# Cure #1 and Chlorine



## Sven Svensson (Jan 18, 2022)

When making a wet brine I see some folks are using distilled water. I think I read a while ago somewhere that chlorine in tap water reacts in some way with cure #1? Can someone smarter than me weigh in on this? Would filtered water be alright as it doesn’t have chlorine? Even boiled water? Thanks.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 20, 2022)

Giving this another bump hoping someone who’s smarter than me can give me some info.


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## indaswamp (Jan 20, 2022)

Most municipalities use Chloramine nowadays. It is more persistent and will not flash off to vapor like Chlorine will, and can be used at very low concentrations.


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## Nefarious (Jan 20, 2022)

Another alternative is you could just use bottled water.  Many have good minerals that might be good.  Some have junk in them as well.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 20, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> When making a wet brine I see some folks are using distilled water. I think I read a while ago somewhere that chlorine in tap water reacts in some way with cure #1? Can someone smarter than me weigh in on this? Would filtered water be alright as it doesn’t have chlorine? Even boiled water? Thanks.


I use filtered water with no known issues. Unless I’m fermenting sausage, then I always use distilled water for the culture. Also consider that some water in different parts of the country do have a “taste” where distilled water doesn’t. The taste difference may show up in the final product, as for me I still drink water straight out of the tap, but I’m in the Rocky Mountains, ymmv.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 20, 2022)

Northern California water definitely has a taste. It’s pretty horrid unless you’re in the Sierras or Cascades. I’m coastal, thus the funk. Thanks for the info. It’s a good reminder to change out my filters. Making bacon and ham sure has a lot of peripheral costs.


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## Nefarious (Jan 20, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> Northern California water definitely has a taste. It’s pretty horrid unless you’re in the Sierras or Cascades. I’m coastal, thus the funk. Thanks for the info. It’s a good reminder to change out my filters. Making bacon and ham sure has a lot of peripheral costs.


I live is the seattle area and our water is so bad.  I used to make beer and beer has to taste good, so i would use a combination of different bottled water and even some distilled water.  Best of luck with your project.


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## Fueling Around (Jan 20, 2022)

It all depends on your water source.
Some municipal water sources are not chlorinated even if it has a "funk" odor.

At home in MN the chlorination level changes periodically and does get a "funk" now and then.
We use a Brita to reduce the odor for drinking.
*I use distilled water for any cure.*



indaswamp said:


> Most municipalities use Chloramine nowadays. It is more persistent and will not flash off to vapor like Chlorine will, and can be used at very low concentrations.


Most water treatment converted to chloramine because they found chlorine contributed to the ozone depletion that caused the Freon ban.



Nefarious said:


> I live is the seattle area and our water is so bad.  I used to make beer and beer has to taste good, so i would use a combination of different bottled water and even some distilled water.  Best of luck with your project.


I lived in Auburn.  The best municipal water I have experienced.


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## DougE (Jan 20, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> Making bacon and ham sure has a lot of peripheral costs.


Why not dry cure your bacon? Hams, being thicker need to be injected with brine, well, unless you're doing a traditional salt cured country ham, but that's a different discussion.


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## Nefarious (Jan 20, 2022)

Fueling Around said:


> It all depends on your water source.
> 
> I lived in Auburn.  The best municipal water I have experienced.


I actually live in Bellevue, and our water is terrible.  The rhododendron don't even like it.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 20, 2022)

Fueling Around
 I’m a former Minnesotan and we had a well so everything tasted like iron. The joke was your pee would all go to the north end of the toilet if you forgot to flush. Haha. The best big city water I’ve had is Chicago’s which they get from way out on the lake.



 DougE
 I do dry cure my belly bacon. I’m going to try buckboard bacon so that will need to be a wet cure because of the thickness. I’ll use Pop’s lower salt brine but I’ll start using filtered water.


N
 Nefarious
 Auburn does have great water. Agreed. Somewhere up near Redding there’s a town we stopped in with crazy amazing water. Wish I could remember where that was. Ran right down the mountain into a settling pond. Not even sure they treated it.


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## DougE (Jan 20, 2022)

I dry cure my buckboard. I use between 2 and 3 inch thick slabs of boneless butt.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 20, 2022)

DougE
 Oh. And where do I find this dry cure method? I might give that a shot. Thanks.


