Makin' Bacon, Again!

You know, when you have a big bag of Basic Dry Cure just sitting around in the cupboard, well, you have to do something with it...

I acquired a ten pound slab of pork belly, which I cut into three about-equal pieces.

My first attempt at making bacon at home is posted here.

The first thing I did was see just how much 30 grams of dry cure looked like -- and it was much less than a 1/4 cup scoop!  No wonder my first attempt at bacon was too salty!  I put on probably close to 50 grams of cure the first time, then another 50 grams after I accidentally dumped the liquid.

I decided to do the flavored bacon, and I chose to make one sweet and two savory.

Sweet:  The sweet one used a mixed of basic dry cure (30 grams) and 125 grams of brown sugar, as suggested by the authors of Charcuterie.

Savory 1:  The first savory had 30 grams of the dry cure mixed with approximately 5 garlic cloves, crushed in a mortar along with 3 bay leaves.  I also put in 10 grams of peppercorns some of which were lightly crushed between two cast iron skillets.  Note to self:  Roll the skillet that is crushing.  Don't pound with it!  Unless, of course, you want to have tiny peppercorns flying all over like popping corn.

Savory 2:  The second savory one had 30 grams of the dry cure mixed with approximately 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, and 7 springs of fresh marjoram. This mixture was wonderfully fragrant, as was first savory mix.

I put them each in their own big bag and popped into the little refrigerator.  I made a note on the calendar to "overhaul" them every two days:  this is turning the meat over and allowing the cure to redistribute around the meat.

The first time I went to overhaul them, I found a large puddle of sticky liquid all around the outside of the refrigerator.  I was surprised because I made an effort to make sure all the bags were zipped closed.  It turns out the sweet cure mixture's bag had one little part that was not fully closed, and so it leaked all over.  Grrr.  I decided to just close up the bag and not add anything else.  I still overhauled it every other day as directed.  The other two bags were fine.

I left them to cure for 14 days this time.  The book recommends a week but I have read in other places that it is okay to keep curing it longer.  The bacon might be salty from this length of time, but I am willing to find out.

On Day 14, I pulled them from the cure, rinsed them well, and patted them dry.  The meat was firm, so they seemed properly cured.  (I hope!)

The two savories, pre-smoking.

The sweet, sitting atop the savories, pre-smoking.

A friend was willing to smoke them for me.  He used charcoal, got the smoker to 200 degrees F, and slow smoked them until their internal temperature was 150 degrees F.  He used applewood chips, and it took 2 hours and 10 minutes to get the bacon to temperature.

Oh, the scent!  It was lovely!  They looked good, too.

In order, left to right:  Savory 2, Brown Sugar, Savory 1

The Verdict

I tasted them while they were still warm from the smoker.

Savory 1 was strongly peppery -- the peppercorn flavor was dominant, and while I couldn't distinctly taste the garlic and bay leaf, I could tell there was an undercurrent of "other" flavors playing with the pepper.

Savory 2 was mildly peppery.  Actually, it blended with the other flavors nicely to give a pleasant savory flavor that went well with the smoke flavor.

Brown Sugar was mildly sweet--remember that a lot of the cure leaked out--but still flavorful.  I would like to try it again without a leaky bag!

I liked them all, as they were.  Next up:  frying up the slices to see how those taste.

I did try to cut off the rind but found that I was cutting off meat, too.  I decided that the rind was really just fat and I didn't need to worry about it.  Why waste tasty food?  I am not sure what the rind actually should look like and what was there was not chewy.  Perhaps I will find out about it some day.

The taste test for fried bacon was conducted by me and one guest taster.

Top two:  Savory 2, next: Brown Sugar, bottom: Savory 1

I found it hard to cut the slices reasonably thin, so I slow-cooked them to make sure they were cooked all the way.

We both liked all three flavors, although we agreed the brown sugar version was unremarkable.  I would like to try it again some time without a leaky bag.  I thought my guest taster's favorite would be Savory 1 because its flavors were so bold, but he liked Savory 2 best, as did I.  I liked the boldness of Savory 1 (the garlic and pepper really stood out) but thought Savory 2 had a better balance of flavors.  No one ingredient in Savory 2 stood out; it was all just a lovely blend.

None of the bacon flavors were too salty, for which I was grateful.  I would do all of these again and look forward to experimenting with other flavor combinations.

Success!

Now I have about 5 pounds of home-cured bacon in my freezer, and the person who did the smoking has 3 pounds.  Yes, I got about 8 pounds of cured bacon from a 10 pound pork belly.  I think this was a good result, and I am happy to have it all.