Homemade Bacon

I did a search and couldn’t find any recent posts about making your own bacon. I’ve been making pork belly burnt ends for years, but this is my first try at bacon. I used a simple wet cure recipe that’s easy enough to remember off the top of my head. I hope it turns out because I like simple recipes. 1 gallon water, 1 cup salt, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, and 2 teaspoons of #1 cure. The recipe said they’d used anywhere from 1 teaspoon cure up to 1 tablespoon of cure. The packet from LEM said to use 1/4 teaspoon per pound of meat, so for #8 of belly I used two teaspoons. I cut the belly into four pieces and put two each into two one gallon storage containers and split the wet cure between them. I used a plastic measuring cup under the lid to make sure the meat is fully submerged. I started the curing around noon on Sat and plan to smoke them to a temp of 150 this Sun. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I’m sure several of you make your own bacon. Does any of that sound wrong to you? Any tips? I like a pepper bacon sometimes, so I’m guessing I can just pepper up one or two chunks before it hits the smoker.

I buy bellies and use a simple sugar cure: 1 cup each dark brown sugar and Morton’s Tenderquick. The Tenderquick has the proper cure in it along with some salt.

I coat each side and place falt in plastic cake pans with covers and set i the fridge for two full days. I give each a quick rinse in really cold water, then dry on a clean terry cloth towel and set in the smoker and have at it. I smoke it fairly cool, 170 or less. When the bacon has taken on a nice honey color I pull it and allow it to cool naturally before wrapping in freezer wrap and letting it rest a day in the fridge again before slicing.

Don’t skrimp on the brown sugar. I use C&H dark brown. Generic and cheaper brands are nothing but crap.

That works well for you, Jimmy? The LEM packet and several recipes I saw online said it takes a week for cure to fully penetrate an inch of meat.

I am not a fan of sweeter bacon. You know, the kind that leaves brown/black caramel in the frying pan. Because of that I bought light brown sugar, and since I don’t buy white sugar, I had Florida Crystal brand raw cane sugar.

You can cut back on the amount of sugar to suit you. The tenderquick specs say to expect 1″ of penetration /24 hrs. If the side is 2″ thick and you treat both sides you should be good in 24 hours, but I leave mine for 48 and have had complete penetration in that time frame.

I don’t know if yu have a Fareway grocery store near you but they sell some darn nice bellies. Whenever we are at fareway I dig thru the bellies they have on hand and pick out a couple that look the best and take them home to freeze. When I have six, I thaw and proceed as mentioned.

I like an apple/cherry/hickory smoke blend. 3-4 smoke tops.

Doesn’t look like Fareway is in WI. I get mine from Costco. Pretty sure it’s Swift brand. I believe I paid $28 for an #8.2 slab. I’ve never bought Tenderquick, but I see it all the time. I’ll have to give it a try. I have pecan and apple chunks and will be doing it with regular Kingsford in my Weber Smokey Mtn cooker. I can dial it down to 170 pretty easily. I think I’m going to pull something else out of the freezer. If this only takes a few hours, and most of it will be going in the freezer, I’ll have plenty of time to make something for supper afterwards.

I’m pretty old school when it come to bacon. The more traditional it is, the better I like it. Today we see all these bacon “flavors”. I cringe. Bacon has a traditional taste and anything other than that is not bacon. I can see changing up woods to smoke it, but if you want maple syrup flavored bacon, pour maple syrup on the stuff.

One can buy the pink cure to use with any sugar or seasonings they want but that Morton’s Tender quick steps right up with a bit of brown sugar to make a bacon as close to traditional as one can get. Add a small amount of crushed black pepper to it.

I know I brought this up on here before Pickle, but pork shoulder broken down into three pieces and cured just like bacon makes for some super Cottage Bacon, or Chuck wagon Bacon. Cooked up, it tastes just like bacon. Cheaper in the long run. Just as tasty. Cured and smoked the same way. Sometimes stepping away from tradition is a good thing.

I totally agree there. I can eat pancakes with breakfast sausage and maple syrup all day, but I’m not a fan of maple sausages or the artificial flavored McGriddle folks seem to love.

I buy boned out whole pork shoulders pretty cheap at Costco and usually separate them into thirds. Mostly braise them or grind them up for sausage. I’ll definitely be trying to make cottage bacon in the future.

In your experience would I be wasting time peppering the cured belly before smoking it? I’m surely going to pepper up my eggs, BLT, or whatever else I’m going to make with that bacon. Maybe the fresh cracked pepper would be better than trying to flavor the bacon during the smoke.