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## DougE (Jan 20, 2022)

I weigh the meat in grams and do:
0.25% cure#1
0.75% sugar
1.5% salt

Combine cure, salt, and sugar, and apply half to each side of meat, including edges. Put in ziplock bag, along with any of the curing mixture that may have fallen off during the process, and place in fridge. Massage and turn over, daily. The cure will travel about 1/4 inch per day, so technically 4 days for a 2 in. thick piece, but add at least 2 days beyond the minimum. I leave mine go about 14 days to let the flavors all even out.

You can add spices to the curing mixture, if you wish, or apply the curing mixture to the meat, and dust with herbs/spices after rubbing the curing mixture into the meat.

Rinse off after cure is done, pat meat dry and place in fridge, uncovered, for a day or so. Smoke it up with the wood of your choice, rest in fridge a day or more. Slice up, fry, enjoy!


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 20, 2022)

DougE
 Thanks for the info. Doesn’t get too salty, I’m assuming? Looks like an easy ratio to work with.


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## indaswamp (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> DougE
> Thanks for the info. Doesn’t get too salty, I’m assuming? Looks like an easy ratio to work with.


That's the beauty of a dry cure...you add the salt you need, and when it is finished, it's the right amount of salt.


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## DougE (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> DougE
> Thanks for the info. Doesn’t get too salty, I’m assuming? Looks like an easy ratio to work with.


Using the 1.5% salt will give you about 1.75% salt, including what's in the cure#1. I haven't needed to soak any of mine before smoking to get some of the salt out. It works out about perfect, and I'm not really big on salty foods, for the most part.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> Northern California water definitely has a taste. It’s pretty horrid unless you’re in the Sierras or Cascades. I’m coastal, thus the funk. Thanks for the info. It’s a good reminder to change out my filters. Making bacon and ham sure has a lot of peripheral costs.


While brines do work and lots of members here use them, there are better more consistent ways of curing. Just to keep things simple, brining works off of uptake, that is how much nitrite, salt, and sugar are taken into the meat through diffusion. This will vary from meat piece to the next due to muscle structure and fat content, brine strength plays a big roll as well.

However, as has been suggested dry curing meats 3” thick and less is very effective and the process is controllable by adding cure, salt and sugar at the desired amount based on percent to meat weight. The product finishes exactly how you applied the cure mixture. Not more and not less. Cure #1 is added at 0.25%, salt in a range from 1.5 to 3.0%, sugar doesn’t have to be added at all but apply to taste from 0 to 3% all to meat weight.

For meat thicker than 3” like hams or round roast, I use a liquid such as water or unsalted broth. I start with 10% of meat weight in liquid, slightly warm to maybe 90* then dissolve phosphate (0.5%) salt (1.5%) sugar (0.5-0.75%) cure #1 (0.25%) you can also add liquid garlic and/or liquid onion juice to taste, dissolve each one in the order listed then cool the brine and inject all over the meat. Especially around any bone. Inject all of this brine as evenly as can be, then into a zip bag or covered container and refrigerate for about 1 week.


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## zwiller (Jan 21, 2022)

SmokinEdge
 VERY well said and totally agree. 

I do not recall seeing any citations from reliable sources about any negative affects with cure and chlorinated water OR heating cure.  I see lots of what I call "broscience" about it though.  I concur it's no go for fermenting for sure.  Easy ways to mitigate tho.  Chlorine dissipates at room temp in 24hrs and you can add things like campden tablets to chloraminated water to remove it.  For brewing, while it won't kill yeast like many say, it does give NASTY off flavors to homebrew.  Band-aid is the hallmark.  I use chlorinated tap for all my curing injections and no issues here.  Here's my latest and best.  Used Omak style but with erythorbate and think I am sticking to it.  Best color and flavor I ever got but was also the longest smoke (24hrs) I ever put on a piece of meat.  No filters or photo tweaks.  I might do a distilled water run once to see what the effects are as I think there might be a small chance water hardness might affect the flavor a little and if I do I will try and remember to post.  In short, I'd be worried about other things in tap water than chlorine and if it tastes fine it probably is fine to use to cure.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 21, 2022)

zwiller said:


