As I mentioned over here:http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=5402.msg50097#msg50097
I started my first batch of beef jerky using the equilibrium brine outlined by Tony.
Since I couldn't get my hands on Cure #1 very readily, I bought some Tender Quick at the store. I read a few things online about substitutions, but they were all over the board. Most notably, there are at least a couple different ideas for what fraction of the non-curing salt portion is table salt and what portion is sugar (perhaps it's changed over the years). But I think there is enough info on the label to determine that. We know that 0.5% is NaNO2 and 0.5% is NaNO3 and the rest is table salt and sugar. On my package, a "serving" is 3.5 g and contains 1340 mg sodium. By my calculations, it looks like the other portions are 96.5% salt and 2.5% sugar.
For my substitution, I just assumed that the total "curing power" is 1% vs the 6.25% NaNO2 in Cure #1. That might not be a good assumption. I figure since the Nitrate has longer term effects, it will all be fine. After all, many of other techniques for applying curing salts don't seem very precise/repeatable.
After running the numbers to try to match the jerky-curing brine recipes I'm trying to mimick, it seems that Tender Quick brings a pretty "typical" ratio of curing salts to table salt, so it worked out pretty well. Going forward I'll buy Cure #1 since it will give me more flexibility.
I started my first batch of beef jerky using the equilibrium brine outlined by Tony.
Since I couldn't get my hands on Cure #1 very readily, I bought some Tender Quick at the store. I read a few things online about substitutions, but they were all over the board. Most notably, there are at least a couple different ideas for what fraction of the non-curing salt portion is table salt and what portion is sugar (perhaps it's changed over the years). But I think there is enough info on the label to determine that. We know that 0.5% is NaNO2 and 0.5% is NaNO3 and the rest is table salt and sugar. On my package, a "serving" is 3.5 g and contains 1340 mg sodium. By my calculations, it looks like the other portions are 96.5% salt and 2.5% sugar.
For my substitution, I just assumed that the total "curing power" is 1% vs the 6.25% NaNO2 in Cure #1. That might not be a good assumption. I figure since the Nitrate has longer term effects, it will all be fine. After all, many of other techniques for applying curing salts don't seem very precise/repeatable.
After running the numbers to try to match the jerky-curing brine recipes I'm trying to mimick, it seems that Tender Quick brings a pretty "typical" ratio of curing salts to table salt, so it worked out pretty well. Going forward I'll buy Cure #1 since it will give me more flexibility.
