bdevidal

Hey, you're preaching to the choir. I drive a British car, I built my own coffee roaster, cold smoker, greenhouse, etc... I'm with you on the ridiculous project thing, but where you lost me is bitching about the price for an NSF certified product that is designed for restaurant kitchens. ← Ah, gotcha. That prob came across as more gripe'y than I intended. I completely understand why a pro-product would cost as much as they do, what with design requirements, insurance concerns, etc. It was just a personal off the cuff remark reflecting my own finances more than anything; there was a moment of "Man, you know how much gear I could buy for 3800 bucks..." What do you drive, MGB? Sprite? Sunbeam? -B

I would disagree with the "no value" part. There are plenty of things that are hard to come by for any price, regardless of pay grade. If all I need is a blender that does what a blender does, I'll go buy a blender. If I need a blender that does something very specific for which there is limited or no market, then DIY it is going to have to be, short of paying someone else to build it for you. And what's the fun in that? The other thing is that, other than personal or monitary benifits, DIYing things (within reason) often provides insights into and solutions for other problems. Or it may spur some new creative idea that hasn't been conceived of before. Or maybe it's just because taking stuff apart is fun. -B

One other thing: That's pretty much (as far as I know) how freeze drying works. They freeze the material, then put it in a refrigerated vacuum chamber. The material stays below freezing, but the low vacuum drastically increases sublimation. When it's done, you're left with a fine dry powder. It's also similar to how they make dry ice. It's cost prohibitive to either generate a cold enough or high enough pressure environment to make CO2 solid, so they compress the CO2 to a liquid state, let the heat of compression dissipate, then suddenly drop the pressure. A portion of the liquid CO2 boils off rapidly, dropping the temp of the rest of the CO2 and producing little solid flakes of frozen CO2. This is then compressed into blocks of dry ice. It's amazing that that process is even remotely economic enough that you can run down to the local grocery store and buy a block for a couple of bucks. -B

You can build yourself an immersion circulator for a couple of bucks also when the real thing is a grand or more. It's a tiny market, the product works, and the product is targeted at restaurant kitchens where building and maintaining some hacked together solution isn't worth the effort. ← I'm amazed at how often that's the case in many different and divergent circumstances. And in some (most?) cases, the hacked/DIY version is as good or better than the commercial equivalent. There's a great tutorial on doing home pressure bagging of composite laminates (like high quality fiberglass mat or carbon fiber) using a vacuum pump based on an old refridgerator compressor. I've been thinking of making my own electric convection oven with all sorts of custom goodies (lower and higher heat range that commercial, integrated rotisserie, larger capacity, boosted infrared for broiling, PID control, etc) and even with those add-ons it would be still be pretty cheap. Of course, such an oven wouldn't and shouldn't be used installed in a kitchen like a normal, UL-listed oven. But that's why there is the great outdoors... -B

Vapor removal has a couple of options. Most pumps are rated in how many CFMs they can move, so I believe that as long as the vapor volume was less than the pumping volume you could establish any vacuum you want. Also, if the vapor volume exceeded the pumping volume, the vacuum would decrease (pressure would increase), the liquid would stop boiling, less vapor would be produced, and the vacuum would increase; I assume it would naturally tend toward equilibrium. Of course, that doesn't address the issue of actually running that water vapor through the vacuum pump, which I assume is not good for it and would immediately re-condense as it hit atmospheric pressure. You would have to set it up like a still, with a boiling chamber and a condensing chamber (ice water) prior to the pump. In fact, part of what got me thinking about this was a discussion on vacuum distillation as a way of reducing the energy input needed to produce ethanol. In practice, you would prob want a desiccant filter between the condenser and the pump just to make sure you're running as little water vapor through the pump as possible. The cooling issue is interesting. In practice, you would want to have some controllable means of introducing heat so that you could control the process all the way up to boiling @ STP (or at least pressure). Stove would work, a PID controller would prob work better. You could do without external heat if you controlled how hard of a vacuum the pump pulled. The pump would vacuum, the liquid would boil (assuming a boiling point below room temp), the liquid would cool to the point that it stopped boiling, the pump would stop at the preset vacuum, the liquid would absorb heat from the surrounding vessel, which would in turn pull heat from the room temp air, the liquid would warm to the point of boiling again, repeat. Now in this case, without knowing how the temp gradient would be distributed in the vessel or the liquid, I'm unsure if it would reach an equilibrium or would oscillate up and down. Plus it would take forever. Have you seen the new (somewhat) design for self cooling beverage cans? They use a two part lower section separate from the beverage. The upper half of the lower section is in contact with the bottom of the beverage portion and is filled with a water gel. The bottom half of the lower section is a vacuum with a solid desiccant. Somehow (still not sure) when you activate the cooling unit the barrier between the two cooling sections is breached, the vacuum+desiccant causes the water in the gel to boil, drawing heat from the beverage and cooling the drink. Still trying to think of some other uses for the above rig... -B

