Curing bacon - not sure if it's going right?

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

So here's the cure recipe I used:

Chud Bacon Cure:
400g salt
200g sugar
60g pink salt
15g garlic
15g pepper
5g sage
5g pepper flakes

Got this from Bradley Robinson of Chud's BBQ, of course. This made a lot of cure, naturally. My kitchen scale doesn't do grams, so I used Google to convert grams to ounces and got it close enough, to the tenth of an ounce.

Then I weighed my piece of pork belly and measured out the cure amount - can't remember if I did 3% or 3.5%, but one of those. Then I rubbed it all over my pork belly and sealed it in a vac seal bag with my Avid Armor. I did double seals on both ends, then bagged it in a second bag, and doubled those seals on the end, too.

Today is Day #6 of my curing process. The problem is, everyone I've heard do this says they got a fair amount of liquid that got pulled out of their pork belly. Mine has... next to none. Like, there is maybe a few drops in that vacuum seal bag, as near as I can tell. The color didn't appear to me to be darkening especially much, either. So I got out another pork belly I just bought two days ago (to cure 10 more pounds of bacon, of COURSE!) and set them side by side. Didn't look especially different to me to the Mark 1 eyeball, but looking at the pics, there does seem to be a little bit of darkening of the meat. Not as much as I would have expected, but a little. The camera and lighting made it more apparent. I dunno.


Here it is next to the fresh pork belly.


Like I said, it IS more apparent in the pictures than to the naked eye - but I expected it to pull out more liquid, as well.

Is this going well? I was planning on maybe putting the other 10lbs up to cure tonight, but... now I'm questioning it. Being pork belly, I don't want to let it sit too long in the fridge, and the bacon I was planning on letting go for a week - so maybe was gonna pull it out and smoke it tomorrow (Fri) or Sat.

But now I'm questioning things. Should I toss the cure I made and use a different recipe? Should I use a bit more, like 4% or 5% by weight? Or wait until Saturday and taste this one to see how it came out before I decide? Of course, that means a couple more days of whole pork belly sitting there - I've had pork go bad in a fairly short period of time once or twice, so I hate to take the chance on wasting $50 worth of pork belly, either from spoilage or a poor curing process.

Based on what I've got right now, what would you guys (and gals!) do?

<edit> I will admit, my curing salt has been in the cupboard for a number of years - maybe 3, maybe 5? I dunno. I wouldn't think it would go bad or lose its potency, would it?

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Oh yeah, I didn't put the sage in the cure - didn't want that, but I don't think that would change anything.

[Spinaker]

Yeah, that would change nothing. What matters in the Prague Powder and time in the cure. Those two things must be correct. Everything else, is just fluff to make it have a certain flavor profile.

[wu7y]

+1
I use the AR calculator and I have never been disappointed. Prague powder and time are most important. Plus I do not vacuum seal during the cure. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

[Spinaker]

While I am not allowed to officially comment on other curing recipes, I will say that this is exactly why we encourage people to use our calculator and recipe for curing anything. It takes out all of this guess work.

AmazingRibs.com Curing Calculator

How To Make Your Own Smoked Bacon At Home

[SonOfAButcher]

Use it constantly..Never fails.

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Good point, I should have clarified - this is #1 - 6.25% sodium nitrite - no sodium nitrate. And I checked my Amazon account - this has been in my cabinet since 2015. Again, not sure that makes any difference.

[Steve B]

I've only made my own bacon once so I am no expert. But from what I remember I did not vac seal the bag, and others did the same I think. Thinking vac sealing, although not a wrong way to do it IDK, is the reason you're not seeing any liquid. it's too tightly sealed for the liquid to come out. Personally I think you are good to go.

[barelfly]

The bacon I made recently, using Michael Ruhlman’s salt box method, which is all I have used for curing belly, I don’t get a lot of liquid either. The brown sugar batch had more than the savory chile belly I cured, which went for 10 days. I also do not vac seal, just use a 2gal zipper top and remove as much air as possible.

Can you determine if the belly is firming up at all? That’s one thing Ruhlman talks about as well in his method.

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Hard to tell because I vac sealed it and double bagged it. So... yeah maybe a bit firmer, but hard to really quantify.

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

I'm not going to toss it right off, or anything. Matter of fact, I may go ahead and pull it and throw it on the smoker tonight. Just to try it. I don't think it's gone BAD, per se, but it may not be very GOOD. It's been in over 5 days, which ought to be plenty.

Then I can decide if I want to try, try again or whatever.

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Ok, yeah, it's good. I pulled it, had a little more liquid in the inner vac seal bag than I thought, but still very little.



Looks great from an 'end cut' perspective.


End result.



Taste was great. A little saltier than normal store-bought, but I like it. Although it didn't crisp up. Much more of a ham texture, which is also what I remembered from the first time I did this - apparently nearly 9 years ago. lol

I don't remember if I smoked that one or not. About to throw it on the smoker at 180ish and bring it to 150ish, then chill again for proper slicing and the ultimate taste test.

Hoping the smoking will render a little bit of fat, maybe make it more like to get actually "crispy"?

I dunno, here's hoping.

[wu7y]

That is good looking pork belly. I wish I could find PB here with that meat to fat ratio.

[jtw]

Not sure you can call it "American bacon" if it's not smoked - it would naturally be more hammy. Either way, hot-smoked bacon doesn't crisp up the same way as the cold-smoked store-bought stuff. It could also be a product of thicker slices.

If it's too salty, you could probably rinse or even soak the belly for a few hours after curing (just like corned beef or pastrami).

Finally, I get better results with my homebacon by cooking it in the oven rather than in the skillet. It takes a couple minutes longer but you can cook more at once, plus it cooks more evenly.

[barelfly]

You can soak as jtw mentions, or blanch it, which is what Ruhlman suggests.

but glad it’s good and you can smoke that belly up!

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Finished product. Sweet, smoky, salty homemade BACON!

W00T!



I smoked it on the Weber with some applewood chunks the other night, up to 150, then pulled it, vac sealed again and threw it in the fridge. Then this morning threw it in the chest freezer for... oh, a little over an hour. Then took it out and sliced it up. Sliced MUCH better this way than when it was only fridge-cold.

I'm loving it. About to fry some up now.

And I think I've failed in my duty, as well. My wife asked why I made those 'chunks'. I told her they were lardons. She said, "Lard?" I said, "LARDONS. You know, to fry up and use in other dishes?" She'd never heard of bacon lardons.

God, being an educator is EXHAUSTING! But, someone's GOT to do it!

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Tastes great, came out awesome!

[Skip]

Outstanding result of your efforts DogFaced PonySoldier

[Jerod Broussard]

Even the bacon is smiling

[HawkerXP]

BACON!

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Decided to do two more 5 lb chunks yesterday.





Awesome stuff.


Have to add my poor depressed, abused helper who only didn't get near enough 'samples' or drops to suit her tastes.

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

I'm actually wondering if this cure didnt penetrate enough on some of those thicker pieces. Like through the fat cap it didn't penetrate, and didn't have time to get all the way from the other side.

[Jerod Broussard]

The Nitrite molecules actually jocky for position with to and fro motions. Plus: