With a week to go, you probably should've already started the brine by now. But it's not too late to get a corning brine together in time for St. Paddy's Day.
I thawed a "whole" rump last week and it's been brining since. Usually, I like to take the muscles apart of a venison hindquarter, and separate them. But the processor that butchered this one just froze a whole de-boned rump. Oh well, 4.5 lbs of venison are in the brine now.
Here's how I do it:
In a plastic (must not be metal) bin/bucket/bowl, cover your meat with at least 1" of water. Remove meat. Determine weight of water.....best to use grams instead of lbs.
Weigh your meat.
Add the total of meat + water (Mine was appx. 9,300 grams)
Calculate your brine from the total. I'll use my numbers as a guideline.
2% Salt = 186g
1.5% Dark Brown Sugar = 140g
0.25% Pink Curing Salt (sodium nitrite, AKA Cure #1) = 23g <------- This number is important. Too much pink salt is dangerous. You'll notice a significantly less quantity of this vs. the other ingredients
Bring water to a boil, and add your 3 cure ingredients. As the water heats up, also add the following:
1 heaping TBSP of pickling spices PER LB of meat....I used 8
5-10 cloves of fresh garlic....I like garlic so I rough chopped up 10 cloves
5 loosely crumbled bay leaves
as much black pepper as you can stand to crank out
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
All the boiling does is dissolve the salts & sugar. Once it's all mixed up, nice and aromatic, and come to a boil, take it off the heat. Chill to room temperature (or colder) and submerge the meat in the brine. Since time is running short now, you may want to back off the amount of water in your brine. Back off, appx. 1,000g of water weight, bring to a boil, then when it's done add 1,000g of ICE to cool it quicker.
Let the meat sit submerged for a week (or more), then check back on St. Paddy's Day for cooking instructions.
I thawed a "whole" rump last week and it's been brining since. Usually, I like to take the muscles apart of a venison hindquarter, and separate them. But the processor that butchered this one just froze a whole de-boned rump. Oh well, 4.5 lbs of venison are in the brine now.
Here's how I do it:
In a plastic (must not be metal) bin/bucket/bowl, cover your meat with at least 1" of water. Remove meat. Determine weight of water.....best to use grams instead of lbs.
Weigh your meat.
Add the total of meat + water (Mine was appx. 9,300 grams)
Calculate your brine from the total. I'll use my numbers as a guideline.
2% Salt = 186g
1.5% Dark Brown Sugar = 140g
0.25% Pink Curing Salt (sodium nitrite, AKA Cure #1) = 23g <------- This number is important. Too much pink salt is dangerous. You'll notice a significantly less quantity of this vs. the other ingredients
Bring water to a boil, and add your 3 cure ingredients. As the water heats up, also add the following:
1 heaping TBSP of pickling spices PER LB of meat....I used 8
5-10 cloves of fresh garlic....I like garlic so I rough chopped up 10 cloves
5 loosely crumbled bay leaves
as much black pepper as you can stand to crank out
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
All the boiling does is dissolve the salts & sugar. Once it's all mixed up, nice and aromatic, and come to a boil, take it off the heat. Chill to room temperature (or colder) and submerge the meat in the brine. Since time is running short now, you may want to back off the amount of water in your brine. Back off, appx. 1,000g of water weight, bring to a boil, then when it's done add 1,000g of ICE to cool it quicker.
Let the meat sit submerged for a week (or more), then check back on St. Paddy's Day for cooking instructions.
