Too much Curing Salt?

[gnopiazza]

So, 1st time trying and I may have read too many recipes. I have a 12lb brisket. Made the brine with a little over a gallon of water and used like 8 teaspoons of pink curing salt. Realized about 3 hours later, meat already soaking, that it may be too much. Emptied it and started over using 2 1/2 teaspoons of the curing salt and rinsed the brisket before putting it back in its new brine. Anyone have thoughts on of I already screwed it up so bad I should throw everything away?

 

[Fueling Around]

Not an expert, but I don't see any problem with the heavy start.
What is your salt level? Pink salt doesn't have enough salt to get to the 1-3% level most people want for flavor.
Your restart is much lower in pink salt than the 150 ppm target I choose
I use the Greg Blonder nitrite calculator

 

[SmokinEdge]

Roughly 6 Tbs. Of cure #1 are allowed in brine (per gallon) per the USDA. I hate spoon measuring, but 3.84 oz per gallon is allowed. The brine ppm would be roughly 1972ppm nitrite. This is ok because only a maximum of 10% uptake is possible, which would net a 197ppm nitrite level in meat from the brine Right at The 200ppm allowed.
Your brine was over this but not by a lot. The allowed uptake is 10% but in the real world the uptake is in the 4-6% range. Roughly half of the USDA projection. You are good, and the fact that you tossed the brine a couple hours in and replaced it makes you golden. You would have been ok with the first brine, just a little hot. The second brine is perfect. Don’t be nervous, your meat is safe.

 

[SmokinEdge]

So, 1st time trying and I may have read too many recipes. I have a 12lb brisket. Made the brine with a little over a gallon of water and used like 8 teaspoons of pink curing salt. Realized about 3 hours later, meat already soaking, that it may be too much. Emptied it and started over using 2 1/2 teaspoons of the curing salt and rinsed the brisket before putting it back in its new brine. Anyone have thoughts on of I already screwed it up so bad I should throw everything away?

I went back over your post and realized I misread your teaspoon as Tablespoons (part of the reason I don’t use spoons curing meat, I weigh my ingredients)

A popular brine around here calls for 1 heaping Tablespoon of cure #1 per gallon of water.
After changing the brine out, you added 2 1/2 teaspoons of cure to 1 gallon.

One good way to apply cure to brine, is to add the meat weight and the water weight (water weighs 8.33 lb. per gallon)
Then apply 1 level teaspoon per 5# weight. In your case you have right about 20 total pounds so you should apply 4 level teaspoons to the brine.

Another better way to apply cure would be to apply by weight.
Here you have 20 pounds multiply that by 454 (grams in a pound)= 9080 grams. Cure #1 applied at 0.25% of total weight.
9080 x 0.0025= 22.7 grams cure #1

 

[chopsaw]

1st time trying and I may have read too many recipes.

G gnopiazza An easy and simple way of doing a curing brine for people starting out , is Pop's Brine . Here's a link . Add the dry ingredients before the water , no need to boil . I do 1/2 cup salt , 1/2 cup white , 1/2 cup brown sugar . 1 Tablespoon cure 1 . That's how we like it . Stir until dissolved . As long as the brine covers the meat , you're good .

Pops6927's Wet Curing Brine

real simple curing brine: for every 1 gallon of water, add: 1/3 - 1 cup sea salt (depending if you're on a lo-salt diet) 1 cup granulated sugar or Splenda174 1 cup brown sugar or Splenda174 brown sugar mix 1 tbsp cure no. 1 pink salt stir thoroughly until clear amber color, pour over...

www.smokingmeatforums.com