what he wrote, look at the bottom of the page for an index of cure times.

I think somehow in a big way you are conflating information and over thinking all of this.

The curing process with salt and cure #1 changes the texture of meat. The biggest change is the firmness of cured meat. This process not only develops cure flavor but because the meat is more firm, it grinds with much better particle definition. This all leads to a better finished product. Why don’t you do the experiment yourself? Do It both ways and see for yourself. No, it won’t knock your socks off exactly, but the over all quality of the finished product, like chop provided pictures of speak for themselves. Some things must be experienced not just talked about. No replacement for personal experience……..

 

[geostriata]

Marianski does not say to cube meats and cure 24 hours. Here is what he wrote, look at the bottom of the page for an index of cure times.

Yep, I know. The 24hrs was an example curing time.

That was just a scenario to ensure we were on the same page. I was thinking maybe chopsaw was thinking I'd just smoke immediately after grinding or something, so that's why I picked an arbitrary 24hr cure time to try to really make it obvious I was only talking about the order of operation. In other words to say that, I believe the following are basically equivalent (assuming N is large enough for the cubed meat):

• Applying cure to cubed in 1" chunks and letting it rest for N hours, then grinding and stuffing
• Grinding meat with cure and letting it rest for N hours, then stuffing.

But it's a good point you raise about particle definition. So they're really not equivalent anyways.

I think somehow in a big way you are conflating information and over thinking all of this.

Just trying to get facts straight. Out of experience, I find it's helpful to find the context when someone is referencing Mariansky. To find the exact location in his books or website where he said a thing

The curing process with salt and cure #1 changes the texture of meat. The biggest change is the firmness of cured meat. This process not only develops cure flavor but because the meat is more firm, it grinds with much better particle definition. This all leads to a better finished product. Why don’t you do the experiment yourself? Do It both ways and see for yourself. No, it won’t knock your socks off exactly, but the over all quality of the finished product, like chop provided pictures of speak for themselves. Some things must be experienced not just talked about. No replacement for personal experience……..

Yeah, I've got a batch of my cube-cured stuff currently smoking right now to test how it works for me. Nothing like a good experiment to help get to the bottom of things.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Yep, I know. The 24hrs was an example curing time.

That was just a scenario to ensure we were on the same page. I was thinking maybe chopsaw was thinking I'd just smoke immediately after grinding or something, so that's why I picked an arbitrary 24hr cure time to try to really make it obvious I was only talking about the order of operation. In other words to say that, I believe the following are basically equivalent (assuming N is large enough for the cubed meat):

• Applying cure to cubed in 1" chunks and letting it rest for N hours, then grinding and stuffing
• Grinding meat with cure and letting it rest for N hours, then stuffing.

But it's a good point you raise about particle definition. So they're really not equivalent anyways.



Just trying to get facts straight. Out of experience, I find it's helpful to find the context when someone is referencing Mariansky. To find the exact location in his books or website where he said a thing



Yeah, I've got a batch of my cube-cured stuff currently smoking right now to test how it works for me. Nothing like a good experiment to help get to the bottom of things.

I know that you are trying to understand this, but in your case specifically, you just need to trial and error because, no offense, you do not accept anyone else’s experience as pertaining to your question. So you need to just discover for yourself, I’m thinking. Plus many of us just don’t want to post on your threads because, again, you don’t trust or believe the answers. Maybe better for you to do your own experiments and just simply report that in a thread. That way we all have apples to compare to apples.

As a side note, in my experience, sodium erythorbate is NOT an instant “cure accelerator “ they advertise it kind of that way, but it simply is not that. What it does, and why they advertise to use SE then stuff right away and smoke, is because of erythorbate antioxidant properties that help stop the formation of nitrosamines when the meat is consumed.

If you simply mix a sausage recipe with cure #1 and all other ingredients, stuff and hot smoke, the final product will have cured flavor and color. This is because cure #1 is fast acting, and the fact that heat above about 140 will cause nitrite to degenerate and gas off to NO. The thing that is concerning here is that you have no idea how much residual nitrite is still present with the no rest time. Enter sodium erythorbate. A cure “accelerant “ but more importantly an antioxidant that prevents the formation of nitrosamines. At least that’s the theory. So the sausage is “safe” with SE.

However my testing shows that as a “cure accelerator “ SE Needs 12 or more hours to deplete nitrite levels. SE is NOT an instant accelerator. It’s very home kitchen friendly.