Interesting. I'm fairly certain a DIY version with greater capacity could be made for under 300 bucks or less (much less if you already have a pressure cooker or a vacuum pump). I have no idea how they can charge 3800 dollars for that unless it's just a really tiny market. -B

As an offshoot of the To cover or not to cover thread, as well as my chicken stock post, I was thinking... When is boiling not boiling? If you are boiling (or simmering) to drive off water or concentrate something, you are really doing two things: you are removing water and applying heat. Normally it would follow that one is a direct result of the other. But what if you separate them? Heat, depending on its degree, does more than boil off the water. It breaks down chemical bonds, creates new compounds and flavors, etc. For example, take Fat Guy's example of simmering an uncovered tomato sauce to reduce it and concentrate the flavor. What if instead of applying heat to boil the water (and all the other things heat necessarily does), we removed the pressure? Air pressure at sea level is a little over 14 psi. If we were to drop that pressure down to a little less than a half a pound per square inch, well within the capability of even most cheap vacuum pumps, the water would boil at room temperature. You could concentrate/reduce the sauce without any of the heat effects. You could also vary up and down the scale by simply controlling the vacuum. I have a large pressure canner that I'm sure would hold that kind of vacuum (with a couple of modifications). I'm trying to imagine what you could do with a technique like this that you can't do right now. Anyone have any ideas? -B

...I'm still trying to figure out if I have the guts to run chicken stock through a still... ← Do it, man!! Do it!! ← I'm certainly thinking about it. If it works like other distillation/concentration processes, in theory you could capture everything before the boiling point of water, then boil of the water to concentrate the remaining flavors. Combine the former with the later and you should have something approaching Ultimate Demi Glace. -B

You're half right. Water takes *less* time to boil (visually) at higher altitudes (i.e. lower atmospheric pressure) but the things being boiled take longer to finish, since the boiling temp of the water is lower at higher altitudes/lower pressures. This link will not only tell you the boiling point of water at your altitude, it also includes a correction for current barometric pressure. -B

Perfectly clear might be hard; what you gain in low agitation you loose somewhat in the lack of "scum" formation, which normally aids clarification. I would say my stock came out to "servicable clarity", with most of the turbidity from fine particulate matter and not from completely emulsified whatnot, and that was just through a corse sieve. Of course, there's nothing preventing one from doing a cold gelatin clarification on the product. -B

You can seal them on the "seal only" setting. Just don't try to suck the air out... ← Actually you can't (at least the turkey roasting bags). The turkey roasting bags are made of BoPET (aka Mylar). The property that makes it perfect for a roasting bag (stability at high heat) also make it very hard to heat seal. When used in commercial food packaging, it's actually combined with polyethylene to make it sealable. Of course, you can use the same process with actual sealable vacuum bags, should work the same way. If necessary, you can freeze the contents with the water, then vacu-seal it. But this does have a couple of problems: -Vacuum bags are boiling rated but not oven rated, so you would have to be very careful about oven temp -Since you have to seal it, you can't use the pre-boiled water method. This means you have to bring it up to temp in some other way, preferably a large boiling water bath. The contents have to be hot before you put it in the oven because a low oven would take forever to bring it up to temp (danger zone), a higher temp will compromise the bag either through melting (vacu-bag) or through gas expansion/steam pressure if you overshoot (both bags). If you do it in a water bath, you have to make sure that the bag is suspended off the bottom of the pot or the bag will melt (from contact with the metal w/o the water). Then once at temp, you would either have to put the entire water bath vessel + bag in the oven, or pull a now boiling multiple gallon bag out of the bath and into another container. Don't forget, vacu-bags are boiling rated but they also lose most of their structural integrity around that point (become "stretchy"). -For a fair amount of stock, it would get pretty expensive. As far as the roasting bags go, I double bagged it, but I didn't notice any leaks. There were a couple of tablespoons of liquid in the stockpot when I pulled out the bags (did I mention how easy the cleanup was?), but it did not smell like stock and may have just been condensation of some sort. When emptying the stock, you just fold the bags over the rim of the stock pot and either ladle or pour out the stock; the bag is just the seal with the stockpot doing all the support. The only two things I can think of to be especially careful with are to make sure the oven doesn't go much over 200F (check with actual thermometer, not dial; >212F+water=steam, steam=pressure, pressure=bag that goes pop) and to be careful about sharp bones from the chicken or whatnot. -B (EDIT: It appears I may be mistaken on the makeup of the bag material. It looks like there may be both BoPET and Nylon roasting bags, but I don't know enough about polymer material sciences to say if BoPET may be a subset of Nylon and/or if they are using the word "Nylon" in a non-standard way. I'm still pretty sure, given their heat resistance, roasting bags of either sort won't be heat-sealable with a consumer sealer.)

