Hello! I have a quick question regarding salt in cures! I use the Maple Bacon recipe on this site as well as the curing calculator. As I make a significant amount, I created an Excel file where I introduce the exact weight of the pork belly and it gives me the proportional amount (in grams) of the different components including distilled water, kosher salt, sugar, honey. I use the curing calculator for the Prague Powder. I have run out of kosher salt and can’t get it immediately, yet need to cure bacon for this weekend. Can I use regular Morton’s salt in the same WEIGHT as the kosher salt? Will it work the same given I measure it by weight?
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Weighing the salt is the right way to do it, and with equivalent weights you'll be fine. If you can get your hands on pickling salt I would recommend that since it lacks the anti-caking agents found in table salt.​​​​
I'll go a step farther... you should always use weights for everything when curing if you can. Not so much for safety as you'd need to willfully screw up to be unsafe, i.e. use tablespoons for teaspoons or vice versa. But for flavor.
The free side recipes uses Morton's as a salt reference. Fine. But I buy Diamond Crystal which is about half as much salt per unit of volume. So if a recipe calls for 2 tsp of salt and I use 2 tsp of Diamond Crystal I'm only getting about 55% of the salt intended. Going by weight would mean that I could just weigh out the amount and not worry about whether it was 2tsp or 4.
Meathead's explanation for this was that relatively few people have kitchen scales that are accurate which to me is true but irrelevant. A gram accurate scale is under $30. I really wish they'd do what I've seen elsewhere and write recipes like this: "2tsp (30 grams/1.1 ounces)".
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