1.) You have 10,000 lb of fresh pork bellies to cure and your standard curing process is to pump the bellies to 110% of their green weight. Using water, sugar, 120 ppm of nitrite, 550 ppm of sodium erythorbate, 0.5% sodium tripolyphosphate and 1.5% salt as targets for the pumped product (a 3:1 ratio of salt to sugar), calculate the amount (weight) of dry ingredients and water necessary to properly cure the pork bellies. To do this, you must first calculate the total weight of the cure needed and the percentage of each ingredient in the product by the desired pump level (as a percent; i.e. divide by 0.1 if 10% pump is used), and this should give you the concentration (as a percent) of each ingredient in the brine. Finally, multiply the total weight of the brine by the percentage of each ingredient to give you the weight of each ingredient which you need to blend for your cure. Create a table which shows your ingredients, the concentration of each in the pumped product, the concentration in the brine, and the weight of each ingredient in the brine.

2.) Using the same targets for the pumped product shown above, recalculate your formulation based on an 15% pump for 3000 lb of pork bellies.

3.) Now try a formulation for 75 lb of ham using 20% pump, a new salt:sugar ration of 2.75:1 (with 2% salt in the product), .25% phosphate and the maximum permissable level of nitrite.