Bacon

[bmader]

I'm fairly new to smoking and am about to do my first bacon. I'm looking at the amazingribs bacon recipe for a 1 3/4 inch thick 3 pound belly. It says to cure in the refrigerator for 3-4 days, but when I use the amazingribs "Calculator" it indicates only 1.5 days. Most other websites talk about 5 to 7 days or even longer. This is confusing. Could someone give me some guidance?
Thanks

[rickgregory]

1.5 days feels... inadequate. I use a dry cure, though, so I can't give you advice directly. But it's about bacon, so someone will be along I'm sure.

[Red Man]

You’re doing something wrong with the calculator. When I enter 1.75 inch thickness, flat shape, it says 4.1 days.

[rickgregory]

Like him, I got 1.4 days. If you leave it at 125ppm, enter 3lbs, flat, 1.75inches with 1 gallon of liquid, you will get 1.4 days. I'm using this calculator: https://amazingribs.com/tested-recip...g-meats-safely

[Red Man]

I used that calculator with the same numbers as you rickgregory . I get 4.1 days. Possibly a site software issue, are you sure you get 1.4 days?

[Red Man]

The ppm and liquid amount do not affect the time in the calculator. Only the thickness and shape affects the time.

[Sweaty Paul]

1.5 days seems like not enough to me. Did you get your ppm of nitrite in properly? I had that pop on me a couple times and re-entered and then it was better.

I'm sure more experienced folks will be along in a bit to give some more advice. Looking forward to learning along with you.

[rickgregory]

Ok, I see the problem. You HAVE TO move the PPM slider. You can move it back to 125ppm, but if you don't move it to a new value, it doesnt see the ppm value and calculate correctly. Once I did that, it gives 4.1 days.


Meathead, Huskee - you probably want to fix this.

[Jerod Broussard]

The instructions say to move the slider. What needs to be fixed?

[Red Man]

I did not have to move the slider to get 4.1 days.

[rickgregory]

@Jerod Broussard

A UI that relies on people reading everything is not well designed, though. To the user, It appears a value is set, but if the form doesn't actually read it until you move the slider... that's a code/UI issue; you should not need to adjust it if you actually want that setting.

Also, there's no reason for it to be a slider. Like everything else, it should just be a text box, though I understand that the slider keeps people from typing "125ppm" in.

[rickgregory]

AHHH I see what's happening.

1. If you enter in values and hit tab (or click to the next form field to enter something there), you get to the thickness value.
2. If you then type in 1.75 for the thickness (in this case) and simply scroll down without hitting tab, you see 1.4 days because it hasn't picked up the new value of 1.75. it's still using the default value of 1.
3. If you hit tab, it enters the value of 1.75 and updates correctly.

Basically, it's reading values when the focus changes from one form field to the next. But the thickness field is the last one and there's no reason for the user to hit tab to get to a new field or to click anywhere.

The problem is that since there are default values, the calculator returns a result using those which is fine, until you get to the last field.

There are two possible solutions:

1. Leave the values blank in each form field so that it cannot calculate a result (and thus show a confusingly incorrect result) and read the new value on change (i.e. when the value is changed, even if the user never tabs to a new field).

OR

2. Add a "Calculate it!" button that updates the form with the new values and calculates a result.

[Red Man]

Hmm, I’m using an iPhone and as soon as the thickness value is entered the curing time is updated.

[rickgregory]

Interesting. I tried it on safari and chrome on my Mac. Didnt try the iPhone.

If I were building that, I'd simply leave the fields blank and read values on change, vs having default values that will almost certainly need to be changed anyway

[DavidNorcross]

For a 3Lb belly you can also reference this recipe.

https://amazingribs.com/best-maple-bacon-recipe

[bmader]

Thank you, everyone, for your quick replies. I appreciate it.
Brian

[Mr. Bones]

Good luck with yer bacon, Brother!

Lookin forward to yer results...

[Sweaty Paul]

See, quick responses! Looking forward to seeing the results!