Measuring salt in brine.
 

Measuring salt in brine.



I used to measure the amount of salt in a brine with an raw egg (first check
if the egg is fresh)

When the egg floats, the brine is good. (brine for 4 to 5 days)

I now measuring with an egg is not exact, so I bought a brine tester (scale
0 To 100%) (http://www.alliedkenco.com ) when checking, an egg floats at
about 40 %.

I have two questions:

Does 40% sound ok to you?

Does anyone know how to convert this scale to the baumé scale?



Hope you can help me out



Adriaan

A. Kesteloo wrote:

> I used to measure the amount of salt in a brine with an raw egg (first check
> if the egg is fresh)
>
> When the egg floats, the brine is good. (brine for 4 to 5 days)
>
> I now measuring with an egg is not exact, so I bought a brine tester (scale
> 0 To 100%) (http://www.alliedkenco.com ) when checking, an egg floats at
> about 40 %.
>
> I have two questions:
>
> Does 40% sound ok to you?

There is no single brine strength or brine time that works for every type
of food, although I've seen a few very old recipes that imply there is.
There's wide variation based on everything including individual preference.
The floating egg method refers to the amount needed to achieve a certain
degree of *preservation*, which is usually not why people use brines these
days. They're instead used to improve quality.

>
> Does anyone know how to convert this scale to the baumé scale?

Not to be contentious, by why would you want to do this? The baume
scale is a rather strange animal with two separate modalities, one for
liquids lighter than water and one for liquids heavier than water.
It's basically an obsolete measurement scale.

--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com

"Reg" > schreef in bericht
.. .
> A. Kesteloo wrote:
>
>> I used to measure the amount of salt in a brine with an raw egg (first
>> check if the egg is fresh)
>>
>> When the egg floats, the brine is good. (brine for 4 to 5 days)
>>
>> I now measuring with an egg is not exact, so I bought a brine tester
>> (scale 0 To 100%) (http://www.alliedkenco.com ) when checking, an egg
>> floats at about 40 %.
>>
>> I have two questions:
>>
>> Does 40% sound ok to you?
>
> There is no single brine strength or brine time that works for every type
> of food, although I've seen a few very old recipes that imply there is.
> There's wide variation based on everything including individual
> preference.
> The floating egg method refers to the amount needed to achieve a certain
> degree of *preservation*, which is usually not why people use brines these
> days. They're instead used to improve quality.
>
>>
>> Does anyone know how to convert this scale to the baumé scale?
>
> Not to be contentious, by why would you want to do this? The baume
> scale is a rather strange animal with two separate modalities, one for
> liquids lighter than water and one for liquids heavier than water.
> It's basically an obsolete measurement scale.
>
> --
> Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com
>

Thank's for your quick response.



For some reason, the Dutch recipes I got use the baumé scale. I would like
to convert them so I can use them.

Most of the time I smoke loin, turkey breast, parts of the pig belly and
parts of ham (about 1.5 kg) Not to eat when it is holt, but cold on a
sandwich. So preservation is what I'm looking for. The egg and 4 to 5 days
brining is a recipe I learned from my Polish father in law. I think he is
cheating, 5 days is probably not enough. I think he converted his original
recipe when he got a freezer (now using the salt for taste)



Adriaan

A. Kesteloo wrote:

> For some reason, the Dutch recipes I got use the baumé scale. I would like
> to convert them so I can use them.

OK, that makes sense. It's an ancient but familiar method. We have
that problem in the US too. We're still using the english measurement
system even though no one else is, including the english.

Here's how to do the conversions. I'll run through a simple example.

This brine will contain 3/4 cups of salt per gallon of water, which
is a typical amount I'd used for brining poultry.

3/4 cup of Morton Kosher Salt weighs 160 G
1 gallon of water weighs 3.6 kg

That's around 4.44% salt by weight.

Which will read about 17 degrees SAL on your salometer (it's not
read as "percent" by the way, it's "degrees SAL" or "salometer
degrees").

To convert to degrees baume, find the specific gravity of the
brine then convert to degrees baume.

Using a lookup table, specific gravity in this case is 1.032.
http://www.bccdc.org/downloads/pdf/f..._Saltbrine.pdf

Degrees Baume (on heavier than water scale) = 145 - (145 / G)
where G is specific gravity

So Degrees Baume = 145 - 140.503875968992 = 4.496

I'm sure that's much lower than you're used to seeing if you use
the floating egg method.

> Most of the time I smoke loin, turkey breast, parts of the pig belly and
> parts of ham (about 1.5 kg) Not to eat when it is holt, but cold on a
> sandwich. So preservation is what I'm looking for. The egg and 4 to 5 days
> brining is a recipe I learned from my Polish father in law. I think he is
> cheating, 5 days is probably not enough. I think he converted his original
> recipe when he got a freezer (now using the salt for taste)

Well that's it then, it's all about what you like. I use about half
that much salt, but that's just my preference. Go with what you
like.

--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com