makeing your own bacon

I wanted to try to make my own bacon, so I thought Id give it a try. I got on Utube and did some searching and found out theres a whole lot of people who make their own bacon. I didn’t want to get exotic with seeing all the recipes so I just used a simple one for the first try.

I got a 10lb. pork belly @3.29 a lb and followed the recipe. It called for equal amounts of kosher salt and brown sugar @ about a 1/4 cup of each. I cut the pork belly in three sections, use one and refroze the other two. You rub both sides of the pork belly with the ingredients and lay it in a plastic tray. I covered the meat with foil down in the tray touching the belly meat and then covered the whole tray again with foil for the curing process. It takes 7 to 8 days for the cure. The salt takes alot of water, which you want, out of the belly meat and the brown sugar adds flavor.

After the curing time you rinse the belly meat off and then put it back in the refrigerator unwraped and in the same tray to let it dry. Leave it in the frige for two days and then take it out. A refrigerator is also a dryer because of the fan on the inside.

After the drying time you can then smoke it, it has to dry so the smoke will also cure and add flavor. Theres all kinds of various ways to add spices and smoke it and I’m going to smoke mine for 4 hrs at 170. After its smoked you then let it cool down so you can then slice it. I’m going to run mine through a slicer thicker then the store bought kinds. I’m going to also take the slices and put coarse black pepper between the slices and let that soak in to the rest of the bacon. If its good I’ll do it again and probably tweak the recipe again on the next to sections of the pork belly. Anyone else ever tried making bacon, if so got any recipes?

Cool idea. Ran across this a few weeks ago myself:

http://barbecuebible.com/recipe/8-steps-making-bacon-home/

I’ve been pretty impressed with Steven Raichlen’s books and recipes, so it’s definitely from a trusted source. Let me know how yours turns out!

Joel

Ya Joel, The way I did it was basically the same way, forgot to say I put real maple syrup in the cure along with the sugar and salt, the recipe I used called for dark brown sugar instead of the lighter brown sugar. I did slice off the skin to make the simple recipe and so the smoke penetrates the bacon like in your article. The 4th day of curing will be up at around 7 tonight then 3 more days to go. I know where theres a few hickory trees so I’m going to use hickory to smoke mine the first time, I’ve got apple wood from off of my trees here in the yard and will try that next time, this time I’ll use hickory, pretty hard to beat a real hickory taste. I’ll post how it turns out with maybe a picture or two if I can figure out how to post them. I noticed the amount of meat on the slab in his picture. The store I bought mine from had too veins of meat instead of one and also they were wider veins, so it should come out pretty good quality, theres millions of hogs here in Iowa so maybe thats why I got better belly meat. I was kind of surprised when I asked the store owner if anyone around here makes their own bacon and he said quite a few do, that means a relatively fresh supply of frozen pork bellies, there was 3 or 4 boxes of belly meat on the shelf in the freezer, good news!

I have always wanted to try curing bacon. I figured it would be way more complicated than this! Thank you for the motivation to give it a whirl.

Get on UTube Art because its a no brainer, very simple at its hardest. Its cool to see all the different types of people who are on UTube who make their own, from chefs to subsistance farmers to homesteaders who have a PC.

I am new to diy bacon myself and just finished my second go at it. OOOoooooooo it turned out great.

Honey+jalapeno. Man the honey flavor really sticks out. The jalapeno gives a bit a of bite but with a slight undertone of the berry.
Recipe ones own curing method pluss 2 cups of honey and masserated pickeled jalapeno with a tabelspoon of the brining liquid.

Give honey a try.

Tip I learned of America’s Test kitchen.
Place bacon in pan then add water just to cover the bacon. Bring to boil until water evaporates then turn flame down to medium to cook as normal to ones owns taste. The step of the water renders of the fat to give equal cooking times to both meat and fat left over. This prevents the over cooked edges of bacon we sometimes get.

