I am trying to do a brine (including PP#1 cure) for bone-in pork chops. I have done both EQ cure (dry rub) for bacon as well as Gradient cure (dry rub) for bacon preciously. My pork chops have been done using a Gradient Brine up to now. But I've had variable results primarily due to saltiness. I normally inject the chops since they are 1 to 1.5 inches thick. I've checked bone weight on them and it is usually 40% of the total weight. The chops are trimmed of excess fat and skin.
So I have a kilo of pork chop (meat weight) and following your guide I'm going to do 1 kilo of water (1 litre) - now this amount of water only covers the chop 1/2 way in the containers I've been using. So I will switch to a zip lock bag for my initial trial. I notice that you talk about your brine as .5 to 1% salinity. For dry cure on bacon, I run 2.5% salt and 1% to 1.5% sugar. This produces a nice, not overly salty bacon. What I would start with is a 4% brine that will, after diffusion into the meat, be a 2% brine. That initial reasing on my Salinometer should be 17 degrees and the finish should be 8 degrees.
I will add Prague Powder #1/Instacue #1 for the total weight to the brine for curing the chop, giving it a bit of a "hammy" finish and protecting from botulism.. I will take about 10% of the brine to inject and dilute it with water to the target percentage - 2%. Then inject it in three spots per piece. Normally, with a Gradient cure, it takes 2 days to cure and if I let go much longer, the chops ends up being too salty. However, I expect the EQ brine to take longer, even with injection so I will run it for 3 days at least,.
While the idea discussed on your guide to brines says to check the salinity of the brine to see when it is done, something that seems particularly useful, the volume of brine is too low to let me do that easily at a 1:1 ratio. If I use a larger container which holds more brine, the calculation of brine to meat becomes slightly more complex, but it is still total weight of water and meat. In fact I normally have had a 2 parts brine to meat weight or 2 kilos of water to 1 kilo of meat in order to assure the meat was completely covered. If I go that route, I'd need to refigure the salt, sugar, and cure #1 amounts.
So my concern is that perhaps my brine is too salty given your 0.5% to 1% recommendations but I also have a reservation that if the brine is not salty enough, will it stop microable activity? Other sites discussing the salinity of brine using a salinometer to check have mentioned that under 20 degrees is too low and not to be used. I'm concerned that it may be due to food safety. If it is due to being too weak a Gradient Brine, that is not a problem, since I'm not going down that road. But the food safety question bothers me and I thought I'd better pose the question here (and in a couple of other forums too) just to certain all is well.
Thanks for your time - I love your brine tutorial and it really has got me rethinking a number of processes.