It's important to remember, though, that "uncovered to concentrate" will only work with things that have have a higher boiling point/vapor pressure than water, assuming water is the main liquid. So generally yes to solids, no to some liquids and most volatiles. For example, boiling salted water will concentrate the salt, but no amount of boiling of an alcohol+water mixture like beer would concentrate the alcohol. I'm still trying to figure out if I have the guts to run chicken stock through a still... As far as cloudiness, absent bone taint, that seems to be normally a function of turbulence rather than a direct effect of covering. Uncovered pots have a greater heat gradient (hot bottom, cool top) than covered pots, which makes it much easier to tune the rangetop to a bare simmer. I can do it with a big enough pot, but it is right at the flare-out point on my gas range. That's one reason I really like the oven method. Bring pot up to temp or fill with boiling water, then put in low oven (180-200F). Even heat, low turbulence, unable to boil as the heat never goes over 212F, and dead easy to set. No skimming, no futzing, easy overnight stock -B

I actually haven't found a reference sample yet, but the corned beef layoff helped. For most of the experiments, I did smaller samples (say, a six pound semi-trimmed flat cut into 6-8 pieces); I only did larger pieces when I already knew I was happy with the results or I was trying to track down a cure penetration issue (grey stripe in the middle = not enough cure penetration; harmless but unsightly). But yeah, it was a lot of corned beef -B

I think that there is no "right" right answer; it will all depend on application and context. A mostly bone stock will be different from a mostly meat stock, a stock intended as mostly a moistening ingredient (or "water++") will need different characteristics than one intended for a consumee, and the requirements for a small stock at home will differ from a universal stock in a restaurant kitchen's steam kettle. You're right, not everything that calls for chicken stock needs to taste formost like chicken, but it's a lot easier to start with the flavor and then pull back than it is to start without the flavor and then try to add it later (I suspect you could dilute this stock if necessary, or if you needed to retain the mouthfeel, you could simmer it for a little while before adding it, but intentionally driving off the Essence of Chicken makes the baby Jesus cry ). -B

After a bit of a layoff, I've started a new round of corned beef trials. My new version is the best yet, and the secret winning spice that I couldn't figure out last time is......dill seeds! I added ~3Tb of whole dill seeds to the 2.0 recipe and it made a world of difference. As soon as the cold weather starts rolling in, I may try a few more variations (next up on the list is juniper berries) -B