I’ve done the gas off test with fruit juice, wine and cure #1 as well as water with SE and cure #1.

In that test, the nitrite gassed off immediately with orange juice and with wine visually so. But with water and SE no visible gas off occurred even after 15 minutes of watching, zero bubbles.

 

[geostriata]

I know that you are trying to understand this, but in your case specifically, you just need to trial and error because, no offense, you do not accept anyone else’s experience as pertaining to your question. So you need to just discover for yourself, I’m thinking.

This isn't true, but I get why you'd say that. I consider every post and every suggestion on any of my threads. I accept the experience of others and try to learn from that experience first hand through action. When I try that thing and it doesn't work, I'll earnestly take suggestions for why it didn't work and try again. When it still doesn't work, I may try an A/B test or ask others or dig into the literature to better understand why.

If you look at my history, that's exactly what you'll see.

After a while, I may have read enough and experimented enough that I've convinced myself I have a solid grasp of things. After a few successes, I have a bit of expertise, and I have the data to back that up as well. At that point, citing that person's experience won't work anymore. I don't know why it worked for them, but because I've taken the time to consider and work through everything offered in my threads, I have the ability to suggest that that approach may not work well for others. Even if that suggestion seems like I'm merely fighting with a certain person's experience.

In my snack stick thread, that's exactly what happened. I literally tried absolutely everything mentioned. I respected and appreciated everything mentioned there. If a suggestion was made, then I tried it, tested it, and benchmarked it. Over 65 experiments were done in that thread alone, many based on the experience/suggestions of others.

So what happens when an expert comes in and suggests something that I've already tried and tested? While I respect their experience, it's at odds with my experience except my experience also has meticulous notes and data around it. I'd probably ask to see their data, but if that was lacking, I'd have to respectively decline their suggestion and politely provide reasons for doing so.

I may not agree with everyone's suggestions or opinions, but I damn well respect and appreciate them!

As a side note, in my experience, sodium erythorbate is NOT an instant “cure accelerator “ they advertise it kind of that way, but it simply is not that. What it does, and why they advertise to use SE then stuff right away and smoke, is because of erythorbate antioxidant properties that help stop the formation of nitrosamines when the meat is consumed.

If you simply mix a sausage recipe with cure #1 and all other ingredients, stuff and hot smoke, the final product will have cured flavor and color. This is because cure #1 is fast acting, and the fact that heat above about 140 will cause nitrite to degenerate and gas off to NO. The thing that is concerning here is that you have no idea how much residual nitrite is still present with the no rest time. Enter sodium erythorbate. A cure “accelerant “ but more importantly an antioxidant that prevents the formation of nitrosamines. At least that’s the theory. So the sausage is “safe” with SE.

However my testing shows that as a “cure accelerator “ SE Needs 12 or more hours to deplete nitrite levels. SE is NOT an instant accelerator. It’s very home kitchen friendly.

I’ve done the gas off test with fruit juice, wine and cure #1 as well as water with SE and cure #1.

In that test, the nitrite gassed off immediately with orange juice and with wine visually so. But with water and SE no visible gas off occurred even after 15 minutes of watching, zero bubbles.

Makes sense! Love the experiment!

 

[SmokinEdge]

I appreciate what you are saying. That said, I really tried to stop posting on your threads because of the questions on known methods. I don’t follow your posts specifically so I don’t know who else feels the same, but I’ll tell you this, you managed to run off Chopsaw, who is a very knowledgeable member, and is very willing to share his experience and knowledge, as he did in one of your threads, but you don’t follow, rather you question everything. So it’s just best that you discover on your own. Your posting and response are running off all of the expietenced members. I wish you luck in your endeavors. But you will need to adjust your style to get much more advice. We tried buddy, but you want to reinvent the wheel.

 

[geostriata]

I appreciate what you are saying. That said, I really tried to stop posting on your threads because of the questions on known methods. I don’t follow your posts specifically so I don’t know who else feels the same, but I’ll tell you this, you managed to run off Chopsaw, who is a very knowledgeable member, and is very willing to share his experience and knowledge, as he did in one of your threads, but you don’t follow, rather you question everything. So it’s just best that you discover on your own. Your posting and response are running off all of the expietenced members. I wish you luck in your endeavors. But you will need to adjust your style to get much more advice. We tried buddy, but you want to reinvent the wheel.

