More on Brining
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 16:57
Split from http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.php?p=36288#36288
StefanS, I would love to see some of the brine tables. I've never worried about the amount of meat going into a brine as long as the meat has room and can be submerged. I normally only work with two brine strengths and the size of the cut determines the length in the brine. Though frowned upon today, these brines were often re-used since so little of the goodie actually enters the meat. It was a common practice to thread butchers twine through cuts of meat and tie knots in this to identify the cuts of meat so a continuous supply of meat could be worked through the brine tank. Also the brines were typically made using saltpeter rather than cure 1. Granted, all this is frowned on today but it seemed to work fine in the day.StefanS wrote:Sorry Butterbean for confusing you. First at all my mistake for nitrates - it should be nitrite - like sodium nitrite in Cure #1. Then - meat curing in brine - 95% of meat used in "wedzonki" is cured in brine. During preparations to do that we (means polish sausage makers) considering a few things like weight of meat, days of cure, amount of brine per 1kg of meat (usually 0.4-0.5 litre/1 kg), injections or not, even what kind of meat is used to brining (example - pork loin is absorbing salt much faster than pork belly, or pork shoulder). For that purposes there is prepared tables developed by researchers and professionals (some of them already on our website).
Amount of sugar is also used in small quantities - as you know - it is also bacterial food - so even low curing temperatures (in refrigerators) sometimes not doing a required process (usually during more days of curing ).
Hopefully that is making a little more sense to what is IMO.