# Too Salty



## ipyrek

I wet cured my venison ham for 5 days,  then slow smoked for 5hrs untill IT hit 160,  Still nice and moist good taste, but too salty. What did I do wrong to make it too salty ? Did I brine it too long ? Would 3 days have been long enough ? How can I now remove some of the salt out of the Ham ?


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## s2k9k

When you remove it from the brine you should do a fry test. Slice a few thin slices and fry in a pan and taste. If it is too salty you can soak it in some fresh water for a few hours changing the water every hour and do some more fry tests until you get it how you want. Soaking in fresh water will pull the salt out.


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## diggingdogfarm

What brine did you use?

~Martin


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## ipyrek

The 60* solution with 1gallon water, salt ,sugar, and insta cure #1 in the amounts required. and 2, 1 1/2 lbs strips of back strap of venison.


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## diggingdogfarm

Next time, I would switch to an equilibrium brine, that way it's impossible to over salt and you won't have to fight with it after curing to get it exactly where you want it salt wise.

~Martin


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## ipyrek

I've found a few different brine recepies, but I don't recall seeing the equilibrium brine, just what is it ?


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## scarbelly

Martin will be along with his brine link but like Dave suggested, you should always do a fry test first so you can make any needed adjustments


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## diggingdogfarm

Equilibrium brining is easy, reliable and saves on ingredients, but requires a good accurate gram scale.

*Equilibrium brining is a method of brining that makes it impossible to over-salt or over-cure meat when using a reasonable percentage of salt and the proper amount of cure. In equilibrium brining the submerged meat and the cover brine (or cover brine and injected brine in larger pieces of meat) act as a single system and are considered a single unit when calculating salt, sugar and cure amounts. Over time, the ingredients in the brine migrate into the meat until levels in the meat tissue and in the brine are balanced via osmosis and diffusion. Therefore, the calculation for ingoing salt, sugar and cure is based on the weight of the meat plus the weight of the water or other liquid used in the brine.*

Here's an example of a 2:1 ratio (meat:water) equilibrium brining project, 2% salt and 1 % sugar.

We'll do immersion cured boneless ham which requires no more than 200ppm nitrite (the maximum recommended limit).

Our piece of ham weighs 1000 grams so the amount of water required for our 2:1 brine is 500grams, adding the two together we get 1500grams.
We now calculate the cure, salt and sugar for a total of 1500 grams of meat and water.
Anything over 2-1/2 inches thick should be injected with a portion of the brine.

Here's the results from the calculator (screen capture):








Link to the calculator:
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html

HTH

~Martin


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## ipyrek

Thanks for all the replies ! The equilibrium looks like it'll take a little figering , but I'm shure I can figure it out, It wont be as bad, once I get going along.


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## mballi3011

You have to always do the fry test. But you can still soak it in water now and it should bring some more of the salt out of it.


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## fpnmf

From Pops!!

real simple curing brine:

 for every 1 gallon of water, add:

1/3 - 1 cup sea salt (depending if you're on a lo-salt diet)

1 cup granulated sugar or Splenda[emoji]174[/emoji]

1 cup brown sugar or Splenda[emoji]174[/emoji] brown sugar mix

1 tbsp cure no. 1 pink salt

stir thoroughly until clear amber color, pour over meat, inject if necessary to cure from inside-out as well as outside-in

weight down with a partially filled 1 qt or 1 gal. ziploc bag or bags to keep meat immersed

Curing times vary with meat, but generally overnight to 2-3 days for chickens and turkeys, 8-10 days buckboard bacon, 10-14 days belly bacon, pork shoulder, whole butts, 3-4 weeks whole hams, 10-20 days corned beef (fresh beef roasts, briskets, rolled rib roasts, etc.)   If whole muscle is more than 2" thick, then inject so it can cure i/o as well as o/i, and/or in and around bone structures, etc.

You can add any other flavorings you'd like, this is just the basic curing brine. 1 heaping tablespoon of cure is about 1 ounce.  The maximum concentration allowed safely is 3.84 ounces per 1 gallon of brine (24 lbs.per 100 gallons: 16 oz. x 24 = 384 ounces, 1/100th is 3.84 ounces).  You can experiment with different concentrations as long as you keep it between those parameters.


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