Yeah, especially even given this thread wasn't about the tired cure-before-grind vs. cure-after-grind debate. My apologies.

 

[Hijack73]

While Mr Mariansky is an expert, his opinion on the Holy Time Period of 1950-1990 and his reasoning is questionable at the very least.

MEAT itself - even in Europe - was vastly different then. Yes, America led the way with faster grown, bigger, leaner meat, but Europe wasn't far behind. In that way, if I were you, and I was as passionate as you are, I'd ditch the use of ANY tube or store bought ground beef. IMO - that's like trying to turn Spam into belly bacon burnt ends. Yeah, some people like Spam on the Q. But it ain't the same.

G geostriata - I'm really not trying to pile on, but SmokinEdge (who can come off a bit assertive in his own right, and that's 100% ok because we are all different) is letting you know that (as good and informative as your posts can be) presentation is a huge aspect. Hell, he's experimented with science and tried to modify (successfully) a few wheels himself.

Stephen King is a great writer. His themes often aren't a lot better than something by Dean Koontz, but one of them is known as the master, and one of them is known as a pretty decent writer - even though they both use the exact same English language.

 

[DougE]

but SmokinEdge (who can come off a bit assertive in his own right, and that's 100% ok because we are all different)

He can come off that way, but as someone who calls him a friend and mentor, it is because he is confident in his knowledge, and passionate to share it.

 

[geostriata]

In that way, if I were you, and I was as passionate as you are, I'd ditch the use of ANY tube or store bought ground beef.

Absolutely!! Now that I'm able to actually test the fat percentage, I've been comparing the ground beef from local stores and multiple stores are totally off. Like 7%-10% off in terms of fat content. I think either because they're saturating with water before grind or are just trying to save money (since lean beef holds more water than beef fat).

Moral of the story is definitely to not trust store ground.

 

[indaswamp]

I think somehow in a big way you are conflating information and over thinking all of this.

I know that you are trying to understand this, but in your case specifically, you just need to trial and error because, no offense, you do not accept anyone else’s experience as pertaining to your question.

^^^^^^Bingo!

 

[indaswamp]

SE is NOT an instant accelerator.

^^^^Bingo again...

If someone wants a faster cure accelerator than SE, there are others available. One is Ascorbic Acid. To use it properly, the cure #1 must be thoroughly mixed into the meat first, then adding the ascorbic acid. The two should never be added at the same time. Mix, stuff, smoke immediately....

 

[geostriata]

I bought a few more books and reviewed all the referenced literature. Mariansky never says that it is better to cure the meat before it is ground. To claim otherwise is incorrect. As long as sufficient curing time takes place, it is fine.

Nevertheless, I ran two experiments side by side to test this empirically. Just because he never said it, doesn't mean that the experience of the members here should be discounted. It may still turn out to be a better process.

Here are the two experiments (all the same meat and spices were used in the same quantities, of course). All experimental batches included Sodium Erythorbate.

Experiment 1:

• Control batch is ground semi-frozen and cure added with spices during mix.
• Test batch is cubed into 1" cubes and then cure added with spices into a vacuum tumbler. Tumbled for an hour and left with vacuum intact. Batch was then ground and mixed.
• Both batches were left to cure for 24 hours in a fridge at ~40F. I cubed to 1" instead of 2" so that both batches could be pulled from the fridge at the same time.
• Patties were made and tested. Links were smoked and tested.

Experiment 2:

• Control batch is ground semi-frozen and cure added with spices during mix.
• Test batch is cubed into 1" cubes and cure added with spices into a tupperware container. Spices/cure was distributed via hand mixing and then covered with a clean towel to allow contents to breathe (per Mariansky instructions). Batch was then ground and mixed.
• Both batches were left to cure for 24 hours in a fridge at ~40F. I cubed to 1" instead of 2" so that both batches could be pulled from the fridge at the same time.
• I additionally measured the fat difference between the two batches. Control batch fat content was 2% higher than test batch, a minor difference.
• Patties were made and tested. Links were smoked and tested. This time I got my wife to help with blind tasting.

Results:

• In both experiments, I felt the taste was identical. Both tasted great, and had solid cured flavor and red color. I did note that some of the spices were left in the container (even after gather as much as possible into the mixing step), but if that did influence taste, it was negligible.
• In the second experiment, I again felt the taste was identical. Both tasted great, and had solid cured flavor and red color. My wife found the control batch to be more flavorful. She's a better taster than I am, which may be why she picked up a difference. This could be due to the 2% increase in fat or the spices that I couldn't get into the mix on the walls of the tupperware container.
• The test batch showed lovely coloring and particle definition during the grinding step, which appeared visually better than the control batch. Nevertheless, the control batch (because semi frozen) also showed good particle definition.
• Mixing times were comparable in both batches, achieving sticky after 6 minutes.

