Salt,brown sugar,garlic granules coarse ground black pepper.I eyeball the proportions,add water ,taste brine.Should taste salty ,but not make your lip curl up.Then smoke with apple,cherry,hickory ,mesquite,crabapple,vinemaple,alder,italian prune wood or what ever fruit wood that I can get when people are pruning trees and are going to throw it out.I smoke mine harder than most people,but then it will keep longer.Experimentation is a good thing here.However,I added some burbon to a batch this year and really should have just drank it.That batch wasnt as good.