> SmokinEdge
> VERY well said and totally agree.
> 
> I do not recall seeing any citations from reliable sources about any negative affects with cure and chlorinated water OR heating cure.  I see lots of what I call "broscience" about it though.  I concur it's no go for fermenting for sure.  Easy ways to mitigate tho.  Chlorine dissipates at room temp in 24hrs and you can add things like campden tablets to chloraminated water to remove it.  For brewing, while it won't kill yeast like many say, it does give NASTY off flavors to homebrew.  Band-aid is the hallmark.  I use chlorinated tap for all my curing injections and no issues here.  Here's my latest and best.  Used Omak style but with erythorbate and think I am sticking to it.  Best color and flavor I ever got but was also the longest smoke (24hrs) I ever put on a piece of meat.  No filters or photo tweaks.  I might do a distilled water run once to see what the effects are as I think there might be a small chance water hardness might affect the flavor a little and if I do I will try and remember to post.  In short, I'd be worried about other things in tap water than chlorine and if it tastes fine it probably is fine to use to cure.
> ...


Bravo, well said 

 zwiller
 .

As to erythorbate, I’ve taken to using it in all my hams and sausages. It is a cure accelerator, but most importantly it is an antioxidant and preservative and color fixer. It is also said to help stop fat rancidity. I do not see any negative or downside for it other than I’m not sure you can successfully use it with dry curing as it may burn off the nitrite before it can thoroughly penetrate the meat. Marianski suggests not to use erythorbate in dry cured products for this reason.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 21, 2022)

indaswamp said:


> That's the beauty of a dry cure...you add the salt you need, and when it is finished, it's the right amount of salt.


That’s a great way to put it. I’ve never heard it phrased that way. Now I get it. I’m dumping my old dry brine as I struggled to keep the saltiness under control. Thanks for that input.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 21, 2022)

SmokinEdge said:


> While brines do work and lots of members here use them, there are better more consistent ways of curing. Just to keep things simple, brining works off of uptake, that is how much nitrite, salt, and sugar are taken into the meat through diffusion. This will vary from meat piece to the next due to muscle structure and fat content, brine strength plays a big roll as well.
> 
> However, as has been suggested dry curing meats 3” thick and less is very effective and the process is controllable by adding cure, salt and sugar at the desired amount based on percent to meat weight. The product finishes exactly how you applied the cure mixture. Not more and not less. Cure #1 is added at 0.25%, salt in a range from 1.5 to 3.0%, sugar doesn’t have to be added at all but apply to taste from 0 to 3% all to meat weight.
> 
> For meat thicker than 3” like hams or round roast, I use a liquid such as water or unsalted broth. I start with 10% of meat weight in liquid, slightly warm to maybe 90* then dissolve phosphate (0.5%) salt (1.5%) sugar (0.5-0.75%) cure #1 (0.25%) you can also add liquid garlic and/or liquid onion juice to taste, dissolve each one in the order listed then cool the brine and inject all over the meat. Especially around any bone. Inject all of this brine as evenly as can be, then into a zip bag or covered container and refrigerate for about 1 week.


Thanks for your input 

 SmokinEdge
 . This has all been a really big help to me. I think I’ve been lazy and tried to skip weighing using my old method. I could never get the salt level right. Even soaking didn’t help. This has all been super helpful.


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## DougE (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> That’s a great way to put it. I’ve never heard it phrased that way. Now I get it. I’m dumping my old dry brine as I struggled to keep the saltiness under control. Thanks for that input.


Just add enough salt to the dry brine so the nitrites can get into the meat and do their magic. 1.5% salt, in addition to the salt in the cure#1 seems about right to me without making the bacon too salty.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 21, 2022)

zwiller said:


> SmokinEdge
> VERY well said and totally agree.
> 
> I do not recall seeing any citations from reliable sources about any negative affects with cure and chlorinated water OR heating cure.  I see lots of what I call "broscience" about it though.  I concur it's no go for fermenting for sure.  Easy ways to mitigate tho.  Chlorine dissipates at room temp in 24hrs and you can add things like campden tablets to chloraminated water to remove it.  For brewing, while it won't kill yeast like many say, it does give NASTY off flavors to homebrew.  Band-aid is the hallmark.  I use chlorinated tap for all my curing injections and no issues here.  Here's my latest and best.  Used Omak style but with erythorbate and think I am sticking to it.  Best color and flavor I ever got but was also the longest smoke (24hrs) I ever put on a piece of meat.  No filters or photo tweaks.  I might do a distilled water run once to see what the effects are as I think there might be a small chance water hardness might affect the flavor a little and if I do I will try and remember to post.  In short, I'd be worried about other things in tap water than chlorine and if it tastes fine it probably is fine to use to cure.
> ...


