Tender Quick and Bacon

[Braz]

Wife said we are almost out of bacon (Oh, the horror of it). So yesterday I ventured out into the plague filled world to my favorite little country slaughterhouse and bought two slabs of pork belly, around 9 pounds each ($2.49 a pound).

While it thaws in the refer I am deciding on which bacon making method to use, wet cure, dry cure, cure #1 or Tender Quick. cold or hot smoke, etc. So I looked at the Morton's web site to verify the recommended cure amounts and found this interesting language:

"We cannot recommend Morton Tender Quick for use with pork belly or bacon. Due to the differing fat content of individual cuts, the curing time for these items may vary significantly. For this reason, we cannot recommend the appropriate amount of Tender Quick or curing time in this application."

Thoughts on this? I know Bear uses TQ in his bacon and I used it the last time I made bacon following Bear's Extra Smoky version. For this batch I will use cure #1 since I have it and the DiggingDog calculator makes it easy.

 

[sawhorseray]

Man, couple of nice belly's at a great price Braz! I'm wondering if Tender Quick is a east coast thing. I've never seen it in a store or heard of anyone using the stuff out west here. I'd have to take them at their word and just use Cure#1 like I always have, nothing I care to fool with. RAY

 

[thirdeye]

I guess the curing world (just like the home canning world) makes some revisions from time to time with food safety in mind. But I have never seen that warning. I have one of the yellos Morton's Curing Guides from pre internet days, I'll check and see if it mentions anything.

I know this shouldn't be a factor (also like the "my Granny used this canning recipe and nobody ever got sick"), but my family used Tender Quick for bacon as long as I remember, and I have used it from the late 70's, and one of the most popular articles on my cookin' site is a bacon recipe that uses Tender Quick.

 

[thirdeye]

I just looked in my Morton Meat Curing Guide, It's not pre-internet like I thought, but from the footnotes maybe 2002, or 2003. On the bacon page there is no caution about using TQ. I'll post a photo. I do know the USDA doesen't allow processors to use nitrates (which TQ has along with nitrites) but I don't think that order applies to home cooks.

 

[Bearcarver]

Dry Curing with TQ isn't Rocket Science:
Morton's is just covering their Butts. If you figure out how long to cure, you can add a couple days to be sure. If one Belly should have 8 days & you give it 12 days, it doesn't matter.
If another one should have 10 days & you give it 14, it doesn't matter.
Dry curing with TQ is the easiest thing to do, or a Dumb Bear could never do it.
It's as easy as this shows:
Bacon (Extra Smoky)

Bear

 

[SmokinEdge]

I just use cure #1 at 0.25%, salt at 1.5% ( with cure salt comes to 1.7% total salt) and 1% to 1.5% sugar as raw sugar. Season how you like and enjoy perfect bacon in about 7 days cure time.

 

[thirdeye]

Here are those snips... and of course Tender Quick and Sugar Cure can be used interchangeably (even though they are now the same product).

 

[Bearcarver]

Here are those snips... and of course Tender Quick and Sugar Cure can be used interchangeably (even though they are now the same product).
View attachment 442265

View attachment 442266

More butt covering there---They say "Freeze up to one month".
However when vac packed 1 to 2 years is fine, or even longer.

This thing also tells you to cure for 7 days without flipping it. People would do better to follow my Step by Steps.

Bear

 

[thirdeye]

More butt covering there---They say "Freeze up to one month".
However when vac packed 1 to 2 years is fine, or even longer.

This thing also tells you to cure for 7 days without flipping it. People would do better to follow my Step by Steps.

Bear

Liability has to be the reason, but why would they say"...we can't recommend" , instead of listing a bigger window of curing times? The whole point with Morton's cure is that it's geared toward home curing, and also promoting "quick" curing recipes of (2 or 3 hours) on pork chops, rabbit or chicken pieces. My grandmothers did this in the 60's, but called it "koshering" because she used kosher salt. Nowadays, it's called dry brining, which sounds trendy.... but it's basically the same.

The one-month freezer life recommendation has been around for years, and for all we know the USDA is not even considering vacuum sealing, or a cold or hot smoke step. I've had homemade belly bacon for longer than a year that was fine, and just found some Buckboard that was from 2018 that was still good.

Many older curing books recommend overhauling one time, halfway through your cure time. Some will recommend adding more cure when you do overhaul. Not sure what you prefer, but I overhaul daily, and give it a little massage on the early days when liquid is noticeable in the bag.

 

[Bearcarver]

Liability has to be the reason, but why would they say"...we can't recommend" , instead of listing a bigger window of curing times? The whole point with Morton's cure is that it's geared toward home curing, and also promoting "quick" curing recipes of (2 or 3 hours) on pork chops, rabbit or chicken pieces. My grandmothers did this in the 60's, but called it "koshering" because she used kosher salt. Nowadays, it's called dry brining, which sounds trendy.... but it's basically the same.

The one-month freezer life recommendation has been around for years, and for all we know the USDA is not even considering vacuum sealing, or a cold or hot smoke step. I've had homemade belly bacon for longer than a year that was fine, and just found some Buckboard that was from 2018 that was still good.

Many older curing books recommend overhauling one time, halfway through your cure time. Some will recommend adding more cure when you do overhaul. Not sure what you prefer, but I overhaul daily, and give it a little massage on the early days when liquid is noticeable in the bag.

But don't forget, those "Quick Curing Times" in Morton's Home curing book are all followed up by putting into a 350° Oven. In other words it's really not curing most of those things in 2 or 3 hours.

Bear

 

[thirdeye]

Point taken, but Tender Quick is influencing the finished product, just enough to spark an interest by the consumer, or maybe allow an average home cook to show off a little with something new and different.

As they mention in the introduction, Morton's intent is to paint a picture that cured meats of all types are often considered the "specialty of the house" of many civilizations, and by using Morton products (with attention to detail) these things can be duplicated in the home. At the same time the marketing people realized that not everyone would jump in and cure a ham or bacon, so they added teaser recipes like the one for Gepockelte, and put the word "Cured" in the name even though the times fall short of true curing like you mentioned. That said, the German Style Cured Chops are delicious when grilled... moist, flavorful, and lightly pink...., instead of cooked to death like the recipe calls for (although this was published before 2011, when the USDA lowered the safe temp of pork to 145°).

The same can be said for the chicken recipes, doctored with TQ, they resemble dry brined pieces. Now, I really like the Pepperoni recipe, another teaser, but it does not actually resemble pepperoni, so I just call it beef stick. Because the base recipe calls for 1# of hamburger, and the fact that it's skinless, it's inexpensive, very quick and easy to make, and the recipe calls for baking in the oven for an hour or so which also makes it appealing to some cooks. Now...., I hot smoke mine for about 2.5 hours, and sometimes change up the ingredients:


Getting off the "quick" side of Tender Quick, have you by chance Buckboarded pork chops? I use the dry cure method for 48 hours, equalize overnight, then an hour of cold smoke with a hot smoke finish. They are better (and 1/3 the cost) than any I've had from butcher shops.

 

[Bearcarver]

Exactly, but I wish they would explain that more on their site & in their book, that only things cut thin like Jerky can actually be "cured" in 2 or 3 hours.

You can go to my "Step by Step" Index & see all the Meats I've cured. Most of them were actually cured to center. Just click on "Bear's Step by Steps".
However one you might be interested in was only cured for flavor is my "Back-on-A-Stick", linked below. It's Awesome:
Bacon-On-A-Stick

Later,
Bear