Sorry about the hyperbolic topic title, but I'm still really jazzed... I've always had a problem with my stocks, chicken in particular. It wasn't the time, or the effort, or the process, it was that the results were always...flat. They had decent umami, good body, were serviceable for sauces, etc, but they were never "chicken-ey" enough. I tried more chicken, less chicken, more meat, more bones, different cuts, different pots, aromatics, short cook, long cook, etc; nothing seemed to get me where I wanted to be. I was looking for something like chicken au jus, that roasted chicken, straight-from-the-cutting-board-gutter chicken flavor. Then I had an idea (which may or may not be novel to some people). It was spurred by three somewhat tangential subjects: an interest in distilling, a discussion about what would happen if you were thrown out of an air lock into the vacuum of space, an a realization about my stock making practices during a prior run. In reverse order, I realized one of the reasons I like making stock is because of how good it makes the house smell. I was always disappointed that the stock never seemed to live up to that enticing aroma. In the contexts of distilling, I realized that that aroma (which is of course a large element of taste) is nothing more than a combination of volatile chemicals, each with own vapor pressure, etc. As the vast majority of the aromas come out of a stock at or below a bare simmer, most must have a boiling point below that of water. In addition, in a large stock pot you can have a fairly large variation in both temperature and pressure, which helps explain the extended release. However, you still need a fair amount of heat to free up the flavor elements from the contents of the pot, plus you have to keep it out of the danger range. The air lock discussion boiled (no pun intended) down to the fact that even in the vacuum of space your blood would not boil, due to the fact that one's skin and tissue would retain sufficient pressure to prevent it. I realized that a similar thing happens with a roasted chicken, that even though the temperature is high enough to create and free up the flavor elements, they are trapped inside the bird until it is carved. Which leads us to... The Plan: Prevent aroma from boiling off stock with as little extra effort as possible One easy way to do this would be a pressure cooker, but then you are dealing with 1) temperatures above boiling point of water @ STP, which may break down bones, introduce other complications, 2) an extra hardware element that not everyone has, 3) limited capacity (for most people), and 4), at least for me, an unanodized cooking vessel exposed to a heated, flavorful liquid for an extended time (my only pressure cooker of any usable stock size is a big pressure canner). What I ended up doing was ridiculously simple - roasting bags and a low oven. I took a couple of turkey roasting bags (which are huge, food safe, and damn near chemically impermeable), put one inside the other (double layered), put those in a stock pot, loaded up the bag-lined pot with chicken bits (four or five stripped frames, plus some skinned thigh quarters, maybe five bucks total) and aromatics (going lightly on the aromatics), filled it up with boiling water from another pot, tied off the bags (inside bag, then outside bag, using twist ties), then bunged the whole thing in a low oven (180-200, not above 200) for 24 hours. I pulled it, let it cool for 4-6 hours (which would normally be muy mal from a safety standpoint, but the bags were still sealed and the contents had been heat treated), then strained. The resulting stock was remarkably clear for having not been skimmed, and all the particulate would be easy to filter out with some butter muslin if necessary. It tasted like...chicken. Liquid chicken. The bags were so good at holding in the aromas that I literally could not smell anything while the pot was in the oven, but as soon as I opened the bag it was like Chicken Soup Nirvana. Plus, b/c of the bags and the oven, there was no protein schmutz on the bottom of the stock pot, and all the bones and bits stayed in the bag to be thrown out. Now I just need to figure out what to do with a couple of gallons of liquid gold. Where'd my matzo go?.... -B

Is it a bit too salty (as in "if this were just 10-15% less salty it would be palatable") or is it an order of magnitude too salty? If it is just a bit too salty, you may want to try steaming it, which is fully normal and traditional for pastrami after smoking. It should help it plump up a bit (absorb some water) which will help drop the saltiness, and it may bring some of the salt to the surface. Also, you might try soaking just a portion of it to see what happens; It will prob wash away some of the smokiness, but you would be surprised by how tenacious smoke flavor can be. BTW, what recipe did you use for your brine? -B

No problem, I'm happy to share. Its been an ongoing process, with more than a few blind alleys. In fact, at this point I'm prob going to have to start looking for reference samples, since I've made so much home-cured corn beef that I've almost forgotten the the context when tasting. I'd also love it if anyone out there had the opportunity to try the cures listed above and give me feedback, or if anyone else has a cure recipe that they particularly like and would be willing to share. I'm still missing something in the spice profile, but I haven't quite figured out what it is yet. -B

Update: Just finished cooking the Corned Beef v.2.0. It turned out very well. I washed and soaked half of it before cooking, then cooked both the soaked and unsoaked portions in separate containers of simmering water. Tasting both of them, I think I prefer the unsoaked portion; it had slightly better flavor and was not overly salty. I also think that I will try bumping up the sodium phosphate in the injection mix next time, as well as increasing the overall injections. -B

It should work, but would prob work best if the crab paste was still raw. I'm just waiting for them to come out with a home version of this bugger. Nothing like a crab you could shake the meat out of. -B

AFAIK, this only applies to jarred kraut from the refrigerated section. I'm fairly certain that any kraut that is shelf stable at room temp, both in cans and glass jars, would have to be heat processed, i.e. cooked. -B

