Smoked, brined pork loin

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nuynai
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Smoked, brined pork loin

Post by nuynai » Sun Feb 07, 2021 19:03

Hello, hope everyone is doing well in these times. Question I have is, I've done 5 lb pieces before but now will be doing 15 lbs, total. Do I need to triple the recipe formula or will one batch cover the total poundage. Will inject but just want to be on the safe side. Any help, much appreciated. Thanks in advance. Here's the recipe I'll be using but with cure #1.

Yield
5 pounds

Ingredients

Ingredients and Directions for Making the Brine:
4 - 5 pound pork loin roast (ask the butcher, you want the nice fat layer on the top as well!)
6 cups water
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup Dark Brown Sugar
2 Bay leaves
1 handful of peppercorns
4 sprigs of Thyme
2 sprigs of Rosemary

Preparation

1.Combine the brown sugar and salt in the water and bring to a boil. 2.Stir until dissolved and then add the rest of the brine ingredients. 3.Lower heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. 4.Turn off the heat and allow to cool completely to room temperature. 5.Once the solution has completely cooled (we don't want to start cooking the meat!), add the pork loin roast and brine solution to a Ziplock type bag. Seal and squeeze out as much air as possible. 6.Put the sealed bag with the now brining pork roast into a pot or large bowl, one that can hold all of the liquid in case something happens to the bag (speaking from experience here!). Place the bowl containing the brining meat into a refrigerator for at least 12 hours, up to 24 hours.
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Scogar
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Re: Smoked, brined pork loin

Post by Scogar » Sun Feb 07, 2021 19:42

My experience with liquid brines is that I simply want to have the meat completely submerged. The brine itself volumetrically would be at a specific percent...meaning .5 cup salt to 6 cups of brine or 8.3% (I'll let the more experienced out there confirm that my simple calculation is the correct way to look at things).

The caveats are (1) that measuring in volume at least for the salt is problematic since the brine really should be by weight...a tablespoon of kosher is different than pickling is different than sea salt etc. This will matter to the brine strength but based upon your quick 12-24 hr brine is probably ok. (2) if this is to be cooked than the fact that it has no cure #1 is ok, but if you are planning on smoking it at a low temp it really does need to have the cure.

Here is a link to Marianski's info on brines https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... king-brine. And the little I know about brines has been gleaned from Butterbean, our expert Brinester
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