Need bacon advice

[goosebr160]

So far, my first attempt at bacon is off to a rough start. I took the pork belly out of the bag and immediately discovered the skin was still attached. I got the skin off, but I completely butchered the meat in the process.
My initial plan was to cure it for 5 days and smoke it Saturday. Now that I've removed the skin, the meat is only 1 inch thick. According to the calculator, total cure time should be 1.4 days.
Is it ok to keep it in the cure for longer? If so, how much longer can I go? Once I remove it from the cure, how long do I have before I have to smoke it? Will it still be ok to smoke over the weekend?
Its not going to be the prettiest bacon, but hopefully it still tastes good!

[RonB]

Once the salts in the water reach equilibrium with the salts in the meat, no more will be absorbed. So going a few extra days will not hurt.

[Spinaker]

You can keep the meat in the cure for about 25% longer than the recommended amount of time.

As Meathead states in his article on the The Science of Curing Meats Safely, "The calculator will tell you how long to leave the meat in the cure. You can go 25% longer than the minimum time if you wish, but don't push it any more. The longer it is in the cure the greater the chance of contamination." For that reason, I would not go over 25% longer. Even more on the subject from Dr. Blonder can be found in his article, Science of Nitrite Curing Levels.

Once removed from the cure , you can wait to smoke it for a few days.

[Livermoron]

May not be the prettiest, but still better than what you can get in the store!

[goosebr160]

Well everything ended up working out great timing wise. I ended up getting home early today so I was able to smoke it immediately after removing from the cure. Fried up a few strips to sample when it was done. Absolutley amazing!

[Huskee]

It's so good right off the smoker, then you fry it....and man oh man....

[goosebr160]

Yup. I probably lost half a pound to picking while I was slicing. It was so good!

[Fire Art]

Dang pickers and I’m the worse

[jecucolo]

I gave bacon as a Christmas present last year to my work friends. One fella liked it so much he asked for "my" recipe. Of course I shared it with him and told him to go to AR. Well he makes it all the time now. We affectionately call it the "gateway meat".