{"id":1043,"date":"2025-10-11T14:47:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T13:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/?p=1043"},"modified":"2025-10-11T14:47:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T13:47:12","slug":"wet-salt-brine-equilibrium-curing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/archives\/1043","title":{"rendered":"Wet Salt Brine Equilibrium Curing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some notes on equilibrium wet curing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ratio of 0.25% pink curing salt to the total weight of the meat & the water (1 kilogram = 1 Liter, easier with the metric system to do this).I am going to use the metric system since it\u2019s easier:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 gram (1,000gram=1kg) = 1 milliliter (1,000ml=1 Liter)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ie, 5 kilograms (5,000g) of pork belly for bacon in a wet brine<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pork Belly 5kg + Water 4L \/4kg = 9kg or 9,000g<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I wanted to use a 2.5% total salt level for flavor (a bit salty for most people)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.25% sea salt x 9,000 = 202.5g of salt for the brine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

0.25% Pink Curing Salt No. 1 = 22.5 grams of pink curing salt<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for % of spices or sugar, you add this on top of the above<\/p>\n\n\n\n

say plus 1% sugar, 0.01 x 9,000 = 90 grams of sugar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You would dissolve it all and have brine, which can be varied to \u2018choose\u2019 your level of saltiness or sweetness!<\/em> In your bacon!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other benefit is that it doesn\u2019t matter if you leave the pork belly in for 1 week or 2. It won\u2019t overdo the saltiness!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

For those of you concerned about reaching the right salt and pink salt levels, you could use a technique called equilibrium brining, which I first read about in Nathan Myhrvold\u2019s Modernist Cuisine. To do this, combine the weight of the meat and the weight of the water, then add 2% of that weight in salt, and 0.25% pink salt, in addition to aromatics. <\/strong>This can cure from seven days up to twenty-one days (and maybe longer). This way you will never have bacon that\u2019s too salty<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some notes on equilibrium wet salt brine curing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[88,100],"class_list":["post-1043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curing","tag-brine","tag-salt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions\/1045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraser-clark.com\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}