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Bumby’s Bacon Lab I

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    Bumby’s Bacon Lab I

    I like bacon. I like home cured, home smoked bacon even more. I made my first batch of Meathead’s maple bacon 5 years ago. I’ve probably made about 500 pounds of bacon total by this point. It’s the perfect gift for colleagues, clients, friends and family. What do you give the father who always buys himself the gadgets and gizmos that he "needs"? You give him bacon. Home cured, home smoked bacon.

    I’ve slightly tweaked Meathead’s maple recipe to create my own version, which I’ve used to make approximately 400 pounds of bacon. But I was inspired by a pair of posts by ecowper to try other recipes. Here are the posts:

    Be it’s own sub-forum? Cause Bacon is pretty much the greatest food EVER anyhow, I’ve got 10 lbs of belly brining right now. Used my Maple-Whiskey recipe, to which I added fresh


    After 6 days in the cure ..... 1 slab of maple-whiskey and 2 slabs of sweet-savory :-) basic steps 1. Build a cure/brine .... for 3 lbs of pork belly you need 3.5 g Prague Powder #1


    So I bought 12 pounds of pork belly, cut it into 1 pound chunks, cured 3 pounds each using 4 different recipes and smoked them all on hickory. Here were my results.

    My Hot & Sweet

    3.5 grams Prague Powder #1
    4 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
    3 teaspoons ground black pepper
    3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
    3/4 cup distilled water
    3/4 cup dark maple syrup
    2 tablespoons paprika
    1/2 tablespoon chipotle powder
    1/2 tablespoon chili powder

    I used my own as the "control" because I know I like it. What I like about this recipe is that the bacon nicely balances hot, sweet and rich. I’ve used this bacon in burgers, Brussels sprouts, and my favorite, bacon wrapped scallops.

    ecowper’s Maple Whiskey

    3.5 grams Prague Powder #1
    4 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
    4 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
    2 cloves garlic (or 1 tsp minced garlic)
    3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
    3/4 cup distilled water
    1/2 cup dark maple syrup
    2 tbsp whiskey (I used a bottle of Brimstone Whiskey from Texas)

    This bacon was great! In my experience, maple bacon can be very sweet. Where I add heat to my recipe to balance the maple sweetness, ecowper uses whiskey. I suspected that the whiskey might overpower the maple but I actually didn’t detect a lot of the whiskey in the final product (probably because I used hickory chunks in the smoke and because the whiskey I used was well balanced). The whiskey did add a nice warmth, though, and did nicely balance the maple. I will make this again (although I may get crazy by adding even more whiskey!)

    Modified version of ecowper’s Sweet & Savory

    3.5 grams Prague Powder #1
    4 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
    4 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
    4 bay leaves, crumbled
    1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
    1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
    1 teaspoon rosemary
    1/2 cup honey
    1 cup distilled water

    I modified ecowper’s recipe because I didn’t have thyme or juniper berries and somehow skipped over the garlic from his recipe (oops!). Instead, I added cinnamon and rosemary because the cure reminded me of a perfect autumn afternoon. The nutmeg really stood out in this recipe. I’ll be trying it in a sweet potato hash next weekend. The cinnamon didn’t register. While I was pretty happy with the results, next time I’ll either stay closer to ecowper’s recipe (particularly the juniper berries) or add more cinnamon and other autumn spices. I bet ecowper’s version is much better.

    Honey, Jalapeño, Pepper (based on Ahumadora’s recommendation)

    3.5 grams Prague Powder #1
    4 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
    7 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
    1/2 cup honey
    1 cup distilled water
    1/2 jalapeño, de-seeded, chopped

    Ahumadora recommended the combination of honey, pepper and jalapeño and I made it by modifying Meathead’s base recipe to increase the pepper, using the honey/distilled water combo that I modified from ecowper’s Sweet & Savory recipe and adding 1/2 a jalapeño. This combination was great. The honey was sweet without needing to be balanced like maple syrup, the pepper hit me at the beginning of the bite and the jalapeño added a nice kick at the end to remind me that it was there. I may add more jalapeño and pepper next time.

    Here is a picture of all that wonderful bacon. Some of these chunks will make perfect gifts…if I don't eat them first!

    Click image for larger version

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    #2
    Bumby I never thought I would find my long lost brother! Do you need my address

    Comment


    • Bumby
      Bumby commented
      Editing a comment
      Cheers, man! I got a lot of family (some which I don't want to have)...but can always use more customers

    #3
    Beautiful looking bacon. I’m going to try your recipes. Thanks for the write up.

    Comment


    • Bumby
      Bumby commented
      Editing a comment
      Thanks Donw! I certainly can't take credit for the recipes -- only made a few tweaks to others' recipes!

    #4
    Click image for larger version

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    Last week did a belly and through the week I have had goodness. Still plenty left.

    Comment


    • Bumby
      Bumby commented
      Editing a comment
      Looks great!

    • tbob4
      tbob4 commented
      Editing a comment
      Thanks Bumby. It was a bit of Meathead's recipe and a bit of ecowper 's. I had the peppers from the backyard in it. Didn't let it cure as long as usual. Lost some flavor as a result.

    • Bumby
      Bumby commented
      Editing a comment
      I've had the same results if I don't let it cure as long as usual - great but not the same. I wonder whether the bacons produced from shorter cure periods would be better for "bacon burnt ends..." I think I may have part of the basis for Bacon Lab II. Thanks tbob4!

    #5
    Ohhh myyy. Delicious

    Comment


      #6
      Awesome write up brother! Thank you for your time. Good stuff.

      Comment


        #7
        Way to go!

        Comment


          #8
          You just added to my list of things to do. Great write up. Thanks.

          Comment


            #9
            Very nice! I like the autumn take on bacon ..... I think I’ll riff on that recipe next bacon go round.

            Comment


            • Bumby
              Bumby commented
              Editing a comment
              Nice! Curious what you do. I didn't quite hit the mark on autumn bacon...

            #10
            Great write up & what could be better than bacon & flowers.

            Comment


            • HawkerXP
              HawkerXP commented
              Editing a comment
              Bacon, flowers and Beer!

            • Bumby
              Bumby commented
              Editing a comment
              Darn right!

            #11
            Bumby Glad you liked the jalapeño /pepper as much as I do. I have a pork belly defrosting at the moment to make bacon for a BBQ class next Monday. Going to try something a little different and make bacon jalapeño/honey/pepper burnt ends. Using basically the same recipe then cubing, coating with Memphis dust, smoking then finishing drowning them in a baking tray with honey and peach jam until they are soft n gooey .

            Comment


            • Bumby
              Bumby commented
              Editing a comment
              Thanks again! I keep meaning to do that. Do you cure the belly ends first?

            #12
            Hi There!

            What do you use for kitchen scales that can measure 3.5 grams? My scales only measure in grams, not fractions of grams. I need new scales, what does everyone use for accurate kitchen scales? Thanks!!

            Comment


            • Bigdave72
              Bigdave72 commented
              Editing a comment
              you can get pretty cheap digital scales that will do points of grams

            #13
            Bumby, that write up and that last photo were a try masterpiece. Bravo my good man, bravo !!! I hit the FOLLOWED key on this one.

            Comment


            • Bumby
              Bumby commented
              Editing a comment
              Thank you, sir! I'm humbled!

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