Basic bacon rundown please
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I was able to find a 10 lb pork belly. As I have never made bacon before, but have been inspired to try by this community, I am wondering if I can get a basic rundown of the process.
- Which cure to buy?
- Qty of cure to water for 10 lb.
- Soak time?
- Some time?
- Is there a way to incorporate Jalapeño flavor? At what step would this take place?
- Any other tips - like slicing -
lkrfletcher
Just pulled mine out of the vac bags to dry, tomorrow they get a bath in cold apple wood smoke. -
I was able to find a 10 lb pork belly. As I have never made bacon before, but have been inspired to try by this community, I am wondering if I can get a basic rundown of the process.
- Which cure to buy?
- Qty of cure to water for 10 lb.
- Soak time?
- Some time?
- Is there a way to incorporate Jalapeño flavor? At what step would this take place?
- Any other tips - like slicing -
lkrfletcher LEM makes a jalapeño bacon cure. I have done their original dry rub and was very pleased with the flavor. I’ve made bacon commercially in wet brine with shop made recipes, but I really like the convenience of dry brine at home.
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lkrfletcher here is something else you can do with some of the belly. Make Pork belly burnt ends or cure and make bacon burnt ends
Randie N Nuthin’ wrong with a little bit of bacon burnt ends. Looks pretty darn G-U-D, good!
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http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
Use this site for the cure ratio. You will need a reliable scale for this. It all depends on weight. Make sure you zero the scale to account for the weight of bowls or containers you are using so it doesn’t throw off the meat:ingredients ratios.
Buy cure salt #1, and for a single belly, the smallest package you can buy will likely be enough. I buy 10 pound buckets, and make bacon 2-3 times per month, and a bucket lasts me over a year.
Mix up the brine formula, put that plus the belly into food safe bags (I cut my belly in half “hamburger style” so I can still get full slices when I’m done, and I use Ziploc 2 gallon bags- 1 half of the belly in each bags).
This will cure for 7 days in the fridge. Suggest using a cookie sheet under the bags in case they leak. You can always wrap the bags up tightly in plastic wrap to help with this as well. Every day, just pick a time that works for you so it is consistent, you want to flip the bellies over. This allows even brining and also makes you feel involved and important while the brine does its thing!
After 7 days, remove the bellies, rinse them very well under cold water to remove excess salt (some people soak them for a few hours, but I never have and my bacon is fantastic).
Here is the real divider amongst the bacon-making community: smoking. Some hot smoke and some cold smoke. Either way it is great. You just do you here and see which method you like more. Being winter, it is a great time to try cold smoking. If you have an offset smoker, lighting a fire in the smoke box is a bad idea. Buy an A-Maze-In Smoke Tub or maze tray (tray holds more pellets). Cold smoke for 4-6 hours based on flavor preference.
I hot smoke at 225-250 for 4 hours. Either way, still fry it or bake it when ready to eat. If you’re great with a knife, cut the skinniest slices you can. A slicing knife works better than a regular kitchen knife does. Eventually buy a decent deli slicer. Keep an eye on Facebook market place in areas where there are hunters. Some areas are better than others to search for this stuff.
So cure 7 days, flipping it. Smoke it. Cut it. Cook it. Eat it. Repeat it. -
I dry brine in a vac bag similar to those methods above. I tried adding a ton of jalapeño powder one time, but couldn’t really taste any difference. Kind of a waste of seasoning (for the powdered one at least).
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Forgot the jalapeño part! After it is smoked, do this:
Mash the jalapeños with a little bit (smallest amount as needed) in a mortar and pestle until you have a light paste. You will wear disposable gloves to rub the green paste thinly onto the smoked bellies and the refrigerate them for 6-12 hours until cold before slicing them into bacon. Do not brine with pepper slices in the mixture. It tosses your alkalinity out the window and can allow bacteria to prosper in the brine mixture- brining removes and prevents bacteria growth. Don’t waste product and 7 days of waiting by doing any method with peppers in the brine. -
Randie N your bacon
looks great -
For the dry EQ method, would honey be 1:1 replacement for sugar or would the liquid honey necessitate an adjustment somewhere
Ridley Acres are you injecting the brine into the bellies or dry/wet brining in bags? Liquid honey isn’t actually pure sugar. If you’re trying for a honey bacon like orange honey, honey cinnamon, etc, it is best to do a base brine, water down the honey before smoking and inject it into the belly, then while it cools in the fridge, smear the honey on top of the belly to cold and tack up along with whatever you are also adding to the honey. It is stay on the belly more this way and won’t potentially ruin an otherwise tried and true brine formula.
-
lkrfletcher here is something else you can do with some of the belly. Make Pork belly burnt ends or cure and make bacon burnt ends
Randie N those burnt ends look delicious
-
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
Use this site for the cure ratio. You will need a reliable scale for this. It all depends on weight. Make sure you zero the scale to account for the weight of bowls or containers you are using so it doesn’t throw off the meat:ingredients ratios.
