Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Weights Volumes and Salt Measure

I decided to make some Duck Breast Prosciutto. I'm using a version of Hank Shaw's recipe. He uses 3/4 cup of kosher salt. I have no idea how much table salt that is, but, I have a highly accurate scale. It weighs to .1 gram. That is, if I weighed what I thought was 1 gram on this scale it would weigh, accurately between .9 grams and 1.1 grams. At 100 grams it would be accurate between 99.9 grams and 100.1 grams.


I have a box of Morton's Kosher salt. I have some regular, no-name table salt. I measured the Morton's salt in 1 tablespoon amounts 5 times. Then I measured the table salt likewise.


The average weight of 1 tablespoon of Morton's Kosher salt came to be 12.5 grams.


The average weight of 1 tablespoon of table salt came out to be 14.42 grams.


So, by ratio and proportion, kosher salt weighs about 87% of what table salt weighs.


If a recipe called for 3/4 cup of kosher salt, and 1 cup of table salt weighs 8 ozs. then the kosher salt weighs 5.2 ounces. Here is the math:


8 ozs. table salt is 1 cup. But we only use 3/4 cup. So, 3/4ths or 75% of 8 is 6 ounces, and 87% of that yields only 5.2 ounces of kosher salt in 3/4ths of a cup.


From a salt manufacturer's perspective, salt, that is table salt, should weigh 8 ounces per cup. It's made to weigh that much. The same is true for sugar (granulated or table sugar) - it's 8 ounces per cup.


That's close enough for most work such as measuring curing salt, etc.


BECAUSE SOME DAMN FOOL MAY READ THIS AND MISUNDERSTAND:


YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY!