Commercial Egg Cures vs Home Made Cures

On the Piscatorial BB there is a new thread called "Amerman's egg cure", in which the poster really liked the result with Scott's cure. He made some comparison to Pro Cure Wizzard egg cure. I posted the following there, with some comparison info and about experimenting with your own cures:

Keith said he and James should be ready to sell theirs in the near future; as soon as labeling and some biz permit formalities are complete I think he mentioned. It will be a very good cure.

Presently I don't think you can buy a better cure than Amerman's Egg cure. His family has been the pioneers of advanced chem cured eggs on the north Oregon coastal rivers for many years, and their cure has always been revered as the best. And the color is great. When I put a quarter teaspoon of it in a clear glass of water and then put a quarter teaspoon of the red Pro Glo egg cure (the actual cure this time, not the concentrated coloring powder) in another clear glass of water the 2 were identical in color, except the Amerman cure was slightly more cloudy due to differences in other ingredients. It appears to me they have discovered the same commercial dye company.

As for that effective Pro Cure Wizzard egg cure, it's a very good one too. It has something unique in it I recognize by smelling the cure powder and from having tried it myself many years ago in my egg cures - it's likely powdered hatchery smolt pellet feed used by salmon/steelhead hatcheries. I could be wrong and it's something that just smells very similar. I posted that tip on ifish about a year and half ago. When I used it the results were irratic. Sometimes great, others times not. That may be because when I used it years ago there were more native fish present. With a higher % of hatchery fish around now, that have been imprinted with the smell and taste of hatchery feed, perhaps that is one of the ingredients in Wizzard that is effective? It also smells like it has a very small amount of sodium nitrate in it, so I wouldn't add any extra spinkled on to eggs cured in it.

I have done a lot of investigating of various egg cures, and experimenting and refining of my own custom egg cures in the last few years. I have come up with the best of the 3 I have been working on and refining, and I may market it for next fall's egg harvests - calling it "Fatal Attraction" Egg Cure. Or I may not. Depends on many factors. It sure is fun to experiment and make discoveries though.

If you want to experiement making your own, which costs very little, I will give you a basis to start with. Use the old standard of a 2 to 2 to 1 ratio - of non-iodized salt to sugar to FDA quality sodium sulfite. I've found that while this is an effective ratio, it is not the best one. Experiment with these ratios and importantly with adding other powdered ingredients that salmon like. Use the search feature to come up with some of the many other lesser amount ingredients that make a big difference; one being MSG. Then you add your favorite powdered coloring dye, in the concentration you like. My favorite is Pro Glo's red coloring powder (not the cure). It not only has the best of colors, it also has among the least toxic smells and tastes among dyes. Same with dry powdered food coloring, but their colors aren't as good. Have fun experimenting and good luck.