Check my math and assumptions

[hcjr]

Today I pressure fried chicken after injecting and soaking in a brine. I made the brine using a store bought meat tenderizer that contains, in order by weight, salt, dextrose, papain (papaya enzyme), and silicone dioxide(anti-caking agent). From what I’ve read, silicone dioxide cannot exceed 2% of the total weight of any food. The tenderizer has 470mg of sodium per serving of 1.41g of tenderizer. 1.41x0.33333333=0.47 or 470mg. Since salt is the ingredient listed first, no other will exceed it as 1/3rd the total weight. So other 3 ingredients each must be a third or less and since silicone dioxide can’t be more that 2%, the ingredients are roughly equally 1/3rd plus a small amount of silicone dioxide to prevent clumping. Correct?

[silver]

Salt (NaCl) is 39.337% Sodium (and 60.663% Chloride) by weight.

470mg. Sodium ÷ 0.39337 = 1194.80mg. = 1.1948g. NaCl (Salt)

1.41g. - 1.1948g. = 0.2152 grams of everything else combined

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.41g. x 0.02 = 0.0282 maximum grams of Silicon Dioxide

[hcjr]

Oh ok! Thanks that’s awesome. Much more difficult to find out the amount of dextrose and papain then. 😟

[silver]

Oct 11, 2022 8:39:02 GMT hcjr said:

Oh ok! Thanks that’s awesome. Much more difficult to find out the amount of dextrose and papain then. 😟

When in doubt, first guesses often call upon the highly empirical (and not always applicable, let alone reliable) Pareto Principle (otherwise known as the 80/20 rule, or presumption rather...).

Of the unknown grams, this wild stab first guess of last resort (so to speak) would apply 80% by weight to Dextrose and 20% by weight to Papain. No guarantees!

[silver]

Applying the wild guess (taming?) 80/20 rule to a nominally KFC-Like spice mix:

Initial Presumptions:
1) A 200 grams of flour based recipe will generally weigh in at about 250 grams overall
2) Therefore everything that is not flour generally sums to about 50 grams
3) CHS initially spiced with only Salt and Pepper and perhaps also MSG (the latter, IMHO, is allowed, as I'm not convinced that MSG was the "2 handfuls")

50 grams x 80% = 40 grams of what can presumed to be Salt and Pepper and MSG
50 grams x 20% = 10 grams of what can be presumed to be everything else (or in this case H&S)

And also:

250 grams x 80% = 200 grams of flour

250 grams x 20% = 50 grams of everything that is not flour

Coincidence?

[silver]

Pareto might even work (in Principle 😟) for things such as garlic powder and celery salt.

[silver]

Oct 11, 2022 19:11:27 GMT silver said:

Pareto might even work (in Principle 😟) for things such as garlic powder and celery salt.

Oops: Umm, garlic salt.