Loved the “Broscience” comment. That‘s a great descriptor. This explains why I asked the original question because I couldn’t find anything on it other than passing comments. Great looking lion there. I make those all the time. So what is Omak Style?


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> So what is Omak Style?


Using 10% of meat weight of no salt vegetable broth and mixing in the ingredients that I posted is the Omak style. 

 daveomak
 shared that recipe with us. It makes the best ham I’ve ever eaten or made. It’s damn good.

You need to weigh everything in grams. Meat weight can be converted to grams by meat weight, say 10# multiplied by 454 equals weight in grams. So 10x454 = 4540 grams meat weight.

Then to figure the added ingredients do this.

Broth 10% (4540x0.10 = 454g)
Phosphate 0.5% (4540x.005 = 22.7g
Salt 1.5% (4540x0.015 = 68.1g
Sugar 0.75% (4540x0.0075 = 34g)
Cure #1 0.25% (4540x0.0025 = 11.35g)

Keep asking we will keep helping.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 21, 2022)

This is the omak way:
https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/5-days-from-picnic-to-ham.296135/


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 21, 2022)

Thanks 

 SmokinEdge
 . Do you have a favorite vegetable broth? 



 daveomak
  I think that’s brilliant using an unsalted flavor broth as the base of the brine for the injection and leaving the big soak just plain brine. Much more economical than using all flavored broth. Kudos.

All this advice is completely undoing all my old stand-byes. I love it.


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## DougE (Jan 21, 2022)

Kitchen Basics No salt vegetable broth.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> Thanks
> 
> SmokinEdge
> . Do you have a favorite vegetable broth?
> ...


Yes, Kitchen Basics is the broth Dave used, and I have tried several and it was not very good with others. Use the Kitchen Basics no salt vegetable broth.


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## thirdeye (Jan 21, 2022)

indaswamp said:


> That's the beauty of a dry cure...*you add the salt you need,* and when it is finished, it's the right amount of salt.



The emphasis is the salt you need, making it an equilibrium dry cure. It can't get too salty.  My Grandpappy was a salt box dry cure man for bacon. All eyeball.  6 to 7 days was about right, but if you went 10 days it had to soak-out in a bucket.


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## indaswamp (Jan 21, 2022)

thirdeye said:


> The emphasis is the salt you need, making it an equilibrium dry cure. It can't get too salty.  My Grandpappy was a salt box dry cure man for bacon. All eyeball.  6 to 7 days was about right, but if you went 10 days it had to soak-out in a bucket.


I'm sure he learned that back before refrigeration was widely available. The salt box was a way to keep the meat safe and get the salt in quickly. with 100% salt in contact with the meat, this inhibited microbial growth while the meat uptook salt. Old rule of thumb for Italians was 1 day per kilo of meat. At that point the meat had taken up enough salt to adequetly salt the whole cut of meat.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 21, 2022)

Wow did this ever send me down a rabbit hole. So, a question about the phosphate. What do you use and where do you get it? And it looks to me like that’s the same stuff you use in your laundry to make the detergent work better and it’s the same stuff to clean greasy grills with. I’ll still eat it, but I never made that connection. TSPP.


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## indaswamp (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> Wow did this ever send me down a rabbit hole. So, a question about the phosphate. What do you use and where do you get it? And it looks to me like that’s the same stuff you use in your laundry to make the detergent work better and it’s the same stuff to clean greasy grills with. I’ll still eat it, but I never made that connection. TSPP.


Get food grade TSPP.
There are a number of food grade phosphate formulas that will work in meat. Ames-phos is a blend and a lot of people use it. Some have higher pH than others-which is great for when making sausages with acidic ingredients. I use TSPP I get from a local butcher supply shop.

Of note-best to dissolve TSPP in luke warm ~100*F water first, then add ice to dissolve any cure or salt. TSPP does not dissolve easily in cold water.


