Curing: Salt, Nitrite, and Safety

What cure does

Curing preserves meat with salt, sugar, and nitrite ¹:

• Salt is the preserving agent. It draws water out of the meat and slows bacteria.
• Sugar softens the harshness of the salt.
• Nitrite fixes the pink color and cured flavor and is itself a preservative. It’s an effective inhibitor of Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium behind botulism ².

At home, nitrite comes as Cure #1 (Prague Powder #1, Insta Cure #1, or pink curing salt): 6.25 percent sodium nitrite and 93.75 percent salt, dyed pink so it can’t be mistaken for table salt ². It is not the same as Himalayan pink salt, which is pink from trace minerals and doesn’t cure anything ². Cure #2 adds sodium nitrate for long dry cures such as salami; Oregon State doesn’t recommend it for bacon because it can form nitrosamines at frying temperatures ².

Dose by weight

Nitrite is toxic in large amounts, so it’s always measured ^{1 2}:

• Home recipes commonly use 1 teaspoon of Cure #1 per 5 pounds of meat ².
• By weight, that’s about 0.25 percent of the meat. A 2,000-gram belly gets 5 grams of Cure #1, which holds 312 milligrams of nitrite: 156 parts per million. Mississippi State’s smoked sausage uses exactly that level ³.
• Commercial dry-cured bacon is capped at 200 ppm ².

Use a gram scale and follow the cure maker’s directions ². Weigh the meat first; everything else is a percentage of that number.

Dry cure

Rub the cure mixture over every surface, push extra into the shank end and around any exposed bone to prevent bone souring (spoilage deep at the bone), and lay the pieces skin side down where the drippings can drain ⁴.

• Time: about 7 days per inch of thickness. A ham 5 inches thick at its thickest takes about 35 days ⁴. USDA gives bellies the same 7 days per inch ¹.
• Hams: divide the cure into three rubbings (four for hams over 20 pounds), applied 3 to 5 days apart ⁴.
• Bacon: many cooks now use an equilibrium cure: salt, sugar, and Cure #1 measured as percentages of the belly’s weight, sealed in a bag, and refrigerated, so the meat can’t get saltier than the recipe no matter how long it sits. Oregon State’s bacon cures 5 to 7 days at 40°F, flipped daily ².

Afterward, soak or rinse the meat to remove surface salt and salt streaks before smoking ⁴. USDA suggests about 2 minutes of soaking per day in the cure, then about 3 hours of drying ¹.

Brine cure

Hams and shoulders can also cure under a cold sweet pickle brine (salt, sugar, and nitrite dissolved in water), weighted down, and overhauled (taken out and repacked) once or twice so the brine reaches every surface ¹. Brined hams and shoulders take 3-1/2 to 4 days per pound: about 60 days for a 15-pound ham ¹. Commercial packers speed this by pumping brine into the ham.

If the brine turns ropy (like partly cooked egg white), bacteria have taken hold: discard it, scrub the meat with hot water, scald the crock, and start again with fresh cold brine ¹.

Temperature and time

Chill meat at least 24 hours before it goes into cure, and keep it at 36 to 40°F throughout ¹. Federal inspection rules keep dry-curing meat from dropping below 36°F while the salt equalizes, and above 50°F bacteria grow rapidly in unsalted meat, which is what the center is until the cure reaches it ¹. A spare refrigerator with a thermometer in it is the home curing room.

Mississippi State notes that traditional country hams aged for about 6 months at 70 to 75°F come from a different climate, and it doesn’t recommend aging dry-cured hams at home in the humid Southeast ⁴. Short cures of 2 to 3 weeks, followed by refrigeration and freezing, are the safer home route ⁴.

Try it

Cure one pork belly as bacon. Weigh it in grams. Measure 2 percent salt, 1 to 2 percent sugar (brown sugar or maple sugar), and 0.25 percent Cure #1 on a gram scale; rub it on, seal it in a bag, and refrigerate at 40°F for 7 days, flipping daily. Rinse, pat dry, rest uncovered in the refrigerator overnight, and smoke it (next lesson). Write down the weights so the next batch is repeatable.

What to take from this

Curing preserves meat with salt, sugar, and nitrite. Cure #1 is 6.25 percent sodium nitrite in salt, dyed pink, not Himalayan salt. Dose it by weight: about 1 teaspoon per 5 pounds, or 0.25 percent, for about 156 ppm. Dry cure about 7 days per inch; brined hams take 3-1/2 to 4 days per pound. Keep everything at 36 to 40°F, rinse before smoking, and use Cure #2 only for long dry cures.