Buy cure salt #1, and for a single belly, the smallest package you can buy will likely be enough. I buy 10 pound buckets, and make bacon 2-3 times per month, and a bucket lasts me over a year.
Mix up the brine formula, put that plus the belly into food safe bags (I cut my belly in half “hamburger style” so I can still get full slices when I’m done, and I use Ziploc 2 gallon bags- 1 half of the belly in each bags).
This will cure for 7 days in the fridge. Suggest using a cookie sheet under the bags in case they leak. You can always wrap the bags up tightly in plastic wrap to help with this as well. Every day, just pick a time that works for you so it is consistent, you want to flip the bellies over. This allows even brining and also makes you feel involved and important while the brine does its thing!
After 7 days, remove the bellies, rinse them very well under cold water to remove excess salt (some people soak them for a few hours, but I never have and my bacon is fantastic).
Here is the real divider amongst the bacon-making community: smoking. Some hot smoke and some cold smoke. Either way it is great. You just do you here and see which method you like more. Being winter, it is a great time to try cold smoking. If you have an offset smoker, lighting a fire in the smoke box is a bad idea. Buy an A-Maze-In Smoke Tub or maze tray (tray holds more pellets). Cold smoke for 4-6 hours based on flavor preference.
I hot smoke at 225-250 for 4 hours. Either way, still fry it or bake it when ready to eat. If you’re great with a knife, cut the skinniest slices you can. A slicing knife works better than a regular kitchen knife does. Eventually buy a decent deli slicer. Keep an eye on Facebook market place in areas where there are hunters. Some areas are better than others to search for this stuff.
So cure 7 days, flipping it. Smoke it. Cut it. Cook it. Eat it. Repeat it.fallis10 nice explanation. Thank you for this.
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Ridley Acres are you injecting the brine into the bellies or dry/wet brining in bags? Liquid honey isn’t actually pure sugar. If you’re trying for a honey bacon like orange honey, honey cinnamon, etc, it is best to do a base brine, water down the honey before smoking and inject it into the belly, then while it cools in the fridge, smear the honey on top of the belly to cold and tack up along with whatever you are also adding to the honey. It is stay on the belly more this way and won’t potentially ruin an otherwise tried and true brine formula.
fallis10 good info. Thanks
-
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
Use this site for the cure ratio. You will need a reliable scale for this. It all depends on weight. Make sure you zero the scale to account for the weight of bowls or containers you are using so it doesn’t throw off the meat:ingredients ratios.
Buy cure salt #1, and for a single belly, the smallest package you can buy will likely be enough. I buy 10 pound buckets, and make bacon 2-3 times per month, and a bucket lasts me over a year.
Mix up the brine formula, put that plus the belly into food safe bags (I cut my belly in half “hamburger style” so I can still get full slices when I’m done, and I use Ziploc 2 gallon bags- 1 half of the belly in each bags).
This will cure for 7 days in the fridge. Suggest using a cookie sheet under the bags in case they leak. You can always wrap the bags up tightly in plastic wrap to help with this as well. Every day, just pick a time that works for you so it is consistent, you want to flip the bellies over. This allows even brining and also makes you feel involved and important while the brine does its thing!
After 7 days, remove the bellies, rinse them very well under cold water to remove excess salt (some people soak them for a few hours, but I never have and my bacon is fantastic).
Here is the real divider amongst the bacon-making community: smoking. Some hot smoke and some cold smoke. Either way it is great. You just do you here and see which method you like more. Being winter, it is a great time to try cold smoking. If you have an offset smoker, lighting a fire in the smoke box is a bad idea. Buy an A-Maze-In Smoke Tub or maze tray (tray holds more pellets). Cold smoke for 4-6 hours based on flavor preference.
I hot smoke at 225-250 for 4 hours. Either way, still fry it or bake it when ready to eat. If you’re great with a knife, cut the skinniest slices you can. A slicing knife works better than a regular kitchen knife does. Eventually buy a decent deli slicer. Keep an eye on Facebook market place in areas where there are hunters. Some areas are better than others to search for this stuff.
So cure 7 days, flipping it. Smoke it. Cut it. Cook it. Eat it. Repeat it.fallis10 said in Basic bacon rundown please:
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
Use this site for the cure ratio. You will need a reliable scale for this. It all depends on weight. Make sure you zero the scale to account for the weight of bowls or containers you are using so it doesn’t throw off the meat:ingredients ratios.I would add one thing to fallis10 very good summary.
If you are only doing one or two bellies, you are weighing some very small amounts of salt, sugar, and cure #1.To get the accuracy you need for weighing these small amounts, get a digital kitchen scale with a maximum range of 500 grams.
They are cheap and give you the required accuracy for weighing out the dry ingredients.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any low range scales on Walton’s web site but they are available on Amazon and elsewhere.