It really doesn't have to be that complicated. To make sauerkraut, the only things you really need are: Ingredients: Cabbage Salt Something to stick it in Time Instructions: Get cabbage. Shred cabbage. Salt cabbage. Mash salted cabbage in container. Shred more cabbage, repeat salt and mash. Weight down cabbage. Put in cool place, let sit (skim and check liquid level if not using plastic bag. The raw cabbage provides the liquid, the lactic acid bacteria, and all the necessary food for the bacteria to start the pickling process (may need a bit of additional liquid, depending on shred size, salting and mashing variables). Anything else (other ingredients, processing, etc) is purely optional. -B

Knowing Chicago, I'm sure there are places (delis, meat markets, etc) that sell barrel kraut, but if for some reason you are unable to find it, it really is easy to make. There are a couple of threads on here about making homemade kraut, so I don't really have anything to add on that front, but I have come up with my own device that makes the process more enjoyable and less, er, fragrant. I went and bought a large lexan food storage container (plus lid) from a restaurant supply place; aprox 4 gallons and only a couple of bucks. I also bought some air supply tubing (like the kind used for a fish tank) from another store, maybe two bucks. Using a piece of wire heated over the stove, I made a hole in the lid, just a bit smaller than the fish tank hose. When the hose is pushed into the hole, it makes a good seal. I then loaded up the bucket with shredded cabbage, pickling salt, and a big bag o' water/brine (I used the roasting bags used for turkeys), snapped on the lid, placed the bucket in a dark, cool place, and fed the other end of the tubing out a slightly opened window, plugging the gap with a towel to prevent drafts. I also rubberbanded a couple layers of cheesecloth/paper towel over the end of the tube to make sure nothing came back up the tube. I'm approaching six weeks in a closed room with no other air movement, and you absolutely cannot smell anything from the kraut without taking the lid off. In addition, since the pickling kraut slowly but consistently produces CO2 as a byproduct, there is a slight constant pressure coming out the tube, and I have yet to develop any mold or fuzz in the container. If you wanted to get really hard core, you could use a bubbling fermentation lock, either home made or the kind used in home brewing, but so far I haven't found that to be necessary. -B

I'm pretty sure they mean sauerkraut thats made in-house or available bulk from the barrel. For example, I'm making home made sauerkraut right now, which is pretty much just shredded raw cabbage, salt, a bucket, and a month or so at cool temps. The salt and temp encourage lactic acid bacteria, with produce the acid that make it "sauer". It's perfectly edible right from the barrel; in fact, many people prefer it this way, since it's cool, crunchy, sour, and comes with loads of good-for-you micro-organisms. If I was to store this by either putting it away in a cold fridge to stop the lactic acid fermentation or by freezing it, I believe it would be considered "raw" kraut. Now, if I heat processed it, as in canning, it would be cooked. I'm not entirely sure what state the bagged kraut is in; most appears to need cold storage, but it appears the same color as the canned/jarred kraut, which may just be due to the cabbage that is used. Now, I assume that raw kraut will produce a superior final dish, even in cooked dishes such as choucroute garnie, but I haven't had a chance yet to try, given that the people at my local store look confused when I ask about raw sauerkraut (jk ). -B