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## DougE (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> Wow did this ever send me down a rabbit hole


Get used to it around here. I end up going down rabbit holes once, if not multiple times a day. Stuff that never even crossed my mind becomes an area of study, and it just mushrooms out from there.


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## indaswamp (Jan 21, 2022)

DougE said:


> Get used to it around here. I end up going down rabbit holes once, if not multiple times a day. Stuff that never even crossed my mind becomes an area of study, and it just mushrooms out from there.


It really gets crazy when you jump down the rabbit hole to salumi and salami!!


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## DougE (Jan 21, 2022)

indaswamp said:


> It really gets crazy when you jump down the rabbit hole to salumi and salami!!


I'll get to it. It's just a matter of time ....


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 21, 2022)

Again, thank you both for all the help. This stuff is fascinating and I can‘t wait to see the difference in my former tried-and-true recipes.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 21, 2022)

I’ve learned something about this forum. Ask a simple question, get a complicated answer. Follow that answer for an hour, learn 10 new amazing things, and lose another $40 on Amazon. Hahaha!


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> Again, thank you both for all the help. This stuff is fascinating and I can‘t wait to see the difference in my former tried-and-true recipes.


The difference will be holy grail type.
Follow what has been stated, and you will start to produce quality, repeatable, over and again type cured products. None of the “It was great last time, what happened this time type questions “ 

The information you have just been given is “money”, if you follow.


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## DougE (Jan 21, 2022)

Sven Svensson said:


> and lose another $40 on Amazon. Hahaha!


Not to mention at the grocery store, cause you saw it on here, have to immediately try it, and don't have everything you need to make it, soooooo ....


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 21, 2022)

The greatest strength of this forum is the willingness to share secrets that in the past were  guarded furiously. This site can vault your game forward by a lifetime. All of this just for being polite and asking. We share.


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## indaswamp (Jan 21, 2022)

^^^^^Yep. But you have to be humble and willing to ask. People here genuinely want to help you.


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## DougE (Jan 21, 2022)

indaswamp said:


> But you have to be humble and willing to ask. People here genuinely want to help you.


Sometimes, as in my case, they come looking for you, because they know that you genuinely want to learn the craft.


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## JckDanls 07 (Jan 21, 2022)

As for the water...  I'm on well...  run through a water softener and then an aerator ...  then the drinking /ice machine water goes through a 5 filter reverse osmosis system...  I think it's clean ...  I know it taste fantastic ...


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## thirdeye (Jan 21, 2022)

indaswamp said:


> I'm sure he learned that back before refrigeration was widely available.


Widely is the key word.  The family had a dairy, and with that came an ice house. The brothers worked in the oil fields and were notorious poachers of wild game which was aged in the ice house along with sides of bacon both of which was sold out the back door at a handsome profit.  

Yes, I would guess a straight salt cure during the depression was standard, and much later on he did use salt and saltpetre, but he still had a salt box.  By then he was retired and there was a beer fridge and bacon was a hobby.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 21, 2022)

DougE said:


> Sometimes, as in my case, they come looking for you, because they know that you genuinely want to learn the craft.


All that matters now is that you have the information you needed and asked for. Now you are more confident and successful in the craft of meat curing. That’s part of what this site provides.


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## DougE (Jan 21, 2022)

SmokinEdge said:


> All that matters now is that you have the information you needed and asked for. Now you are more confident and successful in the craft of meat curing. That’s part of what this site provides.


There is always more to learn, but yeah, I have a decent handle on it.


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## zwiller (Jan 22, 2022)

SmokinEdge said:


> Bravo, well said
> 
> zwiller
> .
> ...


Thanks for turning me onto it.  Used it on my last summer sausage and believe there was improvement in it as well.  Kinda funny, since one of my homebrewing secrets was an antioxidant as well.  Also funny just how little you need to use.  Wish me luck, Champion Juicer with solid plate near me for $110 on FB Marketplace...


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## bill ace 350 (Jan 22, 2022)

If your water is chlorinated,  fill a couple of large pots with as much water as you need. set them on a table or counter top, covering the pots with a light towel, for a day or so. chlorine naturally dissipates through evaloration.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 22, 2022)

zwiller said:


> Wish me luck, Champion Juicer with solid plate near me for $110 on FB Marketplace...


