I made a brine for a pastrami (first time curing meats, I was unaware that curing salt was dangerous until this afternoon.) I purchased a 5.5kg brisket but I trimmed it down a bit so call it 4.5-5kg, roughly 10-11lbs.

I used Prague powder #1 I am worried I used too much in my brine.

Recipe called for 2tsp or 12g (made special mention to use grams) for a 5-6 lb Brisket so I doubled it, used 4 tsp that I also weighed out and it came to roughly 24-26g. (Recipe here!)

I weighed my curing salt left over from a 140g bag it came to 114g so that means that I used 26g in the brine. 8L or 2Gallons of water was used in the brine and it sat for 7 days. Currently sitting in a water bath to desalinate before the smoke tomorrow. Used about 450-500g of pickling salt as well.

Did I use too much curing salt and should I throw out my pastrami? Thanks for any help and advice I am new to all of this and am just seeing a lot of conflicting information.

by das_racist932

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