I am a little confused by the big difference in the amount of water in the cure recipes for Canadian Bacon and American Bacon (the Simple Bacon recipe). Both talk of curing roughly 3 pounds of meat. The loin used for the Canadian Bacon is a little thicker than the belly used for the regular bacon. My confusion is that while the Canadian Bacon calls for 1 gallon of water, the regular only calls for 3/4 cup. Can someone explain why the big difference and how do you keep pork belly submerged/covered with only 3/4 cup?
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I can't comment about the reason for so much more liquid for Canadian bacon, but you needn't worry about submerging the belly for American bacon. Simply work the liquid in the bag so it has touched all portions of the belly, then flip the bag over every day so the liquid hits both side evenly. -
I don't know. Maybe because it's thicker??Comment
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Meathead has gone through a few changes in his bacon recipes. people really liked the original recipe, but then after some breakthroughs with the curing calculator he released a recipe that had something with a lot of water in the recipe (might have been 3 cups to a pound or something). several people came out and stated they really did not care for this recipe and he went back and modified it to use less water. my guess is that he changed all the recipes for curing when he released his curing calculator to use more water but only went back and changed the bacon on to use less water because that was on the only one people complained about.Comment
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The Canadian bacon is basically a "wet cure" while MH's regular bacon recipe is his modification of a "dry cure". It's sorta a "damp cure", if you will. I use Rhulman's bacon recipe which is quite similar, absent the initial water. The cure mixture draws enough liquid out of the belly that within a day or two it is, for all practical purposes, pretty much the same. It's all good!!!Comment
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