British BBQ Society Forums

I have ordered some, thinking of putting it in my beef + pork injection, any thoughts/experiences with this?

Yeah, don't do it! it's toxic. Unless you plan on properly curing the meat by brining it or dry curing it then do not inject it. You risk ingesting relatively large quantities in a single bite which would not be good. Normally Prague powder (also known as cure#1) is mixed with salt and sugar as a dry or wet cure at 2.5g per kg of meat. It would not be suitable for injection unless you plan on leaving the meat to cure for days or weeks, depending on the size

You could use it to make your own ham, bacon, pastrami etc

I think it's quite common as a rub. Maybe you'd end up with salt beef if you injected it though.

Does need to be properly mixed....

Yep, you would! I'd just wet cure it though, no need to inject. I'm no expert but I'd avoid using it in a rub like the plague - in a wet cure the sodium nitrate is highly diluted and you end up with even distribution through the meat. In dry cure the meat loses some moisture so you get the same dilution and even distribution. Dry rub would end up with far too much of the chemical exclusively on the exterior of the meat. I'm not sure of the health implications there, but it doesn't seem right to me

I think in the US you can't buy Prague Powder, but they sell a pre-mix version, which is the same thing, but diluted with salt and sugar to about 12:1, with the effect that the risk of overdosage is much less because the salt would make you sick as much as the nitrite would by that point (you'd ingest something like 200g in order to get a fatal nitrite dose).

Prague powder in the states is the same as cure#1 pretty much - they're both around 6% sodium nitrate, the remainder being salt. You can get pre-mixed cures over here like supacure. If I were you I'd use it as an excuse to make your own bacon