Here’s an update on the bacon I’m making. I turned the pork belly over last night and got up this morning and looked at it. I had to stop the curing process of the 7 days they recommended in the recipe for the salt, brown sugar and maple syrup curing brine. The reason being is I found out what salt does to fat, the fat is almost gone off the meat. So much so that I thought I want a little fat on my bacon. I’ll tell you what, its something else on how salt dissolves the fat. Of the fat that was on the pork belly when I started the curing process Tuesday evening, not more then 20% is left on the meat. If anyone likes a lean bacon just leave it go for another day or two and less then 10% fat will be left from the original amount when I started. I got it in the smoker right now and the wife talked me into smoking with apple wood so that’s what I’m doing, hickories definitely next. It should be done around 10:00 tonight then a quick chill in the freezer so it slices better and a bacon, tomato and lettuce sandwich is what I’m having before I hit the hay. I’ll give a report on how it tastes then and what I may do the next time. Im going to put coarse ground pepper and hot red pepper flakes between the slices and put it back in the fridge and have some more for breakfast.

Well I decided to take the bacon out of the smoker because the heat was too high and it was cooking at a low temperature. I wanted to smoke it slow but I put too much charcoal, about 15 brickets, in the charcoal tray and It was getting too much heat, so I pulled it, the next time I’ll put in 5 and go from there, I think thats just enough to keep the apple wood smoking and produce minimal heat. The good news is its all an even medium tan and when I took it out it smelled like it was a good smoke from the apple wood. I got it in the freezer right now cooling down, then I’m going to slice and fry some and see how it tastes. Even warm it smells like good bacon does and I’ll see again what it smells like after it cools down in another half hour or so or cool enough to slice.

WE just got done frying some and its very good to say the least. I sliced the bacon thick and frying it just like regular store bought bacon it came out too crisp, I think its because of the lack of fat that was dissolved by the salt while brineing.

The two changes I’m going to make is the length of time I leave the belly in contact with the salt. Beings it dissolves and breaks down the fat the way it does I’m going to shorten the length of time its curing to leave more fat on each slice. Instead of curing it in the brine for 5 days I’m going to go 3 days but keep the amount of salt, dark brown sugar and Maple syrup at the same equal amounts.

I tasted the fat that was also fried crisp and it was really good as was the meat so I decided to leave more fat on each slice, then the amount of each will be right, to me there’s no reason to take all the fat off on bacon when it tastes good when fried crisp, after all its bacon. I did notice that the fat also holds the meat together while frying and especially sliceing where the two seperate veins of meat had a tendency to seperate from each other when sliceing after it was smoked, the fat holds the two veins of meat together that I had in the pork belly. I think around 50 to 50% of both is a good place to stop the curing process or reduce the amount of salt in the brine. I’ve got my second pork belly thawing right now and am going to start another cure in the morning before work. When I check it every day I’m going to watch for that 50 to 50% ratio then stop the brineing process. The first couple days I didn’t notice a big reduction in the amount of fat, the 3rd and 4th day I did. Maybe I’ll take the belly out of the salt, syrup and brown sugar brine, rinse it off then keep curing for another 2 days in just a brown sugar and Maple syrup brine. Anyway the first attempt came out very good and gave me a direction to go.

Cool post. I want to try now.

Ya Suzuki, If you like grilling on your charcoal grill you’ll probably like making bacon. I don’t know how to describe the taste of bacon that you have made but its a whole lot better then the store bought kind. What I was kind of surprised with was the taste of the fat when it was fried crisp, it was really good. I started my second pork belly this morning before work. I made up this porkbelly the same way but with a little less salt and alot of coarse ground black pepper. You won’t save any money doing it yourself, maybe you’ll even spend a little more, but the quality is really good. We used to buy the 1 and 2 pound packs of thick sliced bacon with pepper between the slices and it came close to the bacon I made on my first attempt. Even on my first attempt it came out more like gourmet bacon then not and pretty hardy too, and you can add any spices you want while brineing or after its sliced and before you package it. Its really not that hard to do.