Hi. I'm a long-time lurker here at eG, but have only rarely posted. A while back, I started in on a series of curing experiments, inspired in no small part by the Chef Fowke thread "The Great Pastrami/Smoked Meat Experiment". For my own experiments, I focused more on a corned beef interpretation (no spice crust during cooking, no smoking, etc), although I did settle on a dry cure method early on. What follows is some of the the info and recipes I've been working on, with hopefully more to follow. I started a series of tests using publicly available recipes for corned beef cures, both wet and dry. I tried both with and without saltpeter (potassium nitrate), including the Cook's Illustrated Master Recipe. Unfortunately, I wasn't happy with any of the results. Most were overly salty (which could have been reduced by a presoak refresher, were I to do it again), some were somewhat tasty, but none were what I would think of as "Corned Beef". Additionally, the Saltpeter cures were inconsistent in their cure depth/evenness, and the color was not as bright as I had hoped. After a layoff period, I decided to try and create a new baseline master recipe, to then be tweaked depending on the strengths and deficiencies of the resulting product. I drew from multiple online recipes, looking for commonality in proportions, spicing, etc. I settled on a recipe based around Morton's TenderQuick, which uses a sodium nitrite/nitrate combination at aprox. 1.5%. That recipe was: Corned Beef Cure v.1.0 1/2 C TenderQuick 1/2 C White Sugar 3 Tb. Brown Sugar 1 tsp. yellow mustard seed 1 tsp. brown mustard seed 5 Tb. coriander seed 3 Tb. whole black pepper 4 Tb. garlic powder 3 tsp. onion powder 1 tsp. ground bayleaf 1 pinch ground allspice 1 pinch ground clove 1/2 pinch ground cinnamon 1/2 pinch ground nutmeg 1 pinch fennel seed All whole spices ground, then added to all other ingredients and mixed until uniform. Sprinkle cure on outside of well-punctured meat (brisket flat, etc) so that meat is covered to the point at which no more cure will adhere. Place meat in zip-top bag, sealed and under weights, or vacuum seal in vacuum bag. Cure time will vary depending on thickness of meat (aprox a week, give or take). After curing but before cooking, wash meat well to remove any external cure, and soak meat in fresh water to remove excess saltiness (anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, changing water every half hour; may want to experiment based on preferred level of salt in finished meat). After testing this recipe, the two main issues were uncured portions at the center of thicker pieces of brisket after a week of curing, and that the resulting meat was a bit too sweet (but not as much as one would think, given the amount of sugar in the v1.0 recipe). The v.1.5 removed the brown sugar from the original recipe (did not seem to add anything noticeable, made the resulting cure harder to evenly spread), and used a portion of the cure, dissolved in warm water, as an injectable cure agent. These changes resolved the two major outstanding issues, but the flavor profile still wasn't quite where I wanted it. The texture of the meat was also a bit off (a bit dry, a bit grainy). I tried an offshoot method, call it v.1.5.2, by separating the main cure agents (TenderQuick, sugar) from the seasoning spices. I cured the meat for a week, then rinsed, soaked, coated in spices, resealed (vacuum bagged), and let season for an additional three days. This method definitely increased the amount of seasoning in the final product, but did not appear to be worth the additional effort (I may revisit this method for other issues at a later time). Feeling that the Coriander flavor was too strong in the flavor profile, I adjusted the proportions of the spices in the next version of the cure. I also added two additional ingredients used in the commercial meat processing industry to improve the texture and perceived "moistness" of the final product. Sodium Erythorbate is a close relative of Vitamin C; it is used as both a cure enhancer and freshness promoter. Sodium Phosphate is used to retain moisture in brined and cured meats. I also added a small amount of Cure #1 (also known as Prague Powder #1 or Pink Salt cure) to slightly increase the nitrite concentration in the final cure. (All unusual curing agents/salts are available via Butcher&Packer, or wherever else fine curing goods are sold) Corned Beef Cure v.2.0 1.5 C TenderQuick 1.5 C White Sugar 1 Tb. Cure#1 (Pink Salt) 1 Tb. Sodium Erythorbate 1 Tb. Sodium Phosphate 3 Tb. yellow mustard seed 3 Tb. brown mustard seed 12 Tb. coriander seed 10 Tb. whole black pepper 12 Tb. dehydrated garlic 9 Tb. dehydrated onion 3 tsp. ground bayleaf (aprox 2-3dzn bay leaves) 4 tsp. whole allspice 2 tsp. whole cloves 2 tsp. fennel seed 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg All spices ground fine in coffee grinder, then combined until uniform. Makes aprox 3.5 pints of cure, enough for aprox. 4-6 whole briskets (or 10-12 brisket flats). For Injection: 3/4 cup warm water (do not use water over 100-110 degrees; nitrites start to degrade at aprox 130 degrees F), 4 Tb. of mixed Cure v.2.0, 1/4 tsp. Pink Salt, 1/4 tsp Sodium Erythorbate, 1/4 tsp. Sodium Phosphate. Mix until dissolved; may want to filter for solids depending on injection needle. Sprinkle cure on outside of well-punctured meat (brisket flat, etc) so that meat is covered to the point at which no more cure will adhere. Inject cure liquid into thicker portions of meat at one inch intervals. Place meat in zip-top bag, sealed and under weights, or vacuum seal in vacuum bag. Cure time will vary depending on thickness of meat (aprox a week, give or take). After curing but before cooking, wash meat well to remove any external cure, and soak meat in fresh water to remove excess saltiness (anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, changing water every half hour; may want to experiment based on preferred level of salt in finished meat). I have not yet tested the v.2.0 cure. I have a brisket flat with the v.2.0 cure in the fridge right now which should be ready in the next four to five days. If anyone has any additional comments, or if anyone tries or improves on the above cure recipes, please let me know. Hopefully, I will have more info as time goes on. -B