I have not had a lot of experience with curing. I did a pit ham a month ago and was so happy with that I decided to do more with curing. Got 4 pork hocks. Then questions came, using Meathead's curing calculator. Is it the total weight of pieces? I decided that the weight would be for one piece. Figured the cure would work equally on all the pieces. Have them now in a five gallon pail, not on top of each other. When I looked at what 150 and 12 pounds vs 125 at 3 pounds, I saw that the amount of pink salt was not much different, and the time needed was roughly the same. I hope I am not missing something here! I averaged out the difference in pink salt to be safe.
BTW, last week I did Aaron Franklin's turkey breast. Phenomenal. Best I have ever done.
For the curing salt you use the total meat weight. Not a big deal though, as you noticed the difference is minimal. You’ll never notice the difference.
It is important to be correct with the salts ratios, but there has to be a fair degree of error since old timers just salt and throw meat up to dry while us youngish people measure grams. I take the bony pieces from cutting spares into st Louis and salt and smoke those. Good ratio of meat, bone, collagen to make delicious hot ham water.
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