Making Bacon!

I'm finally making good on my goal of cured meat projects for 2015. In this case I followed, faithfully as I can Dardeau's bacon recipe. Any errors you see are entirely mine


First step is to make the cure. One 3# box kosher salt, one 1# box dark brown sugar, fill remainder to 1Gal with white sugar, 1tbsp pink #1.



Mix until uniform in color/distribution.



This is a dry cure approach...so place the pork belly into a vacbag....



and pack all around with the cure...



then seal. this is the cure starting to draw juices from the belly after only a few minutes



and again after 5 days. at this point I flipped it over and let it run another 5 days on the other side.



Then pull them out and thouroughly rinse each side to stop the cure.




Let rest in fridge overnight to airdry.



This is a new technique for lighting a charcoal grill that I got from MuchoBocho...4 cotton swabs soaked in 90% isopropyl underneath a carriage of charcoal.



now, the coating....a little more than a pound of whole peppercorns...



go into the dry grains container of the VMix...



and are ground until they are broken down a bit. There is more of a spread of coarseness than I'd like...I'd prefer each corn to be broken into about 1/4-sized pieces...but I'll take this...



Spread onto all surfaces of the bellies...using a bit of EVOO to help adhere more evenly



then put into two layers in the Kamado (I CANNOT thank MuchoBocho enough for encouraging me to break the budget and get this...I've been a hardcore charcoal grill guy for 20 years, and this thing is a revelation).



I tried to keep it right at 250F, but the temp wandered from around 225 to 275.



but it helped to get a delightful carmelization from the osmosed sugars (hattip to Dardeau again, for the temp recommendation, I'd have tried to hit no higher than 120F otherwise.).




Nice, steady stream of Cherry smoke for about 3 hours...



Cross section of the nice piece of belly from the more expensive vendor...



And the 3rd slice off the same belly.





I'm absolutely pleased with my first cured meat product. so stoked to get on to the next thing...not sure what it is though....


Many thanks to Dardeau and MuchoBocho for their help!

You nailed it! Most people miss a handful of those steps the first time around.

Did you get enough smoke from three hours? Temperature accuracy is inherently problematic when smoking. I'd suggest working on a web-bulb thermometer setup as well as targeting lower temps. Wet-bulb gives a more accurate estimation of surface temps, helping to avoid hammering the outsides of your product. An overkill reference is here: http://meathaccp.wisc.edu/assets/Wet_Bulb.pdf

I smoked some yesterday, this is what I use.

Dardeau said:

View attachment 28935

I smoked some yesterday, this is what I use.

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Very nice! I'm making about 15lbs more this weekend...well...starting it I should say. It took about 2 hours of phone calls and a 90-minute round trip, but I am finally in possession of a 10lb skinless belly at a reasonable price ($3.5/lb)...and from the folks that make my absolute favorite commercial bacon (http://www.petitjeanmeats.com/Peppered-Bacon/productinfo/45/). This is in addition to the 5lbs I have from my Dallas trip in the freezer.




I was trying to think of a way to spice it up as part of the cure....maybe throw about 2C of peppercorns in with the cure? would that have any effect on the flavor of the cured product?

bay leaves, star anise, coriander, juniper berries, fresh thyme

Danny, I'd treat the blackstrap and the flat differently. Maybe cure the flat and porchetta the blackstrap. You've got the gear.

panda said:

bay leaves, star anise, coriander, juniper berries, fresh thyme

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Hmmmm...that sounds right up my alley!

Mucho Bocho said:

Danny, I'd treat the blackstrap and the flat differently. Maybe cure the flat and porchetta the blackstrap. You've got the gear.

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I did a quick google but couldn't figure out what blackstrap refers to (the only thing I found was a reference to backstrap a.k.a. the tenderloin of a deer)....?

Danny, My terminology might be vernacular for this region of the country, so it might be called by another name. But I'm referring to what most Europeans call bacon, its not the thin part of the belly, but the last four or five inches of it. Its the part that is much thicker and has a higher meat to fat ratio. Its the last five inches of image 4080

http://www.cwb.com.au/products/pork/

looks like this

http://www.finestsausageandmeat.com/products/bacon-related/european-smoked-bacon/

Mucho Bocho said:

Danny, My terminology might be vernacular for this region of the country, so it might be called by another name. But I'm referring to what most Europeans call bacon, its not the thin part of the belly, but the last four or five inches of it. Its the part that is much thicker and has a higher meat to fat ratio. Its the last five inches of image 4080

http://www.cwb.com.au/products/pork/

looks like this

http://www.finestsausageandmeat.com/products/bacon-related/european-smoked-bacon/

Click to expand...

Got it. I'll have to wait until it's thawed to see what's what with the proportions.....you have a favorite porchetta recipe handy?

Danny, I've been wanting to try this recipe. This looks fun and easy?

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/...ed-sous-vide-36-hour-all-belly-porchetta.html

Mucho Bocho said:

Danny, I've been wanting to try this recipe. This looks fun and easy?

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/...ed-sous-vide-36-hour-all-belly-porchetta.html

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That looks like a kick-@$$ recipe! a home version of the whole-pig variation you see at some of the asian markets.

However, all of my bellies are skinless, which would skip a major aspect of what this recipe is about....but, next time!

buttermilk said:

Temperature accuracy is inherently problematic when smoking. I'd suggest working on a web-bulb thermometer setup as well as targeting lower temps. Wet-bulb gives a more accurate estimation of surface temps, helping to avoid hammering the outsides of your product. An overkill reference is here: http://meathaccp.wisc.edu/assets/Wet_Bulb.pdf

Click to expand...

Finally got around to following the link. Bit of a rabbit hole there, following the topic. Why would this be more desirable for my purpose with grilling/smoking? How would the fact that I monitor product temperature with an internal temperature probe change that?