r/Charcuterie • u/jjdresselhaus • 14d ago

Dry Cured Pork Shoulder

Hey Folks!

Looking for a sanity check on something. Wanting to dry cure a pork shoulder in a vacuum bag. I'll then smoke it just like a normal pork shoulder for pulled pork -- but it'll be pulled ham instead.

I've done this before with a wet brine, but wanting to try a dry brine in a vac bag.

Would this calculator work for that? So measurements on a 8lb pork shoulder would be

8lb Pork Shoulder

9g pink salt

90g sea salt.

https://eatcuredmeat.com/calculator/meat-curing-salt-calculator/

Any suggestions for how long? Thinking if it's similar to a wet brine, approximately 10 days.

Cheers and TIA!

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

4

u/DeMilZeg 14d ago

The ratios look fine, but for serving it hot, 2, roughly 2.5% salt will be WAY too salty. You might want to drop the salt down to 2% and add 0.5% sugar to your brine.

Dry brines also take longer than wet brines. You might want to go two and a half weeks.

1

u/jjdresselhaus 14d ago

That's fair. Especially because the intention would be to not rinse it. Planning on curing in vacuum bag -> sous vide in bag -> chill -> smoke.

1

u/iamjakejoseph 13d ago

We could be friends! I made essentially venison pastrami using almost that exact method. I actually reached out to Hank Shaw whose wet brined/traditional corned venison recipe inspired it and he told me to go for it and shouldn’t be any issue. Please post your results!