Reply to "Brining Ratios"

Rodale put(s) out a book called "Stocking Up" In there are a lot of recipes for curing meat. Somewhere I found an old paper manual put out by our Government in the 1940's I think. Anyway since pure government stuff is in the public domain, a lot of that meat curing information was pretty much word for word. How much older the 10 percent goes I would imagine about a century.

Anyway, I use dry cures whenever possible, by weight, not tablespoons etc. (Kosher salt has different volume than pickling salt). The dry cure then is somewhat independent of time and more forgiving. It can only get so salty because that is all the salt you use.

With fish you can use a dry cure also but the salt and sugar will pull out water from the fish, but the same ratios will still apply.

With brining, the time in the brine is dependent on the concentration of the brine, the time in the cure, the thickness of the meat, and whether you got stuck in traffic or something, before you could get home. Therefore, it is much more difficult to really know how much salt you have until you are all done.

I'm just starting to try to do a Prosciutto with a pork loin, 3 percent salt, in my extra refer (non automatic defrost), for a couple of months or more to dry. Maybe for Christmas I will have something really great, or???