Keep me posted.


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## daveomak (Jan 23, 2022)

Salt = 
*What Is the Chemical Formula for Table Salt?*





https://www.reference.com › science › chemical-formula-table-salt-9919167264a64d83
The *chemical* *formula* for *table* *salt* is NaCl. Also called sodium chloride, natrium chloride or halite, *table* *salt* is an ionic compound that contains a positively charged ion of sodium and a negatively charged chloride ion connected through an ionic bond.
Sodium hypochlorite = Sometimes used to disinfect water...  
*Sodium hypochlorite | NaOCl - PubChem*



https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › compound › Sodium-hypochlorite
*Sodium* *hypochlorite* in 0.5% w/v solution is called Dakin's solution, and is used as an antiseptic to clean infected topical wounds. *Sodium* *hypochlorite* is an inorganic *sodium* salt in which *hypochlorite* is the counterion. It is used as a bleaching and disinfecting agent and is commonly found in household bleach.


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## thirdeye (Jan 23, 2022)

daveomak said:


> The chemical formula for table salt is NaCl. Also called sodium chloride, *natrium* chloride or halite, table salt is an ionic compound that contains a positively charged ion of sodium and a negatively charged chloride ion connected through an ionic bond.



Hmmmm. What did I learn today?.... that the word *natrium* is associated with salt. 

Why is this important to me?  Well, Wyoming has a number of aging coal fired power plants owned by Uncle Warren (Warren Buffet) and associates.  Some units are scheduled to shut down, others could convert to natural gas.... but one location will host a nuclear reactor, named the *Natrium* project, that will utilize a *sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system.*  The company, TerraPower,  is Bill Gate$, GE and Hitachi.  These things take years for permitting and construction so we'll have to wait and see.  More info is HERE.  Okay.... back to curing.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 23, 2022)

Kinda strange how different parts of the country do things differently.
I have been in excavation most all of my adult life since graduating high school. So over 30 years. I have installed 100 miles or more of main line municipal water and sewer line. When we install main water for development we use chlorine tablets, or sometimes liquid chlorine in every 20’ joint of pipe at installed. Once completed we “load” the line from the existing main water main system purging all air from the line, then we build pressure to what ever the city main happens to be then close all valves and isolate our new main line for 24 hours to allow the chlorine to disinfect the new system. Then we flush thousands of gallons out of the system. Then we do a BAC-T test and must have zero bacteria, then we do a chlorine test and must have zero chlorine. We have no chlorine or fluoride in our water system. Yet other have one or both.


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## PolishDeli (Jan 24, 2022)

Chemistry home work 

Questions
You make a curing brine using cure#1 and chlorinated tap water.
*1* - Does the sodium nitrite in the cure react with the sodium hypochlorite in the water?
*2* - Does it matter?

Solutions
*1*
Balanced chemical reaction
NaNO2 (aq) + NaClO (aq) -> NaCl (aq) + NaNO3 (aq)

Gibbs free energies:
Reactants
NaNO2 (aq) -299.1 kJ/mol
NaClO (aq) -298.7 kJ/mol
Products
NaCl (aq) -393.2 kJ/mol
NaNO3 (aq) -373.2 kJ/mol

Total Gibbs Free Energy of the products is lower than the reactants. Therefore, this reaction will occur spontaneously. 

*2*
The concentration of sodium hypochlorite in tap water is around 4ppm.
Concentration of sodium nitrite is around 250ppm (this is assuming an equilibrium curing brine for 5 pounds of meat in 1 gallon of water, targeting a final cure level of 150ppm).

Convert ppm to mols:
0.05 mols of sodium hypochlorite.
3.6 mols of sodium nitrite.

Therefore, the number of sodium hypochlorite molecules is only 1.5% that of sodium nitrite molecules. 

Conclusion 
*Yes, a reaction will occur. 
No, it does not matter. *
The reaction forms table salt and sodium nitrate.  Both are used for curing anyway. But more importantly,  the amount of chlorine in tap water is not high enough to meaningfully impact the cure levels in the brine.


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## Sven Svensson (Jan 24, 2022)

P
 PolishDeli
  Thanks so much for that great explanation. I love seeing the science on this. Facts are better than fiction. Much appreciated.


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