why does Morton's Tender Quick have sodium nitrate?

[saigonjj]

My bag of Morton's TQ shows equal parts sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate (0.5% each, as I recall).  My question is, since my understanding is that nitrate is only used for very long cures, and all the TQ recipes are for very short cures, why do they put nitrate in there?  Maybe it has some other effect I'm unaware of?

Thanks,

JJ

 

[fpnmf]

http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?736-Curing-Salts

 

[diggingdogfarm]

My bag of Morton's TQ shows equal parts sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate (0.5% each, as I recall).  My question is, since my understanding is that nitrate is only used for very long cures, and all the TQ recipes are for very short cures, why do they put nitrate in there?  Maybe it has some other effect I'm unaware of?

Thanks,

JJ

Because TQ is sometimes used for long term curing, as per some of the recipes in their manual, ie, country ham.


HTH


~Martin