Wet Brine Questions For Thin Sliced Pork Shoulder To Become Bacon

[llbooth]

INTRO: I am a new member.
I am old enough to have participated in the Asian War games in the 1960's with little grilling experience. I mostly do what my Dad did, which was build a hot fire, then let the cooler coals do the cooking. But I have become an educated kitchen cook, and I am not uncomfortable with sous vide cooking, or thermometers. Now I want to make bacon.

ISSUE: I came across a new product in my bulk food store, Thin Sliced Boneless Pork Shoulder. It is a fully de-boned pork shoulder wrapped in sturdy plastic. It is easy to see the slices and they appear to be about one quarter inch thick. The Market Rep said that they were laser sliced, and are sold by the pound but only for the whole shoulder.
I am familiar with a recipe for Tocino (Philippine home-made bacon), which uses thin sliced pork in 1 kilo (2.2 pound) batches. My thought was that I could make regular bacon by using a wet brine and smoking the slices in stacked bunches. Then freezing the bulk for later.
My problem? How long to brine a 13 pound shoulder that is already sliced? The calculations for thickness may apply, but in the P.I. the meat is massaged and rotated frequently to get the brine every where. And the brine time, for that, is 24-72 hours. Will I over brine (Can I over brine?) the meat if I leave it in the brine for a long time? [I am thinking that the slices even stacked may decrease the amount of time needed.] I will brine it in a 20 quart food standard plastic container with a lid. I can keep that cool in the garage where the temperature this time of year is 34 to 40 degrees F. 13 pounds of bacon would likely last a while, so, once a year?
There are suggestions to soak the pork after it is out of the brine to "release" unneeded salt. Is that correct?
I want to use an approved pork brine for the bacon, and I see some recipes here. I will use the Prague Powder #1 as I value my life and the lives of my family. But aside from the T-day turkey, I have never brined anything, or tried to make my own bacon. But I am looking forward to it.

[Oakgrovebacon]

I would do a test run of 2 or 3 lbs and freeze the rest to await results. I have always brined or cured bacon in whole slabs the sliced after smoking. Hopefully someone else can answer your sliced brine time.

[pkadare]

If you haven't already bought this yet, my advice would be to pass on it and source an unsliced pork belly. If this is really the route you want to go, here are some links I managed to dig up.

http://cookingwithmichele.com/2012/12/curing-sliced-pork-belly-rashers-of-bacon/

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/curing-sliced-pork-belly-question.180525/

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/sliced-pork-belly-any-suggestions.246624/

[llbooth]

Thanks pkadare, those were some well researched answers. I appreciate the effort you went through.

[llbooth]

>.. I have reviewed both of the responses, and decided to go a slightly different path. I have ordered some bacon curing mix from High Mountain. I plan to do 5 pounds as if it were solid, not sliced. I will treat it to prolonged immersion in the wet brine, by the calculator as if it was solid. I am afraid that if I treat it faster, the cure may not reach all the way through the meat. The remaining meat will be packed into 5 pound bunches, and frozen, except for the less than 5 pound remainder, which I will make into tocino (Philippine home style bacon), which we all love.
>.. I cannot use the calculator until the meat is stacked for curing as I don't know the dimensions, yet. I won't buy the meat until I get the brining package, so the meat is not taking up space in my refrigerator.
>.. Then rinse off the fully cured pork and realign the slices into one stack, which I will fix together with some steel flat-sided shish-ka-bob sticks, and warm smoke it as if it were one slab, by using indirect heat on one side of the Weber, and a smoke stick (metal tube with holes, filled with hickory pellets and lit at one end) under the meat, until the center of the stack reaches the appropriate temperature. I will be using two thermometers, one for the Weber, and one inserted into the center of the meat.

>.. Does that seem reasonable?

[smokin fool]

I brought a pork belly with the intention of curing bacon but finding the pink curing salt was problematic.
But I'll tell you what, the burnt ends I subbed in were second place to nothing.

[DesertRaider]

smokin fool , I got my curing salt off amazon. Nobody I could find around here had it, which is why I went online.

[johnec00]

FWIW, Stuffers Supply Company has pink curing salt (Prague Powder #1) in Canada.

https://www.stuffers.com/prague-powder-p/rcuprague1.htm

[llbooth]

>.. Belay my last! I some times write in the forums without thinking. I asked for help and then decided that I knew better than those I asked for help. My apologies to pkadare and oakgrovebacon. Both have given good responses to my question, and pkadare did some serious research trying to help me.

>.. What I have really done: I did not buy that sliced shoulder. I bought a boneless pork shoulder roast from Walmart. I opened it up, and continued the slice so that I had two pieces about 2-2 1/2 high, and about 10x9 inches across. One weighed in at 3.5 pounds and the other at just over 3 pounds. I used the Hi Mountain Buckboard Bacon Cure that I got on Amazon. I added 18 grams of the cure per pound. (I find weighing much easier than spooning measures once I get above the 1 pound level.) And massaged the cure into each piece of the meat, keeping it all together in a pan for each piece.
>.. I put the two pieces of meat into separate one gallon bags, burped out most of the air, and they are now resting on a shelf in my refrigerator. They went in on the 21st and will come out on the 1st of January. I massage them again, and turn them daily. The directions do not require this level of attention, but it is my first time, and I want to see what is happening.

>.. Immediate future plans: My Wife is giving me a Slow And Sear, SNS, device for my Weber, for my big Christmas Present, and I intend to use it for the slow indirect heat that he shows in his video. I have some hickory pellets and an Amazing Tube smoker device to put the pellets into, and ignite for the smoke side. If you don't know the name, it is a piece of steel tubing with a couple of hundred holes in it, closed off at one end and open at the other. I will fill it with the pellets and then ignite the open end with a propane torch. once left alone, it smoulders, and smoke is produced. I intend to put it under the meat. I do have a multi pronged thermometer, so I can manage the fire until the met is done, and Hi Mountain says that is at 140 degrees F, internal.

>.. More later, including some pictures of the end product, and a taste review.

[Thunder77]

Buckboard bacon is pretty awesome! I think you made a good decision. I made some buck board bacon earlier this year, and my whole family liked it. You will love the Slow n Sear as well!