Wet cure CB - duration & do I need to turn or do anything else?

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SmokinAtTheLake

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 27, 2024
17
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Few quick questions on wet curing the pork loin I'm currently doing for CB..

- Once in the curing brine, do I need to do anything like turn over the loin every so often, or just leave it be?

- I'm still confused on amount of time to cure in the wet brine. The calculator I first used at Amazing Ribs said to do 4.7 days (based on my loin thickness) and add up to 20% to that..but the experts here have advised much longer - like minimum 10 days and up to 3 weeks. So, different opinions from different experts and now I'm totally confused :) PS: Even 5-6 days of meat just floating in cure is grossing out me and wife..10 days REALLY grosses us out :)

- Can I wet cure a loin that's 2 3/8'' (after fat removal) thick? I just read an old post here where the person seemed concerned about wet curing anything over 2'' - presumably due to the curing salts getting far enough into the meat.

Thanks for all the help and going easy on me for being such a total newbie to this whole process..
 
Myself... I would inject the brine into the loin.. This will help it cure from the inside out as well... Putting my mind to rest knowing that it will be cured all the way through...
 
Myself... I would inject the brine into the loin.. This will help it cure from the inside out as well... Putting my mind to rest knowing that it will be cured all the way through...

I thought injecting (since it creates more holes in the meat) increases the likelihood of bacterial formation? At least that's what I remember reading..
 
Few quick questions on wet curing the pork loin I'm currently doing for CB..

- Once in the curing brine, do I need to do anything like turn over the loin every so often, or just leave it be?

- I'm still confused on amount of time to cure in the wet brine. The calculator I first used at Amazing Ribs said to do 4.7 days (based on my loin thickness) and add up to 20% to that..but the experts here have advised much longer - like minimum 10 days and up to 3 weeks. So, different opinions from different experts and now I'm totally confused :) PS: Even 5-6 days of meat just floating in cure is grossing out me and wife..10 days REALLY grosses us out :)

- Can I wet cure a loin that's 2 3/8'' (after fat removal) thick? I just read an old post here where the person seemed concerned about wet curing anything over 2'' - presumably due to the curing salts getting far enough into the meat.

Thanks for all the help and going easy on me for being such a total newbie to this whole process..
The cure time really depends on the salt percentage in the brine. The more salt the faster and vise verses. What was the brine recipe you used?
 
The cure time really depends on the salt percentage in the brine. The more salt the faster and vise verses. What was the brine recipe you used?

I used 2% (193 grams) of the total weight of the pork loin (3,214g) + water (1.7Gal or 6,428g) of Morton Kosher Salt.

The thickness of the loin once I removed most of the fat cap and silverskin was 2 3/8''.

Plugging this all in to the CB Wet Curing calculator at Amazing Ribs, it comes back with a cure time of 3.5 days with salt at 2.5%. So now I'm REALLY confused, as you recommended a minimum of 10 days and 14 days or more as being ideal. Albeit, I'm at 2% and the AR calculator used 2.5% salt, but that's still a really big difference in curing time and only a half percent difference in salt. (To that point..is there a different calculator that you guys here use?)

Screenshot 2024-10-08 at 11-56-48 Traditional Canadian Bacon And Irish Bacon Made At Home.png


Really just trying to understand as I'm still totally new to the whole wet curing process.

Thanks again for all the help.
 
It's been said that salt and cure move into the meat at the rate of 1/4" per 24 hr period... With those numbers and at 3.5 days the cure is only going to go in a weeee bit over 3/4" ... Your loin is 2 3/8" thick... Half of that is, we'll say 1 1/4".... So cure coming in from all sides is not going to reach that 1 1/4" depth within the 3.5 days...

This is just my opinion and calculations... I am no where near a pro at curing... But I do follow the recommendations of our expert members here at SMF with perfect results every time...
 
