dried sausage - pink cure amount

[jeffhernand]

we have been making our own dried venison and pork sausage for the last few years now and our recipe has been calling for 1.5oz (by weight) of pink cure and about 3/4lb of salt per 50 pound batch - depending on taste. after i did some research on the pink cure amount, it seems that our old recipe (handed down from family) may be a little off on the amount of pink cure to use, and it really should be around 2oz by weight. is this little bit of a difference worth concern? have we been exposing ourselves to some potential food poisoning? every year, it dries nicely, get good powdery mold that is removed with a salt water wipe, and after 14-16 days, it smells great, and taste even better. my main concern is that just because it has been working fine, doesn't mean it'll always work fine, so should we forever bump up the pink cure amount to 2oz per 50lb batch or even more?

thanks for your input.

[NCPaul]

Welcome to the forum. Using 2 oz. (154 ppm) would be better / safer.

[jeffhernand]

thanks, Paul! what is considered a "safe" level? and what level am i currently at? i was trying to do a ppm calculation, but i'm not sure i'm doing it right or adding in all the variables.

[captain wassname]

ppm is for meat content
0.5 gms per kilo is 500 ppm, 0.25 gms per kilo is 250 ppm etc.
Aussie levels are 125 ppm Euro levels 150 ppm and US shoveloads.
My own take is to use as little as possible while still maintaining safe levels which may be a subject of discussion.

Jim

[NCPaul]

You are currently using 1.5 oz. of pink salt. I assumed you are in North America where pink salt is 6.25 % sodium nitrite. So to calculate your nitrite level, I convert the pink salt and meat to grams and convert the pink salt to sodium nitrite.

1.5 oz. X 28 g/oz. X 0.0625 = 2.625 g

50 pounds X 454 g/pound = 22700 g

For ppm sodium nitrite in the meat: 2.625 / 22700 X 1,000,000 = 115.6 ppm

I think 150 ppm is a reasonable amount, though as Jim points out, more is allowed in the US in the regulations for dry cured sausages.

[JerBear]

I'd be careful, if you're going to be curing for longer than 14 days or so you should really consider using Cure #2.

[jeffhernand]

we've been using the pink cure because we'll smoke it for a few hours, leave it over night with the AC on. then the next morning we take half to seal up for regular link sausage to cook later and the rest we just let hang and dry. most of the time the dried stuff comes out after 14 days but has taken 16 to fully dry to our liking. i will make a note and change the cure amount to 2oz and we will look in to improving our safety levels! thanks guys!