it’s pink to prevent accidental ingestion (though how anyone would eat that much salt and not know it i don’t know). it causes i believe the hemoglobin in your blog do bond with it and there for your body doesn’t get the oxygen it needs.

However, the purveyor seems to be slightly wrong in their product description when they state:
“All pink tinted cures have the same sodium nitrite concentration, which is 6.25%. Prague Powder # 1, Insta-Cure, Modern Cure are all the same.”

whereas Wikipedia, in the Sausage Making article, states:
“Morton’s Quick Cure is the brand name of another formulation of sodium nitrite with salt and sugars added. It is not the same concentration as either “Prague powder #1 or #2″. Since the amount of nitrite present in the recipe is essential for safety, one cannot take a recipe designed for Prague powder and simply substitute. To do so will invite botulism poisoning.”

also noting that:
“… there is enough sodium nitrite in 2 ounces of Prague powder #1 to kill a person.“

Anyhow, I’m so delighted I found this page! My husband is Irish, not Irish-American, and he misses home and especially the foods of home like Irish Bacon. We’re lucky that we can find it here in San Francisco, but it’s very expensive as much as $8.99 a pound. I’m excited about trying the Rulhman 5% salt solution, and I’ll let you know how it compares in taste to the Irish Bacon we’re familiar with. I’m a biologist by trade and a foodie by nature, and I have to say, the one that wrote about correcting the volume had a good point. To accurately make a 5% salt solution, you would measure out 5 grams of salt, then tip it into a calibrated container and fill with water until it reached 100 mLs. That is how a 5% solution is made. Increase your mass(salt), and increase your solvent(water) do this proportionately, and you will maintain a 5% solution at whatever volume you choose.

As regards another writer’s curiosity about the quality of Niman Ranch, I can only give my experience. It’s the best quality meat product I’ve ever had. It’s so good! We’re fortunate to live in San Francisco where the markets carry them because Niman Ranch is located in Northern California. They even have a stand at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, only they’re sellers are very uptight, they won’t bargain, which is so wrong. It’s just the wrong attitude in a local open farmer’s market, haggling is tradition, and it upsets me when they refuse to follow that tradition, but I digress. Niman Ranch is a great product, pricey, but worth it for a special occasion at least.

I’ll let you know how it compares to our notion of Irish Bacon!

On another journey into uncharted territory Michael, gang.. I am thinking of making a sushi california roll tapa style and I am wondering about the proportions. For Protein I am thinking anchovies or sardines. But I need a powerful veggie ingredient. It should be a vegetable or vegetables of some sort in the right proportion. No cheese pleeze.. What veggies can actually stand up to these proteins? I am thinking sweet red and yellow peppers no skin and a tiny sliver of skinned seeded jalapeno? But I also have some organic grown green beans I could steam and shock.
This one is in the back burner too…. just needs more research..cooking can be soo much fun..

yes yes…now on to stir frying at last….

“Brining vs. Marinating
Technically, a brine is a type of marinade. But marinades principally impart flavor, while brines improve the texture. The problem with most marinades is that they usually add flavor only to the surface of the meat, but brines penetrate to the center. When it comes to tenderizing moderately tender cuts of meat and poultry, brines are probably more effective than acidic marinades because the brine penetrates the muscle fibers, causing them to swell and soften.
We could find no conclusive answer for how much sodium is absorbed from the brine. Estimates ranged from 10 to 15 percent, so we split the difference and calculated 12.5 percent sodium absorption.
Bruce Aidells arrives at his culinary expertise by way of a Ph.D. in biology “”

So basically if 15% is the amount of salt absorbed over 24 hrs and not my guestimated 50% then my numbers are ok but off by a factor or 3. This would yield a brine of 4.5 oz of salt in one gallon of water for a 3lb roaster. And 1 1/2 oz of salt for a one lb pork tenderloin.
I can feel the convergence thing happening…the quickening… it’s coming together. Keeping the model as posted and just multiply a factor of 3 to it to account for a LOWER than assumed absorption rate. Bruce in his website @ cooking Light also came to the conclusion to brine for 24 hrs to keep it simple. he is a good read and smarter than me. I recommend you guys google him sometime.

