So I've been messing around with different variations of Meatheads bacon recipe. The one I have brining currently is the traditional with a slew of dried thai peppers added to the brine.
I've found that cutting the pork belly into smaller pieces absorbs more flavor and I used the scale to convert the recipe from 3 lbs up to 4.75 lbs.
The scale calls for 2.8 days of curing. Is there any disadvantage if I go 4 or 5? I'd like to smoke it next weekend.
I started some bacon this past Sunday. The cure calculator said 2.8 days, I went until Saturday morning and everything was fine but I probably should have followed Jerod Broussard 's advice and pulled it out of the brine Thursday or Friday.
One thing to remember about the calculator... it's a best practice given certain inputs, but it's not a 'do this or you're wrong' thing. Curing has been used for millennia. There's definitely leeway and the difference between 3 and 5 days isn't going to matter that much. Now would I go, say, 10 days if the calculator said 2.8? Nah. But use the calculator and temper it with common sense.
Last edited by rickgregory; April 3, 2022, 10:51 AM.
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