# Prague Curing #1



## j0n3s3d (Feb 26, 2016)

Ok, so....I'm looking into curing my own bacon. 4 - 1lb sections of pork belly. I have found a few recipes that call for 1/2 a teaspoon of the Prague pink #1. I have seen recipe's call for 2 teaspoons for 5lbs of pork belly (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/homemade-bacon.html , http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2/ , http://barbecuebible.com/recipe/made-scratch-bacon/). The question I have here is...the manufacture calls for 1tsp per 5lbs. So my question is, how much is to much, do I follow the recipes or do I follow the manufacture?

A couple of links that do the whole 1oz or 1tsp per 5lbs are:

https://www.americanspice.com/prague-powder-no-1-pink-curing-salt/

http://hoosierhillfarm.com/Hoosier-Hill-Farm-Prague-Powder-No.1-Pink-Curing-Salt-4-Oz.html

http://www.eldonsausage.com/Curing-Salt-Prague-Powder-1-1-Lb-Bag-p/ekc-950.htm

http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/sracuringsalts.html

I have never cured meat before so i'm not sure what to do, what is healthy, what is dangerous...any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!


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## smokinpapist (Mar 2, 2016)

Bump on this. Not sure on the answer, but a common theme is to weigh in grams.


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## pc farmer (Mar 2, 2016)

Use this calculator for dry curing.
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/124590/universal-cure-calculator

I just put a belly in the cure tonight.


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## chef jimmyj (Mar 3, 2016)

Quote: *A couple of links that do the whole 1oz or 1tsp per 5lbs are:   *Just a correction...That is 1oz Cure #1 per 25Lbs of meat. 1 teaspoon of Cure #1 is *.20oz*  not 1oz.

Here is some noteworthy info... http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?736-Curing-Salts

Regarding the links that call for 2tsp for 5Lb, that is still within safe limits for a dry mix but run just over of the USDA Guidelines. Cure #1 for Belly Bacon is recommended at 120ppm but up to 200ppm is ok.

If you have 5 pounds of meat X 454g per Lb X  0.000120 Ppm Sodium Nitrite needed =*.*2724 grams of pure Sodium Nitrite to make 120 Ppm in 5Lbs of meat...  Since our cure #1 is 6.25% nitrite, divide *.*2724 grams by 0.0625 (decimal equivalent for 6.25%) = 4.46 grams of Cure #1 or 4.46 / 28.38g per oz =  *.*16 oz.rounded to *.*20 oz of cure #1. You see doubling to 2 tsp Cure #1 gives just over 240ppm, a little over the limit but nowhere near reaching Toxic levels.

*Always follow the Cure Manufactuer's Directions. *There are thousands of recipes on-line and many of them are wrong. Some are based on, " What Grandpa did...", some have Typo Errors and some are written by, sorry to say, Stupid People who know little about what they are doing and have no business messing with or writing about a Toxic substance like Cure and Sodium Nitrite... Here is some info on Toxicity...JJ

 With a single dose; the fatal dose of sodium nitrite is in the range of 22 to 23 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. To obtain 22 milligrams of sodium nitrite per kilogram of body weight (a lethal dose), a 154-pound adult would have to consume, at once, 18.57 pounds of cured meat product containing 200 ppm sodium nitrite (because nitrite is rapidly converted to nitric oxide during the curing process, the 18.57 pound figure should be tripled at least). Even if a person could eat that amount of cured meat, salt, not nitrite, probably would be the toxic factor.


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## Ratna Sakya (Feb 13, 2018)

j0n3s3d said:


> Ok, so....I'm looking into curing my own bacon. 4 - 1lb sections of pork belly. I have found a few recipes that call for 1/2 a teaspoon of the Prague pink #1. I have seen recipe's call for 2 teaspoons for 5lbs of pork belly (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/homemade-bacon.html , http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2/ , http://barbecuebible.com/recipe/made-scratch-bacon/). The question I have here is...the manufacture calls for 1tsp per 5lbs. So my question is, how much is to much, do I follow the recipes or do I follow the manufacture?
> 
> A couple of links that do the whole 1oz or 1tsp per 5lbs are:
> 
> ...


There's a difference between mixing the sodium nitrite directly into the meat, and mixing it into a brine, which is then absorbed gradually into the meat.


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## chef jimmyj (Feb 13, 2018)

Ratna Sakya said:


> There's a difference between mixing the sodium nitrite directly into the meat, and mixing it into a brine, which is then absorbed gradually into the meat.



Can you be more specific? In what way does absorption rate affect the toxicity the OP was worrying about? Thanks...JJ


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