I haven’t done the pepper thing with my bacon. I’m one of those that if I want to add something to whatever I am cooking, I’ll add it as I cook. I don’t see pepper adding anything to bacon that would I would want to try. I know there has been peppered bacon in a couple of deli-type places where specialty meats and bacon were sold that I have come across but it never tripped my trigger.

I’m picking up a couple of shoulders to bone this weekend to make more cottage bacon. Once the kids found out I was making this stuff they’ve been pretty regular at digging thru my freezer.

One note would be after your rinse, fry up a small piece to test for saltiness, if too salty for your liking then rinse or let soak in water a bit and then repeat.

Justin Laack wrote:

One note would be after your rinse, fry up a small piece to test for saltiness, if too salty for your liking then rinse or let soak in water a bit and then repeat.

Usually after only a couple days the salt level using the tenderquick is moderate…. not all that salty. I’m not big on too much salt myself. I did leave a couple bellies cure over a long weekend and they definitely needed a soak. 24-36 hours is fine.

I’ll note here too regarding smoking temps and times: the goal is to get smoke to the meat without getting enough heat to the meat to cause the fat to start to render. Starting the smoke process with a cold slab is the way to star and start at a relatively cool temp, slowly raising the temp to get the color on the meat. Bacon is never a fully cooked or “cooked until safe to eat” processed meat. The cure in the meat simply is there to protect the meat from bacterial issues during the smoking process.

I mentioned 170 degrees as the upper limit temp when smoking the bellies, but a more realistically 150-155 degrees is all that is needed to get the color and smoke in the meat without it turning into an ashtray tasting piece. During real warm weather I’ll get the meat on the racks in the smoker and start a 4 hour smoke tube with pellets and set it on the lower rack and let that work on the meat a full two hours before I start the smoker with the wood chips. My smoker is propane powered and when its warm outside that air temp can help skew the smoking temp. My ultimate goal is that nice honey color on the bark of the meat and around 150-155 inside the bellie so the process doesn’t get near warm enough to get the fat dripping. Dripping fat= too warm.

Marvelous maple bacon

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/pork-recipes/best-maple-bacon-recipe/

Good advise Tom. I’ve done a little smoking meat as well in my days.

Opps. Jimmy Jones.

The proof is in the tasting which will wait for breakfast but I think it’s going to be good. Kept the smoker at about 150-160 for 4hrs. With the wind picking up every 15min it was a challenge. I ended up adding about 6-8 fully lit briquettes and occasionally another apple wood chunk four times to keep it at the right temp. I took it out based on color at 134 degrees. Finished it to 150 in my convection oven which took about 90min with the door cracked open because the lowest setting is 170. My house smells like a smokehouse even though they’ve been in the fridge for over 6hrs.

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After you took it out based on color at 134 degrees, What is the point of cooking them to 150f if you are going to cook them again to eat?

Yes, I make a lot of pork belly bacon too.

I like the color on those slabs Rick. I can smell bacon just looking at the picture.

Rick, since the bacon has cure in it, and its not going to be fully cooked….. or maybe a better term is not going to be cooked to safe eating temp of 152 degrees, you don’t need the extra heating once you have the color and degree of smoke you want. Riverruns, who posted just ahead of your last post has a huge smoker that uses electric floor board heat registers. Smoke is generated with smoke tubes and pellets. Nifty sucker but he does maybe twenty slabs at a time or 80 or so summer sausages at a filling. His heat control is immaculate with this system.

Bacon can be entirely cold smoked but it takes lots and lots of hours. Some low grade heat while smoking just helps the smoke penetrate the slab. When I am doing bacon I watch the process closely and if I see the fat layer beginning to look greasy, or wet looking, that’s the end of any heat.

That makes sense. To be honest, I saw so many recipes call for bringing it to 150-155 that’s the only reason I did. I do plan on cutting each quarter in half and vac sealing them for the freezer. I’ll be keeping one in the fridge to slice a bit off for breakfasts throughout the week. It’s just the two of us and we’re trying to eat better, so lately we get 3-4 meals for each of us from a pound of bacon. I could pretty much eat a whole pack myself in 1-2 meals otherwise.

Tom –
I picked up 3 pork bellies at Fareway and going to making own bacon for the 1st time.

When you said “1 cup each dark brown sugar and Morton’s Tenderquick.”

Is that 1 cup of brown sugar per pork belly or per pound?
And do you use 1/2 Oz of Tenderquick per pound?

Use regular pink cure 1/4 teaspoon per pound. Tenderquick has salt and sugar added in it. Use regular and add your own.