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Kent Kent is offline
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Default Morton's Tender Quick for brining?


"Reg" > wrote in message
. com...
> Kent wrote:
>
>> Some of you have used Morton's Tender Quick for brining ribs.
>> What happened to the meat? Did you get a cured ham like taste, or
>> something else? How long did you cure?

>
> It would completely ruin ribs, at least for me. Wouldn't
> want hammy tasting ribs. I use it for other pork cuts, also
> beef and the occasional turkey breast.
>
>> I have noticed that when some add Tender Quick to their brine, they use
>> only a small portion in their brine, one to eight parts salt to one to
>> four parts salt. Morton's doesn't publish any TQ/water concentration for
>> brining. Rutas only uses prague power, 10 times as much nitrite than TQ,
>> in fairly high concentrations.

>
> I disagree he uses them in "fairly high" concentrations. He
> uses the industry standard amount. For direct addition it's
> 1 oz prague powder per 25 lbs of meat resulting in a
> concentration of about 150 ppm. The maximum allowable
> amount is 200 ppm as per the US CFR.
>
>> Have any of you Tender Quick briners experimented with that, and what
>> happened? I think Morton's tells you to use it straight out of the bag,
>> though only for "dry rub"

>
> There's no specific reason you can't use TQ in wet cures. The morton
> website isn't very good, but their meat curing book is very
> informative. I recommend it for you, Kent.
>
> <http://www.mortonsalt.com/consumer/products/meatcuring/index.htm#Meat>
>
> --
> Reg


Thanks Reg, for the above post. I've been trying to straighten out the math.

prague #1
prague#2
Morton's TC

ounces nitrite/lb salt
1
1
0.08

ounces nitrite/ ounce salt
0.0625
0.0625
0.005

Per cent
6.25
6.25
0.5

ounces nitrite/ 25lb
0.00015625
0.00015625
0.0000125

parts per million 25lb
156.25
156.25
12.5

ounces nitrate/lb
0
0.64
0.08

ounces nitrate/ ounce
0
0.04
0.005

per cent
0
4
0.5

ounces nitrate/ 25lb
0
0.0001
0.0000125

parts/ million
0
100
12.5



If you add salt to either prague powder you come up with the ppm ratios
you mention. TC has a lower relative concentration of nitrite because the
salt is added into the cure, and because the ratio of nitrite to salt is one
tenth that of prague powder.

All of this works with direct injection or arterial curing because all of
the nitrate in your cure ends up in what you are curing.

It strikes me that all of this falls apart when you brine. The amount of
nitrite in the brine depends on the total volume of brine you are using with
a given concentration, the weight of the meat in the brine, and how much of
the nitrite and nitrate gets into the meat during the brining period. Each
type of meat would have a different absorptive ratio depending on species,
fat and muscle characteristics and so forth.

Any thoughts about this would be welcomed. I find very little on the
internet about brine curing with nitrites and nitrates.

Kent



>