Instacure #2, how much for small amount of meat?

[cpl55]

Hello, all -

Well, I have my humidity situation under control in my curing chamber now, thanks to all of your helpful advice.

My question today is regarding DQ/Instacure/Prague Powder #2, and how much to use as a minimum. I'm making another bresaola, and I know the amount for a 3-lb eye of round is 4 grams (per Polcyn/Ruhlman. However, I have a small piece of meat, only 1.5 lbs. So is it as simple as cutting the cure #2 in half, to 2 grams? (Wanted to double check as I know too much or too little can have big consequences and I'm very new at this nitrite/nitrate stuff!)

Thanks again for being such a wealth of information...

Christina

[Chris Hennes]

Yes, with nitrate/nitrite you can just scale it with the weight of your meat.

[cpl55]

Cool, thanks Chris!

[dougal]

... is it as simple as cutting the cure #2 in half, to 2 grams? ...

The only difficulty is in accurately measuring such small amounts.

A scale that weighs to ±1 gram is not really good enough to accurately weigh out 2 grams!

However, a cheap 'pocket scale' (check eBay) weighing to a precision of 0.01 grams should be accurate to 0.1 grams, which should be plenty good enough.

Absent that type of equipment, you'd be well advised to weigh out 4x the quantity (as best you can), and then divide it "by eye" in half (a surprisingly accurate technique) and in half again.

[Chris Hennes]

Definitely a good point, and I highly recommend picking up one of those cheap digital scales for charcuterie. For home charcuterie I find myself using tiny quantities of various things all the time since I'm sometimes scaling a recipe down 10x or more from the industrial-scale sources.

[cpl55]

Excellent point, guys. I did discover that (the difficulty in weighing out 2 g on my kitchen scale.) Ended up doing sort of what Dougal is suggesting... measured out what the book said for 3 lbs (and its t measurement) and eyeballed it.

I just ordered a digital pocket scale from Amazon. Great suggestion, thank you! (And only $6.15; cheapest piece of equipment yet!)

thanks again,

c