makin' bacon in the dark

[DeusDingo]

making bacon tonight! it's going to be cold and dark after work but i don't have much of a choice (thanks a lot in-laws). i used the new recipe and spreadsheet to cure it, i am making just normal bacon and i am making a little less than 7 lbs (5 pieces). i started the cure last monday and i was going to smoke it saturday or sunday but family happened. so i am stuck with tonight because i won't have another chance until this weekend and i think that is too long to wait. i had been flipping and massaging every nighr except last saturday night when i couldn't.

one thing i found interesting is that the weight of the meat in the spreadsheet didn't have as big of an impact as i thought it would for the curing salt. from 1lb to 1.6lb it didn't change the cure amount. my pieces range from 1lb to 1.6, when you put it 1.7 it changed. i hope everything turns out ok.

i plan to smoke until 160 using hickory.

[Thunder77]

Try some apple too, if you have it. It's good!

[DeusDingo]

oh i will some day, i just have a bunch of hickory chunks and i only have chips of apple. i prefer chunks over chips.

[Thunder77]

I agree. Definitely chunks over chips!

[scottranda]

You'll love it! I'm getting requests for homemade bacon!

[Shane Rakow]

The cure amount is right on the money. Enjoy.

[DeusDingo]

alright so it took 4+ (!) hours on my cruddy little smoker at about 240-260 but the bacon came out just fine. currently sitting in the freezer while i use up what i currently have



the one in the upper right is the last of my pre-sliced bunch.



i really look forward to these

[Thunder77]

Beeeyoootiful!

[bluesmoke]

That looks awesome. How did it taste? I followed MH's new recipe for maple and it was rather flavorless. I'd done several slabs under the old recipe and the results were superior. Seems others have had a similar outcome with the new recipe so I'm trying to figure out what went wrong. Thanks.

[DeusDingo]

to be honest: it is a bit flavorless. i much preferred the old recipe as well but i never wrote it down so i use the new method. i had to salt it after the fact in order to have some flavor in it. in some cases i have resalted it 3 times

[HawkerXP]

Wowzer. Very nice.

[fuzzydaddy]

...the one in the upper right is the last of my pre-sliced bunch...

Gorgeous bacon! At first reading I thought you said brunch, not bunch, so I'm thinking that's a nice bacon brunch you're going to have!

[DeusDingo]

hah, i probably will someday!

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

I am dying to try some bacon.... I gotta get me a pork belly and get it cured. Thanks for posting, you're inspiring me!

[Peterbilt123]

That looks amazing!

[Milnerair]

So I'm doing my first bacon. Just wondering about the cure time and how much leeway I have. I have 6 lbs. Slab and thickness is 1 in to 1.8 in. Curkng time is 2.1 days for 1 in. and up to 5 days for 1.8 in.
so what would be my correct curing time? BTW it is about 75% 1 in. thick.
??????

[tbob4]

The calculator is in this article. I haven't done it yet so I can only direct you to what I have read here: http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_tech...ing_meats.html

[DeusDingo]

i would say cure for the time of the thickest part. i don't think you will harm anything by keeping the thinner parts in there for another 3 days and if it is one piece of meat it will even out. there are people on here that used the old recipe and would cure for 2 full weeks and it turned out fine

[EdF]

I've done it a bunch of times. Can't give you a specific number of days, but you definitely have a day or two on the high side, depending on how salty you can handle it.

[DeusDingo]

after eating this for a while i would say the website version of this bacon is a flop. it's rather flavorless and i have had to re-salt my bacon on both slabs that i have now had. my wife, who hates salt, says it needs a lot more salt. super disappointed.

pretty tasty once it's salted

[HorseDoctor]

At the risk of being banned from this site, try Ruhlman's recipe: http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2/ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​

[DeusDingo]

i'm certainly going to try something else

[DWCowles]

Beautiful!