i have some books but rarely use them and not even sure where some are.
when is comes to curing meat, you want to decide what you are doing. Are you wanting to make a dry or wet cured product that needs cooked afterwards (Bacon, Ham) or are looking for a dry cured and dry aged product that is ready to eat (Prosciutto for example) ?
First step if you want to cure and watch your salt is toss out the Mortons tenderquick if you have it. Better to use Cure 1 and you can add your degree of salt to it. I do use tenderquick for some things, i like my canadian style bacon using it. i tried the wet brine and I didn't like the result as well.
My canadian bacon is 1T per pound Tenderquick and 1.5T per pound of dark brown sugar. Rub well into and onto the meat on a sheet pan and then I put the meat in a bag and dump the stuff from the pan in the bag and seal up. Usually 10 days but I have had some sit in my fridge for 5 or 6 weeks. When you take it out you can rinse or just cut a small piece of and test fry. Me i end up cutting a piece off and just eating it, if it is saltier than I want I soak for an hour with 1 water change. I like to cure the front part of the loin (maybe 6 o8 inches of it) for a small ham, nice to slice pork chop size slices off and brown up even with out the smoke.
Cure 1 is usually done at 0.25% when dry curing something to be cooked later. Salt for me is 2.5% for most things. It has a salty taste but I don't notice the effects on my legs as much. I love salt, would eat a handful of salt over a handful of sugar any day.
If i do a dry cured like a Lonza or Coppa then I go closer 3% but it is a Cure 2 type product and cures for several weeks then dries until it loses 40 to 45% weight. which is sometimes a few months. I don't have a curing chamber yet so i have been using Umai bags, but i usually end up with case hardening, So I cut a bit of for myself then vac seal and back in the fridge for another month or so to equalize.
If you Google Pops Brine you will find a couple of good write ups he has done. Find the one on Smoking Meats Forum. George Fasset I believe is his name he was a butcher in Ohio. That will take care of your wet brining. I would put a link but I try not to break the rules.
If you are wanting to dry cure, google EQ (Equilibrium) Curing method.
For me more important than a book would be a good scale, i have one that goes to 11 pounds and 1 that goes to i think 22. You will want to find one that will weigh in Grams also. The nice thing with weighing and calculating is you can repeat the recipe over and over, and if you put in 2.5% salt and it needed more or less then it is easily adjusted next time either up or down, same with any of the other seasoning.
The grams scale is great for other things also, like making up seasoning blends, I make sugar free hot chocolate mix then use sweet n low when I make a cup. We shop at Gordons food service a good bit. We have found we really like potato pearls, so i buy a box or bag the then calculate for smaller portions than the whole box, usually weighing the potatoes out in grams and then figuring the water from the nutrition label. Oh well getting off track. Any questions leave me know I will do my best to answer them with me limited knowledge.
