Equilibrium cure calculator

Salt and cure #1 by percentage of the meat's weight — the method that cannot over-salt, done to the gram.

Result

Meat weight2000 grams

Salt2.5 % of meat weight

Cure #1 (pink salt, 6.25% nitrite)0.25 % of meat weight

Sugar1 % of meat weight

Salt

50.0 g

1.76 oz

Cure #1

5.00 g

Weigh this one on a gram scale. Never measure cure by spoon.

Sugar

20.0 g

Resulting nitrite

156 ppm

The US ingoing limit for cure #1 in most applications is 156 ppm for bacon and 200 ppm generally.

Cure time, whole muscle

7 days min

Roughly 2 days per kg, minimum 7, in the refrigerator, turned daily. Thicker cuts need longer.

What this will not do

Cure #1 is sodium nitrite and it is toxic in quantity. Weigh it on a gram scale — never a spoon, never by eye, and never 'about'. Keep it labeled and away from anyone who might mistake it for salt. It is dyed pink for exactly that reason.
Cure #1 is for anything cooked. Cure #2 is for long dry-cured products that are never cooked. They are not interchangeable, and this calculator is written for cure #1.
This calculator does the arithmetic. It does not make a recipe safe. Follow tested procedures from USDA, NCHFP or your extension service for times, temperatures and finished water activity. Nothing on this site — and nothing from any AI — is a substitute for a tested process when the failure mode is botulism.
Cure first, then smoke. A controller holding a perfect 70°F around uncured pork is a machine doing an excellent job of a dangerous thing.

The full build and the reasoning are in Chapter 35 of the guide.