Amount of salt used to cure pastrami

[Red Man]

I’m wondering why we have to oversalt when curing and then desalinate. Why can’t we just salt appropriately for the cure. I understand how to use the curing calculator, but it only involves curing salt, water volume, meat weight, and cure time. It’s clear from playing with the calculator that it’s goal is to get the ppm of curing salt in water correct. Doubling the meat weight but keeping water volume the same results in very little change in curing salt. Doubling water volume but keeping meat weight the same results in almost double the curing salt. Does the regular salt ppm in the water also affect safety? Is it safe to cut the salt in half and not desalinate?

[Jerod Broussard]

Salt lowers the water activity for microbial safety since you are dealing with raw product.

[Red Man]

I understand that but if it was so critical, shouldn’t it be part of the calculator? If the corned beef recipe calls for 8 oz for a gallon of water, and I use 4 oz, is that no longer salty enough for microbial safety? 4 oz of salt in a gallon of water is still very salty water. I’m not trying to go against the safety recommendations of the site, just trying to understand them, especially since I’d love to avoid the desalinating step and just get it salted right to begin with if possible.

[Jerod Broussard]

The calculator adjusts for a preservative. The salt amount can be scaled up and down, and remain safe, since we are dealing with a fairly small amount of meat. You'd have to calculate the risk to go outside of that range.