# Curing meat by injection....



## daveomak (Nov 4, 2015)

Duplicate thread....  http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/237094/curing-meat-by-injection#post_1480123



A question just arose that need some clarification...

 If you come across a method that says.... 10% injection... or .... 10% uptake.... or some other nomenclature that suggest a percentage of the curing brine should be added to the meat......


 .... DO NOT SUBMERGE THE MEAT IN THE REMAINING BRINE .....

 that particular brine is designed to be added to the meat at a certain percentage for a proper cure....


 Pops brine, however, is an equilibrium brine/cure.... From my calculations, it will safely cure meat in the neighborhood of 4-10#'s.... Do not cut his brine/cure down to a half gallon or quart... make it in 1 gallon lots only.... and it can be injected without any concerns... that will help speed up the curing process... it will help insure complete curing on thicker pieces of meat... BUT, the meat must be submerged in the brine after injecting.... injection alone is not satisfactory...


 This thread should also reinforce the adage..... DO NOTCHANGE RECIPES OR MIX AND MATCH RECIPES... unless you absolutely know what you are doing....

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Morning JJ..... The simplest method is the one I used on the Picnic hams..... please read this to see if I screwed something up... It's difficult, at best, to think of everything...

 Read through the method before starting... the order of steps is not fluid....

 Weigh the meat in grams.... Weigh out 10% of the meat weight in water.... weigh the % of salt, sugar, spices you want in the meat..... I personally like 2% salt, 1% sugar and % of spices you may like.... they will need to be filtered out before injection... and possibly heated in the injecting solution to develop the flavor.. dissolve everything in the injection solution then filter so the needle doesn't plug up...

 Cool the injection solution... (If your tap water sucks, use distilled water or bottled water for the injection liquid).... THEN add the correct amount of cure #1 to the cooled liquid.... (I don't know why but a lot of sites say to do that)..

 The cure is calculated on the initial weight of the meat... weigh it in grams... as are the salt, sugar etc.

 For 156 Ppm max. allowable cure addition, multiply the weight of the meat in grams by 0.0025....

 for 120 Ppm max. allowable cure addition, multiply the weight of the meat in grams by 0.0019....

 The resulting number is the amount of cure, in grams, needed to cure the respective hunk of meat to the desired Ppm nitrite..
 these calculations are based on a cure of 6.25% nitrite...

 If the meat has a bone(s)... inject along the bone(s), joints to insure no bone sour will take place .... Then inject the meat insuring injections take place so the entire hunk of meat has been injected in about 1 1/2" intervals or so.... This is called "Stitch Pumping"... That will leave the ingredients about 3/4" to travel for complete coverage of the injectables... Inject with the thought in mind of getting complete coverage.. Inject in a sheet pan so any liquid that leaks out can be reinjected or placed in the Zip bag with the meat...

 ...INJECT ALL THE SOLUTION...

 Meat gets put in the bag and in the refer for about 6 days.. longer will not cause any problems.... I like to turn the meat daily...

 Here are my thoughts on this method... The cure and ingredients start out on the inside of the meat and work their way outward... to me that makes more sense than hoping the ingredients work their way into the meat adequately.. I also figure the amount of water, in this particular method, does not need to be figured in the calculation for 3 reasons.....
 1... the water will probably evaporate leaving the stuff in the meat....
 2... the ingredients will "probably" bind with the meat cells.....
 3... in the event it does make a difference, a 10% error in the addition of salt, sugar and cure are well within acceptable limits for a safely cured piece of meat......

 Also, if you have an equilibrium curing recipe, such as Pops recipe, it is perfectly fine to inject his recipe and place it back in the bucket of brine...

 My needle of choice lately has been the one that comes with the injectable marinades put out by Cajun Injector... and the price is right...













SYRINGES.JPG



__ daveomak
__ Nov 4, 2015






...One of the picnics I recently did being injected...













PICNICS fresh ham 003.JPG



__ daveomak
__ Nov 4, 2015


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