Basically I have set up my own brining program with a little model I plan to use to converge in some “REAL” recipes that work for me.
My model is based on proportions.
Lodaya writes that the human body regulates salt at a proportion of 1:400. That is .0025
From the body of work in comercial frozen meals I basically guestimated/calculated that the typical lb of well brined beef has also a ratio of .003/2
So .003 is my fuzzy variable. The number I can begin with and then adjust.
I also asume the 24 brining time might yield a 50% Transfer of salt to the meat. (to be determined..more research…)
So basically say if I wish to brine a 3lb roaster then I add Lodayas .0025 which is in the meat already to .003 which I hope will go in half way for a true .0015 salt infusion.
I add it to my .003(x(times) the number of lbs) which in this case is 3.
.009+.0025 = .0115 That is the proportion of salt in my brine for a 3lb roaster.
A gallon of water is 128 fl oz so 128*.0115~1.5 oz of salt. Or 1 1/2 oz of kosher salt.
Very simple and it all depends on how much salt is really absorbed by the roaster in 24 hrs. This is very realistic. Also as I said I will take the vegies, herbs and spices in a beaker and put the stick blender to everything until everything is pureed and disolved in the brine.
As long as the numbers are in the ballpark I can adjust them up or down as I go.

That is the answer the weight of the brined meat is the answer. This is why you can not just brine at five percent unless you are brining a twenty lb ham or turkey.

Remember an oversalted tv dinner approx 11 oz contains 500mg of sodium?
and we figured…
if (500mg) x 3.5 E-5 = 0.0175 oz of salt
and if 0.0175 / 11oz meal = 0.0015 salt proportion in the tv dinner. then if so then assume a lb would take up a 0.003 salt proportion and 20lbs would take 0.003 * 20 = 0.06 EUREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 or 6% salt to brine proportion for at least 20 lbs of meat.
But for a say 3 lb roaster…. your brine should only be .003*3= 1% brine solution. Lodaya is tha man.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU NEED TO BRINE TO THE CORRECT WEIGHT YOU GUYS OR YOU WILL SCREW IT UP. I am assuming that again if equilibrium is not reached overnight and if we don’t get all the diffusion in the world overnight then we just don’t care. It will never happen for us cause I am not brining a chicken for 12 days.

YOu guys need to take the right weight into account to make things work. DO NOT TRY TO BRINE a 3 lb fryer with a 20 lb recipe or you will get one major heart attack.!!!!!!!!!

I really didn’t intend to stay on this path but I feel I understand why the 5% brine didn’t work for my one lb pork tenderloin and my less than 1% mojo brine kicked ass with the turkey breasts. As I set out to do.. I feel I have my brining under control and I again thank Ruhlman for exposing me to this great technique.
I plan to leave everyone alone and concentrate in improving brining and mastering stir frying with my new beautiful Joice Chen cast iron wok.

sarah: if your corned beef tastes sour and you didn’t add vinegar, you really pickled it. did you brine in the fridge or at room temp?

nycook: yes, finished the pork confit on a flattop weighed down with sheet trays.

Didn’t intend to add anything to what I had already shared on brining. I look forward to reading what others think and say on brining.

I thank Rhulman for bringing this technique to our attention. Brining is imprecise and I found out the recipes out there do not work for me(and lots other folks). There must be a reason for it?

I think brining is a well guarded secret and an art outside comercial kitchens that have the ability to measure and monitor the salt content of meats in their processes.

YOu don’t see many folks other than Ruhlman here divulging their little brining secrets and recipes? Am I right?

Rhulman in the “Elements of Cooking” is trying to bring some these techniques to the professional and also the home cook too. This could be the missing gap also, the information vacuum you perceive I am trying to fill?.

In any case I am moving on to stir frying….with my new cast iron wok. If that topic opens up and I go apeshit over it..don’t say I didn’t warn you in advance.