So, I started looking at this and was going to give a shoot from my hip answer, but after digging into it a little more I "believe" that I have a more accurate answer based on what I found through the USDA website.
Important Please note that what I have written below is to the best of my knowledge based on the research that I could find at the time. You are responsible for confirming and/or making your own decisions on the conclusions.
To answer your question about whether to use the total weight of the meat block and the ingredients or just the meat block, my initial thought was to only us the meat block. I confirmed this (after quite a bit of research) based on the information in the
Nitrite in Curing Compounds or Mixes section that starts on page 15 of the
USDA'S PROCESSING INSPECTOR'S CALCULATIONS HANDBOOK. OK, I'll admit that it appears that this handbook is from 1995, but I searched on the USDA's website and could not find a newer version or any other similar documentation.
Based on my research and comparing some my recipes versus yours as well as the
USDA'S PROCESSING INSPECTOR'S CALCULATIONS HANDBOOK that I referenced above, I am questioning the amount of Cure #1 that your recipe is calling for. My reasoning for this is as follows:
Please note few facts that seem to be fairly well documented:
- The maximum amount of Sodium Nitrite in a Comminuted (ground meat) product is 156 PPM (Parts per Million).
- The recommended amount of Cure #1 to use per 25 pounds of meat is 1 Ounce.
- Most Cure #1 products that I have seen/used (might even be all) are comprised of 6.25% Sodium Nitrite. and 93.75% Salt.
On page 12 of the
USDA'S PROCESSING INSPECTOR'S CALCULATIONS HANDBOOK, it says:
As a matter of policy, the Agency requires a minimum of 120 ppm of ingoing nitrite in all cured "Keep Refrigerated" products, unless the establishment can demonstrate that safety is assured by some other preservation process, such as thermal processing, pH or moisture control. This 120 ppm policy for ingoing nitrite is based on safety data reviewed when the bacon standard was developed.
So, from this information I am deducing that the acceptable range of PPM for Sodium Nitrate is between 140 and 156 PPM.
Based on this, your recipe calling for 100 PPM of Cure #1, appears to be too low. Assuming that I am correct on the acceptable range of PPM of 140-156, the amount of Cure #1 for your meat block of 1208 Grams (2.66 Pounds) should be between 2.71 (140 PPM) and 3.02 (156 PPM) grams.
I calculated my numbers using the following formula from page 15 of the
USDA'S PROCESSING INSPECTOR'S CALCULATIONS HANDBOOK lb Cure Mix × % Nitrite in mix × 1,000,000 = ppm
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Green Weight of Meat Block
So, this got kind of overly detailed and maybe a little long-winded, but I am very analytical and this is how I would answer your question.
For the other maybe more formally educated meat processing experts, feel free to correct any inaccuracies that you may find.
Hopefully this helps.