Too much nitrite ?

[Stringfellow]

Hi,

Ive been happily dry curing my own bacon for 3 years now according to Steve Lambs recipe in river cottage handbook #13, i.e. :

250g salt
250g sugar
Seasonings

For a kilo of belly pork, skin on. 1/5 of cure added daily and liquid poured off, for 5 days, then washed and hung for 5 days. This recipe uses no nitrites. However this year I decided to try adding nitrates and am pretty sure Ive added far too much. Per 500g of this cure ive added 25g prague powder #1, then proceeded as usual, Realising my mistake I stopped adding cure after day 3 and allowed it to just cure for another 2 days then washed and hung, i.e. ive used 150g salt, 150g sugar, and 15g prague powder #1 per kilo of belly pork.

I 'm pretty sure this bacon isn't safe to eat due to the excessive nitrites, but just thought I'd double check here before I threw away 5kg of lovely-looking bacon!

Thanks in advance

[NCPaul]

Welcome to the forum. That was quite a bit extra nitrite. This link is how most of us dry cure bacon.
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4835
Optional is to cold smoke for a few cycles and a few days maturing in the fridge. The strength of this process is that it produces, on a consistent basis, a mild flavored bacon that is not time dependent for the curing step. I haven't bought bacon from a store for years.

[wheels]

Given that it's only a kilo, I wouldn't hesitate to throw it away. I'm surprised that the bacon that you've made before wasn't excessively salty.

That said, the nitrite left in 15gm of cure would be under 1gm. Given that you're not going to eat it all at once, it ain't going to kill you!

Phil

[Stringfellow]

Thanks for the quick replies guys. I've ditched the bacon and am preparing a new batch according to your recipe. The teadon for the excessive salt was that I live in the middle of Portugal without the benefits of mains electricity. Outside temperarure rarely breaks 10 degrees, so this type of bacon never goes off and is ideal. I notice your recipe says
"This is not 'old style traditional bacon' that can be hung in the rafters all winter; that needed a couple of days soaking before use to remove the excess salt. "
How long can I expect to get out of what I'm now making? The old bacon just went harder and was still good in soups etc months later.

[bionut]

Hi guys,
i am in a similar situation. I made a coppa a few month ago and i used for the first time Prague Powder #1. I used the instruction from the first website i found, which stated that you need to use 45g/kg of nitrite salt (6.25% nitrite if a remember corectly). Now i know that's a huge amount of curing salt. Is the coppa safe to eat or i should throw it away?

[NCPaul]

Better safe than sorry.

[DanMcG]

Bin it. way to much cure . and for a dry cured product I'd use #2.
Can you share a link to the site that posted that?

[bionut]

I am from Romania, i read it on a romanian site. Don't think that the link will help someone. I will discard the coppa and make another one.

[NCPaul]

Different places have curing salts of different strengths and compositions. Welcome to the forum.