Morton's TenderQuick versus Instacure #1

[MarkinHouston]

Last weekend I was talking to the a friend about making venison summer sausage. He always uses a recipe which calls for Morton's TenderQuick as the curing agent. I know that Ruhlman's Charcuterie uses pink salt and dextrose for the cure. Can they be substituted for Morton's, and if so, how can you determine the ratio to use? For example, I saw a recipe which calls for 4 Tbsp of TenderQuick for four pounds of meat. Ruhlman's recipe for 4.5 pounds total meat cites 3 Tbsp kosher salt, 3 Tbsp dextrose, and 1 tsp. of pink salt. Anyone ever translate one cure for the other? Thanks in advance.

[ElsieD]

Check this thread out.

http://tvwbb.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f...7904#3190037904

[troyml]

Prague Cure, Insta-Cure, Modern Cure, DQ cure, Pink Salt, all of these products are simply plain salt and sodium nitrite. The required amount of nitrite is so small that it is dispersed in the salt to make it measurable, and you will be using salt in your cured products anyways.

Tenderquick contains more salt, sugar and some nitrATE in addition to the nitrITE.

Rule of thumb for curing with #1 cure is a teaspoon for 5 pounds of meat, that will provide all the nitrite you need, then just make up the difference with salt and sugar to achieve the flavor profile desired.

Take my words with a grain of salt though, (pink or otherwise). I'm pretty green at curing and sausage making myself.

[qrn]

You can calculate the amount of nitrite and nitrite in Instacure to make it interchangeable (assuming the salt levels will work...you will probably have to reduce the amount of plain salt...

Bud

[ray goud]

Have you asked Ruhlman? He has a website/blog and is very responsive and quick about answering. Just google his name.

Ray

[David A. Goldfarb]

He's also on Facebook a lot lately.

[ruski]

Super old topic, I know, but I thought I'd cross post this from tvwbb.com for reference:

Prague #1 (Insta-Cure #1, Modern Cure, DC #1, DQ #1, et. al., all the '#1's) is 6.25% sodium nitrite and 93.75% salt. It's used in dry cures and in brine cures, primarily for meat that will be smoked (though not necessarily) and cooked for service. It's used at the rate of 1oz/25lbs meat or 1 level teaspoon/5lbs meat.

Prague #2 (Insta-Cure #s, et. al., all the '#2's) is for dry-cured meats that require long aging (weeks or months) to cure and/or develop flavors and for products that do not require cooking, smoking, or refrigeration. It contains 1oz of sodium nitrite and .64oz sodium nitrate per pound of salt. Sodium nitrate acts as sort of a time-release cure and slowly breaks sown into sodium nitrite and then into nitric acid. It is also used at the rate of 1oz/25lbs meat or 1 level teaspoon/5lbs meat.