Update: Here is the Walton’s scale.
Paul
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fallis10 said in Basic bacon rundown please:
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
Use this site for the cure ratio. You will need a reliable scale for this. It all depends on weight. Make sure you zero the scale to account for the weight of bowls or containers you are using so it doesn’t throw off the meat:ingredients ratios.I would add one thing to fallis10 very good summary.
If you are only doing one or two bellies, you are weighing some very small amounts of salt, sugar, and cure #1.To get the accuracy you need for weighing these small amounts, get a digital kitchen scale with a maximum range of 500 grams.
They are cheap and give you the required accuracy for weighing out the dry ingredients.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any low range scales on Walton’s web site but they are available on Amazon and elsewhere.
Update: Here is the Walton’s scale.processhead maybe this one? Looks like it would work. https://www.waltonsinc.com/escali-precision-digital-scale
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processhead maybe this one? Looks like it would work. https://www.waltonsinc.com/escali-precision-digital-scale
ND Mike said in Basic bacon rundown please:
processhead maybe this one? Looks like it would work. https://www.waltonsinc.com/escali-precision-digital-scale
Yes thanks ND Mike! That one is perfect and I missed it hidden in with the thermometers instead of the scales.
Paul
-
fallis10 said in Basic bacon rundown please:
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
Use this site for the cure ratio. You will need a reliable scale for this. It all depends on weight. Make sure you zero the scale to account for the weight of bowls or containers you are using so it doesn’t throw off the meat:ingredients ratios.I would add one thing to fallis10 very good summary.
If you are only doing one or two bellies, you are weighing some very small amounts of salt, sugar, and cure #1.To get the accuracy you need for weighing these small amounts, get a digital kitchen scale with a maximum range of 500 grams.
They are cheap and give you the required accuracy for weighing out the dry ingredients.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any low range scales on Walton’s web site but they are available on Amazon and elsewhere.
Update: Here is the Walton’s scale.processhead I have this scale. It is a good one.
-
ND Mike said in Basic bacon rundown please:
processhead maybe this one? Looks like it would work. https://www.waltonsinc.com/escali-precision-digital-scale
Yes thanks ND Mike! That one is perfect and I missed it hidden in with the thermometers instead of the scales.
processhead
I have this one also. Works great. -
processhead I have this scale. It is a good one.
lkrfletcher that is good to know. I have an el cheapo one that this could replace.
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processhead
I have this one also. Works great.PapaSop well, that is 2 yes votes for this scale.
-
http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html
Use this site for the cure ratio. You will need a reliable scale for this. It all depends on weight. Make sure you zero the scale to account for the weight of bowls or containers you are using so it doesn’t throw off the meat:ingredients ratios.
Buy cure salt #1, and for a single belly, the smallest package you can buy will likely be enough. I buy 10 pound buckets, and make bacon 2-3 times per month, and a bucket lasts me over a year.
Mix up the brine formula, put that plus the belly into food safe bags (I cut my belly in half “hamburger style” so I can still get full slices when I’m done, and I use Ziploc 2 gallon bags- 1 half of the belly in each bags).
This will cure for 7 days in the fridge. Suggest using a cookie sheet under the bags in case they leak. You can always wrap the bags up tightly in plastic wrap to help with this as well. Every day, just pick a time that works for you so it is consistent, you want to flip the bellies over. This allows even brining and also makes you feel involved and important while the brine does its thing!
After 7 days, remove the bellies, rinse them very well under cold water to remove excess salt (some people soak them for a few hours, but I never have and my bacon is fantastic).
Here is the real divider amongst the bacon-making community: smoking. Some hot smoke and some cold smoke. Either way it is great. You just do you here and see which method you like more. Being winter, it is a great time to try cold smoking. If you have an offset smoker, lighting a fire in the smoke box is a bad idea. Buy an A-Maze-In Smoke Tub or maze tray (tray holds more pellets). Cold smoke for 4-6 hours based on flavor preference.
I hot smoke at 225-250 for 4 hours. Either way, still fry it or bake it when ready to eat. If you’re great with a knife, cut the skinniest slices you can. A slicing knife works better than a regular kitchen knife does. Eventually buy a decent deli slicer. Keep an eye on Facebook market place in areas where there are hunters. Some areas are better than others to search for this stuff.
So cure 7 days, flipping it. Smoke it. Cut it. Cook it. Eat it. Repeat it.fallis10 Thanks for this, I will be trying bacon for the first time this year.
-
I was able to find a 10 lb pork belly. As I have never made bacon before, but have been inspired to try by this community, I am wondering if I can get a basic rundown of the process.
- Which cure to buy?
- Qty of cure to water for 10 lb.
- Soak time?
- Some time?
- Is there a way to incorporate Jalapeño flavor? At what step would this take place?
- Any other tips - like slicing -
lkrfletcher cold smoked bacon today then vac sealed to bring everything to equilibrium in frig for 3-4 days.
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