There’s nothing gross about it being in a brine at refrigerator temps, your bacteria is kept at bay…. Cure #1 and salt will take care of a lot of that as well as cooking/smoking it to a safe temp internally at least 145F…. Go the recommended days and to ensure you got it cured completely through… 10 days minimum 14 days is what I usually do….normally guys at do a wet brine take 10% of that brine and injected it in the meat to have some insurance right off the bat whatever bacteria you introduced by injected will
Be killed off by cure 1 salt and cooking to a safe internal temp…. Do not smoke it too early you’ll regret it …. it never hurts to give your self a few extra days it definitely will hurt few less days …. Do 10 day and you won’t be disappointed….. side note I prefer 1.5% salt 2.0% is too salty in my opinion
 
Few quick questions on wet curing the pork loin I'm currently doing for CB..

- Once in the curing brine, do I need to do anything like turn over the loin every so often, or just leave it be?

- I'm still confused on amount of time to cure in the wet brine. The calculator I first used at Amazing Ribs said to do 4.7 days (based on my loin thickness) and add up to 20% to that..but the experts here have advised much longer - like minimum 10 days and up to 3 weeks. So, different opinions from different experts and now I'm totally confused :) PS: Even 5-6 days of meat just floating in cure is grossing out me and wife..10 days REALLY grosses us out :)

- Can I wet cure a loin that's 2 3/8'' (after fat removal) thick? I just read an old post here where the person seemed concerned about wet curing anything over 2'' - presumably due to the curing salts getting far enough into the meat.

Thanks for all the help and going easy on me for being such a total newbie to this whole process..
Thread 'Canadian bacon'
https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/canadian-bacon.324695/

Try this method you won’t be disappointed
 
It's been said that salt and cure move into the meat at the rate of 1/4" per 24 hr period... With those numbers and at 3.5 days the cure is only going to go in a weeee bit over 3/4" ... Your loin is 2 3/8" thick... Half of that is, we'll say 1 1/4".... So cure coming in from all sides is not going to reach that 1 1/4" depth within the 3.5 days...

This is just my opinion and calculations... I am no where near a pro at curing... But I do follow the recommendations of our expert members here at SMF with perfect results every time...
Thanks. Is the 1/4'' per day based on a certain percentage of salt? Wasn't sure if that holds at 2% salt or 2.5% or greater would be needed to get 1/4'' per day penetration?

Assuming the 1/4'' works @ 2% salt and that I did the math right, minimum time cure time would then be 5 days (5 * 1/4 = 5/4 = 1 1/4 * 2 = 2 1/2'' which is > 2 3/8''). I'd probably add a day or 2, so that would be 6 or 7 days. Is that right and more importantly, "safe"?
 
I used 2% (193 grams) of the total weight of the pork loin (3,214g) + water (1.7Gal or 6,428g) of Morton Kosher Salt.

The thickness of the loin once I removed most of the fat cap and silverskin was 2 3/8''.

Plugging this all in to the CB Wet Curing calculator at Amazing Ribs, it comes back with a cure time of 3.5 days with salt at 2.5%. So now I'm REALLY confused, as you recommended a minimum of 10 days and 14 days or more as being ideal. Albeit, I'm at 2% and the AR calculator used 2.5% salt, but that's still a really big difference in curing time and only a half percent difference in salt. (To that point..is there a different calculator that you guys here use?)

View attachment 705478

Really just trying to understand as I'm still totally new to the whole wet curing process.

Thanks again for all the help.
I can’t speak for that curing calculator, but according to my experience that calculator is just wrong.

There is a lot of crossover speak about cure as dry brining and immersion brine methods get mixed up, but they work differently and dry brining is the faster of the two. There are specific reasons for that difference that we can discuss later, right now you are trying to understand immersion brining with no injection.

The adage of “1/4” per day per side” comes more from dry brining or using ”hot” brines such as they used many decades ago, these brines were usually 13-16% salt or 50-60* SAL. Most of us here practice the “equilibrium “ curing method either dry or wet. With equilibrium brining the meat can never become more salty or over salted if we apply the salt percentage we like to eat. This also means that the curing brines are much weaker and as such cure much slower due to the lower salt percentage, everything has a trade off, but the equilibrium is much easier to produce quality cure meats at home.

