I'm a self proclaimed expert ( I just proclaimed myself as such )...
I'll tell you from the start, there are many many sites with flat out garbage information about curing meats. Even some sites with big name cooks and/or that enjoy some pretty high level of notoriety. I will also tell you, that while I am a 'expert', I don't know everything, I only know enough to know when somethings just flat out wrong.
First - Wet cure vs Dry cure - Most people don't really understand the difference , even I don't fully get what strictly defines dry cured bacon or ham. I only know that true dry cured bacon is NOT what most people call dry cure. Wet cure is pretty well defined, at least in my mind, but does have at least one area where the line between dry and wet is not very clear. What most people describe as either wet or dry cured , is all about the use of liquid or NOT in the cure ingredients themselves, not in the process. Where the USDA seems to see dry cured as something well beyond if liquid is uses in the cure mixture.
IMHO - dry-cured bacon , involves significant moisture reduction of the meat. Not just simply the lack of liquid ingredients in the cure itself. I say this , because according to the USDA dry cured bacon has a shelf life without refrigeration of like 10 days when sliced and 3 weeks as a slab. As far as I know, the only way you can get that kind of shelf life , is to have reduced the moisture content significantly...
OK... So, I'm not a expert , don't take anything I say as 100% truth - but I have spent a lot of time trying to understand this stuff....
The original topic is "First attempt at back bacon" - I think this is commonly called Canadian Bacon by people in the USA... people in Canada might just call it... well who knows what they might call it. Canadians have a product they call peameal bacon, which is similar , but as I understand it , peameal bacon typically isn't smoked.
Anyway, I personally haven't really done a wet brine , I do what can probably best be described as a dry brine... That is, I don't use any liquid ingredients , but the curing process doesn't really reduces the moisture content enough to be truly significant in my eyes. One of the reasons I don't do wet brine, or immersion curing, is because I find it messy, another reason is I find it wasteful of cure ingredients.
When you calculate how much salt, sugar, spices, and especially how much Nitrite is used, with wet brine ( immersion curing ), you have to determine the weight of the liquid used and the meat. Effectively all dry ingredients are diluted by the liquid, so you have to use more dry ingredients than you would if you didn't use any liquid.
When curing some meat using only dry ingredients, you only take into account the weight of the meat itself, and use just enough to give you the correct percentage by weight in relation to the weight of the meat itself, nothing more....
Basic cure percentages are virtually the same , weather you do immersion curing , or 'dry'... I think the best starting point is about 2% salt, 1.5% sugar, and 0.02% Nitrite ( 200 parts per million ). Now I'm talking about cured ham, not bacon... technically speaking bacon should use slightly less(0.012%, or 120PPM), unless it's a true dry-cured bacon.
0.02% Nitrite is achieved using 3.2 grams of Cure #1 per Kilogram of meat and liquid... if no liquid as used, then it's just in relation to the meat alone. Cure #1 is 1/16th Nitrite ( 0.625% ) and roughly 15/16th's sodium. So, if you use a half gallon of water, which is about 4 pounds, and a 4 pound pork loin, you need to use about 11.6 grams of Cure #1 to do the immersion cure, and just 5.8 grams if you don't use liquid in your curing process. Ok, so cure doesn't cost that much, but you also have to double the amount of salt, sugar, and any spices that you'd use if you do that immersion cure.
Bottom line for me, is I find using dry ingredients to be a much simpler process... less messy, the math is easier, and I've personally never had any negative results related to using only dry ingredients. Effectively the only good reason I know of to use liquid, is if I wanted to obtain some flavor that I could only get in a liquid... ( like soaking in beer, or wine, etc... )
How do you distribute the dry ingredients evenly??? it's not hard at all actually... Mix all your ingredients up together, weigh out the right amount for the hunk of meat your working with, put it all in a little shaker jar, shake the dry cure mixture out onto the hunk of meat, turn it occasionally, get it as even as you can. ( and it really isn't hard ). After you've evenly coated the meat with your cure mixture, wrap it up in cellophane, and let it sit for a week or so ( depends on the thickness of the meat and the temperature of the fridge ).
If you use the right amount of salt, sugar, and nitrite, it's almost impossible to over cure... or to get too salty...
Anyway, I am not really a expert... but I do play one on TV.
