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:
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!
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:
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!
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