Conclusion:

• There's no benefit to curing before the grind process, and possibly a slight disadvantage since it involves more steps and possibly could lose some spices in the process.
• Surprisingly, I didn't notice a difference between curing the cubed meat in an enclosed container vs. allowing the gas to escape.
• Sodium Erythorbate (the original topic of this post) did fine in all cases.
• Although the test batch appeared to have slightly better particle definition, I don't think it made an impact on the final result.

 

[Hijack73]

This is like arguing that 33lb of pressure in a tire is superior to running 34lb of pressure in a tire.

Spoiler alert - or tl;dr on this whole thread - cure the damn meat before you smoke it. It's subjective to your personal preference on whether it's better to cure it before you grind it, or after you grind it.

Taste is always subjective, not a member on this forum can truthfully say "my cooks taste better than your cooks", and if you do, you need to take a step back and think of that adage - "If you run into an A-hole in the morning, you ran into an a-hole. If you run into a-holes all day, then you are probably the a-hole" - are there masters of the craft on here? Bet your ass there are, and some of them have helped me on my journey. I am grateful. Even this "my way (or Mariansky's way) is better than your way" - well, that's subjective, yet it led me to try Mariansky's way. And I liked what I got out of it.

FWIW - I made a small batch of a bastardized andouille for gumbo 2 weekends ago. It's bastardized because I added mustard seed to the traditional spices (so what? I like mustard seed in smoked sausage) and didn't coarse chop the meat. I don't care much about presentation in chunks of sausage in gumbo. I cubed it, rather than stripping it, and I cured it for ~26 hours then let it further cure after I ground it and got it tacky for another 2 days before I stuffed it, then another day before I smoked it. The texture is outstanding, my best yet (and due to my kitchen renovation I'm WAYYYYY behind on what I'd like to do as far as sausage, so admittedly I'm still very much a rookie), but this stuff on the inside is magazine quality. I have a couple of links left, I'll add a cut shot of them here IF I remember. Was it due to curing it before I ground it? Maybe. I was pretty impressed with it. Will I always take that extra step? maybe. maybe not - it depends on how I feel and whether or not I start planning for a Friday night smoke on a Monday or will I get a wild hair up my rectum and start it on a Wednesday?

I don't buy the books, I will never be an artisan sausage or salami maker. I'm just not that interested in it as a hobby - and thank you to those who did, and took the time to pore though them, and share what you all learned on here. I do really like what I make, so I may make more than I'd first envisioned (for the last 51 years I've mainly liked smoked sausage in gumbo or good quality Texas style on the side of a plate of smoked beef). That's all that is important to me, "do I like it?" and I've found myself over here wharfing down the ~20 lbs I've made so far (including my initial "I hate this, this process sucks" batch) like a pig in a trough.

 

[Hijack73]

He can come off that way, but as someone who calls him a friend and mentor, it is because he is confident in his knowledge, and passionate to share it.

I have immense respect for him. I'd more than like had said "f" this before I even got started had it not been for guys like him SmokinEdge , Inda indaswamp , Chop chopsaw and yourself DougE - and the list isn't just inclusive to you guys. I love that this forum, to quote someone I really dislike, knows that "it takes a village"

 

[DougE]

I love that this forum, to quote someone I really dislike, knows that "it takes a village"

I'd likely be the "Village idiot", in that case lol

 

[chopsaw]

Hijack73 Thanks for the mention . I appreciate that , and to be included with the others that you mentioned is an honor . I don't say things to look smart , or to be a know it all . I do it to pay back what I've learned on this forum . My comments are based in experience , and meant to help and offer a hands on perspective . Not an effort to be right .
The only reason I came back to this Anal Insanity is because of the tag .
I thank you for the respect .
No books
No test
I just do it .

 

[DougE]

I appreciate that , and to be included with the others that you mentioned is an honor . I don't say things to look smart , or to be a know it all . I do it to pay back what I've learned on this forum . My comments are based in experience , and meant to help and offer a hands on perspective . Not an effort to be right .

I think that could be said by most of us.