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I made bacon...

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  • EdF
    commented on 's reply
    It's really easy, and worth it!

  • shify
    commented on 's reply
    Texture is definitely more ham like than thin and crispy supermarket bacon. If you have ever had artisanal/high quality bacon it's not like supermarket bacon either. I get my pork belly at costco. They are 5-8lbs and same width as normal store bought bacon

  • Psinderson
    replied
    DogFaced PonySoldier, I definitely felt the bacon did not get as crispy but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.

    The belly I got was also too thin. It seems to be hard to get good belly around here.

    Leave a comment:


  • Black99vette
    replied
    Nice. I'll have to put that on the list. I thought it was much more work.

    Leave a comment:


  • DogFaced PonySoldier
    replied
    Ok, the one time I made bacon, I loved the flavor, but was a little disappointed about a few things:


    First, while the flavor was great, the texture was not what I wanted. It definitely came out more like ham. It would NOT get crispy in the frying pan (cast iron or regular non-stick). I believe I read in Meathead's article this was due to hot-smoking instead of cold-smoking, which he said he doesn't recommend. I need to go back and check again.

    Secondly, the bacon I made was not very large in size width-wise due to a thin pork belly. I have looked around all the places where I can get this and have NEVER seen a pork belly that was more than like an inch or so (in the middle), once the skin was removed. Maybe to some this isn't a big deal, but it really was somewhat disappointing to have nicely-flavored but skinny and ham-textured bacon.

    Am I all alone in this?

    Has anyone tried cold smoking their bacon, and does it really come out crispy like bacon should?

    Leave a comment:


  • Skelly
    commented on 's reply
    Thanks HorseDoctor .. I've eaten smoked belly right off the smoker, but I'm from the south where we fry everything (especially bacon) and I figured that's more or less how it was done, but I knew what I'd eaten before off the smoker wasn't exactly the bacon of my childhood. I gotta try this.

  • HorseDoctor
    commented on 's reply
    Many of the homemade recipes have a fair amount of sugar which can burn if fried too quickly. Fry it slowly at a low temp, or better yet cook it in the oven at 350 until desired doneness. Enjoy!

  • HorseDoctor
    commented on 's reply
    I wouldn't mind a little saltier, but the "better half" is very sensitive to salt and I need to keep it pretty light for her. Hence the hour of desalinating. When doing bacon for others I do a half hour max.

  • Skelly
    replied
    I know nothing about making bacon, so... do you basically just slice it and then fry it up the old fashioned way when ready to eat?

    Leave a comment:


  • ecowper
    commented on 's reply
    Yeah, I have yet to have my bacon cures be too salty. My kids want them to be saltier, actually.

  • EdF
    commented on 's reply
    Me too!

  • HorseDoctor
    replied
    I make a fair amount of bacon using a similar recipe (Rhulman’s). I routinely cure for a week but have stretched that almost two weeks without problem. I also always desalinate by soaking in fresh water for an hour after washing off the cure. You can’t overcure but you can get an incomplete cure so a little longer is better than too short. Try soaking for an hour. If you want saltier, do less next time. As long as you get it cured, the rest of the procedure is quite flexible. Relax. Have fun. Enjoy!
    Last edited by HorseDoctor; October 29, 2017, 04:11 PM.

    Leave a comment:


  • ecowper
    commented on 's reply
    Guys, I have left my pork belly in the cure for 2 days past what the cure calculator recommends. I have never had it come out saltier due to that.

  • ecowper
    replied
    NukeGuy a few hours makes little difference. I’ve had my bacon stay in the cure a couple days longer than needed to actually cure it with no ill effects. If you are concerned about it, you can soak the pork belly in plain water for a couple hours .... that will pull some of the salt back out. But, honestly, I wouldn’t worry about that too much.

    The point of leaving the pork belly in the cure for a certain length of time is for it to get cured by the Prague Powder. If you look at the amount of regular salt in the cure, it’s not more than you would normally put on that amount of meat. The meat can only absorb X amount of salt.
    Last edited by ecowper; October 29, 2017, 03:02 PM.

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  • NukeGuy
    replied
    Originally posted by ecowper View Post
    NukeGuy I make bacon all the time. I prep my smoker on the day I’m going to cook the bacon. When the smoker is ready, I pull the pork belly out of the cure, rinse, and go straight to the smoker. It’s still got an internal temp around 40F and is wet, which is very helpful for smoking.
    From the comments above seems like if I keep it in the cure for much longer than the calculated cure time it will be too salty. IT at the beginning doesn't concern me much, it'll warm up in the smoker as well as the kitchen I figure. I don't want 12+ pounds of salt pork though.

    Leave a comment:

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