The more cure no. 1 you add, the shorter the brining time. The maximum per gallon of water is 3.84 oz (5 tablespoons) of cure.
I prefer a longer, weaker brine as prescribed by my dad, who was NYS Inspected daily in his meat and grocery store and had State certification on his brine. According to him (and backed up by NYS Inspection), he contended that by lowering the amount of cure in his brine and lengthening the time in the cure, it would produce a product that was still fully cured and also tenderized by the lengthened enzyme action in the brine and be more tender, and was allowed by the State to cure for longer times with a weaker cure. Of course, he had his 'curing sugar' mixed up to his specifiications by the Aula company (then in Detroit?) and shipped by rail in 300lb. barrels, dropped off at the rail station down the street, which he would pick up (side note: I'd ride with him as a boy when he would pick up a barrel and often admired the house sitting next to the station - it used to be a hotel. A couple years after Linda and I got married, we purchased that house and I remodeled the front room into a beauty shop for her - it was called "The Depot Beauty Shoppe", lol!).
Sorry, I digress! Soon, he had to have a minimum order of 600 lbs. of it shipped to him, then 900 lbs., then they stopped making it near the end of his ownership of the store I had the foresight to rip off the barrel label and stock it in a box of store papers. 30 years later I came across it and developed my own interpretation of my dad's brine with common ingredients, know known as "Pop's Brine", and utilizing his same method of a slow, safe cure for tenderness.
The label:
This was after Aula sold their company to ITC and I could see the writing on the wall that the era of my dad's "Special Cure" was going to end.
So, to make a long story longer, lol, that's the story of how my brine interpretation came to being, with one factor, that curing for a longer time in a milder brine will produce a product ready to heat or cook that requires no soaking before or after smoking, because the salt level is more to the user's palate. I have since modified my brine to a 'lo-salt' version cutting all the ingredients in half (except the curing salt) - salt, sugar and brown sugar - ½ cup vs. 1 cup each. After 5 strokes I had to.
That is why my curing brine is weaker.