With equilibrium curing you will be better served by using 1/4” per day total against the thickness of the meat, so you have 2 3/8” thick CB which is about 9 1/2 days at minimum but adding a couple extra gives a more rounded flavor.

If you inject a heavy enough brine you could be done in around 3 days plus a couple which would be 5 days but the flavor won’t have developed and won’t taste as good as 10-14 days. Curing is one thing and equalizing is another, you need both and both need time.
 
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I can’t speak for that curing calculator, but according to my experience that calculator is just wrong.

There is a lot of crossover speak about cure as dry brining and immersion brine methods get mixed up, but they work differently and dry brining is the faster of the two. There are specific reasons for that difference that we can discuss later, right now you are trying to understand immersion brining with no injection.

The adage of “1/4” per day per side” comes more from dry brining or using ”hot” brines such as they used many decades ago, these brines were usually 13-16% salt or 50-60* SAL. Most of us here practice the “equilibrium “ curing method either dry or wet. With equilibrium brining the meat can never become more salty or over salted if we apply the salt percentage we like to eat. This also means that the curing brines are much weaker and as such cure much slower due to the lower salt percentage, everything has a trade off, but the equilibrium is much easier to produce quality cure meats at home.

With equilibrium curing you will be better served by using 1/4” per day total against the thickness of the meat, so you have 2 3/8” thick CB which is about 9 1/2 days at minimum but adding a couple extra gives a more rounded flavor.

If you inject a heavy enough brine you could be done in around 3 days plus a couple which would be 5 days but the flavor won’t have developed and won’t taste as good as 10-14 days. Curing is one thing and equalizing is another, you need both and both need time.
Thanks..appreciate the info and clarification.

For a wet brine, I thought we were supposed to divide meat thickness by 2 to get the starting # of days, then add a day or two to that? Reason being the meat is floating in brine and salt/cure is entering from all sides of the (roughly cylindrical shaped) pork loin? But it sounds from what you said above that you're calculating 1/4'' per day over total thickness and not dividing by two if I followed everything right?
 
But it sounds from what you said above that you're calculating 1/4'' per day over total thickness and not dividing by two if I followed everything right?
Correct, and this is because of the weak salt percentage in the brine, it still works just fine but you need that extra time.

Salt or specifically sodium is the horsepower of diffusion into the meat. The higher or stronger the salt percentage is the faster the diffusion. In a brine you can only dissolve about 26% salt total before it stops dissolving and sinks to the bottom as crystals. However in a dry rub brine the salt applied is 100% salt, so it all acts directly on the meat, where in a brine solution the salt percentage there is not all directly acting or diffusing in the meat, the brine in the bag not directly in contact with the meat can’t diffuse directly. So the process is slower.

There is a huge difference between a 60* SAL brine (16% salt) and an equilibrium brine, such as yours, at 2% salt. The lower salt takes more time to diffuse, but the trade off is meat that is never over salty
 
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Correct, and this is because of the weak salt percentage in the brine, it still works just fine but you need that extra time.

Salt or specifically sodium is the horsepower of diffusion into the meat. The higher or stronger the salt percentage is the faster the diffusion. In a brine you can only dissolve about 26% salt total before it stops dissolving and sinks to the bottom as crystals. However in a dry rub brine the salt applied is 100% salt, so it all acts directly on the meat, where in a brine solution the salt percentage there is not all directly acting or diffusing in the meat, the brine in the bag not directly in contact with the meat can’t diffuse directly. So the process is slower.

There is a huge difference between a 60* SAL brine (16% salt) and an equilibrium brine, such as yours, at 2% salt. The lower salt takes more time to diffuse, but the trade off is meat that is never over salty

Gotcha..thanks.
 
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