Bacon

Ragnar

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How important is it to use pink curing salt or sodium nitrate when curing pork bellies for the smoker? Right now it is curing in course kosher salt.
 


Kickemup

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Not sure about how important but if you don't use the cure it will have a nasty looking gray color to it when cooked.
 

2400

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I'm not sure how to cure bacon so I'm no help here.

But since you brought up BACON I'm gonna cook up a half a pound or so and some eggs with it for breakfast.

THANKS for the great idea.

Hope your bacon comes out great.
 

Fly Carpin

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As mentioned, it gives the meat that nice pink color, rather than a greyish-brown hue. But more importantly, sodium nitrite (Instacure #1, Prague powder #1, Pink salt #1) and sodium nitrate (All the #2s and Morton's Tenderquick) kill Clostridium botulinum. Botulism. Nobody wants that in their bacon. And if you're smoking, the meat is spending a good chunk of time in the "no zone" between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. I'd say go the pink salt route, but that's just me.
 

eyexer

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if you really want to know everything there is about smoking get on facebook and join the group "smoking meat low and slow". Some expert smokers on there.
 


Fly Carpin

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"You should get meat smoking advice on Facebook" said one guy one time, much to everyone else's chagrin
 

MuskyManiac

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Yes, you want to use curing salt #1 for bacon. It is what gives bacon the pink color and the "cured" flavor, much like ham. You need to use specific amounts for bacon since you are putting it directly on the belly and not in a solution. You use less than you would think. To much nitrates may not be very good for you.
 

elkeater

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Try Buckboard Bacon cure from Hi-Mountain, Scheels usually handles it. It makes great bacon and can be used for pork butts also, it comes with step by step instructions for curing and smoking.
 


tikkalover

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Do you grind the pork butts and form the mixture into a loaf pan?
 

elkeater

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No, just remove the bone following the provided instructions and rub the cure on it and set in fridge for 10 days turning over at 5 days, rinse, smoke following very good instructions. They have their instructions on their website, himtnjerky.com under FAQ and instructions. Both the pork butts and bacons have turned out very good for me, there is instructions for pork loin to make Canadian bacon but I haven't tried that yet.
 

NodakBuckeye

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If you want to have the characteristic pink color, you need the instacure. Instacure #1 is sodium nitrite and is for meats being brined then cooked. Instacure #2 is sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate and is for cold smoked meats, dry cure and dry aging. Both prevent growth of C. Botulinum. If your pork bellies/shoulders are brining now, do not use Morton Tenderquick unless you want a salt lick. I stoped using Tender Quick so I could control salt more. Morton sells salt, they will gladly sell you 2 lb bags of the stuff to move more salt.

You need 1 tsp instacure #1 for every 5 lbs meat. When I brine brisket to make corned beef, I usually brine it for 7-10 in the fridge. Salt aids in preservation by lowering water activity level but will not kill C. Botulinum and the little buggers cannot have oxygen and live. Your current batch will have pink edges from smoking it, but will be grey in the center once cooked. It will still taste good. Assuming you have kept it chilled below 40° while brining and then smoke until cooked thru- 150-160°, should be good to go.
 
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Traxion

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I did my first bacon batches this winter and they turned out great. I used Tenderquick at 1TBS per pound. Cut them into 1 pound chunks, rubbed with the TQ, then sealed in a bag. Let them sit for 1 day per 1/2" of thickness plus a couple days. Usually 6-7 day cure, flipping once during that time. Then, rinse VERY WELL. Fry up a test piece and check for saltiness. If needed, soak them in water for an hour. Mine were all good once I rinsed them well. Then, put on the pellet smoker at 160 degrees. Pulled them about 3 hours later at 130 degrees. Let them sit over night in the fridge, then sliced.

The stuff is unbelievable how good it is. Simple process too. I just want to get another hog on order so I have more bellies to work with!

Good luck! And definitely use the cure!
 

Glass

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I am going to try to post a multi page "how to" on bacon that I have been following for a few years now. There is a lot of good information in it. If there is a way to put an attachment into this thread, let me know.

- - - Updated - - -

How to Make Bacon from Scratch
Bacon. It has a wonderful place in human history. Humans have eaten it for thousands of years, traded it as a staple of economies, and most recently, turned it into an internet meme. It’s no mystery why we have a love affair with Bacon. It’s the Christina Hendricks of meat products. The smell of bacon soothes a crying infant. Vegetarians make exceptions for bacon. Bacon is the closest we can get to empirically proving the existence of God. Bacon, for lack of a better word, is The Shit.
All the aforementioned could be said about store-bought bacon. The thing is, I had heard whispers that bacon from scratch—cured, smoked, and cut at home—puts store-bought bacon to profound shame. I didn’t think it was possible to improve on perfection, but I had to find out. And so I bravely set out to into the unknown to discover the lost art of homemade bacon, by which I mean I turned off Extreme Home Makeover, got off my ass and looked it up online.
Let me say straight away that my culinary skills are average at best. But like my ping-pong game, they inexplicably improve with drinking. And so, after reading up, I decided to crack a beer and make some homemade bacon. I discovered that not only is it remarkably easy and cheap, it results in bacon so insanely good you’ll wonder if Jesus came down and pissed on your tongue.
Here’s how you do it.
Step 1: Purchase
Head on down to your local butcher shop. If you don’t know a local butcher, I suggest using a service such as The Internet to locate one. If you don’t have The Internet, then you have bigger things to worry about than making bacon from scratch. Also, you couldn’t even be reading this right now. Moving on.
Ask the butcher for pork belly: it arrives in slabs about 20-30 inches long and about 8 inches across: you’ll recognize them from their familiar bacon-esque cross section. They cost around $3.50 a pound, and you’ll probably want a quarter slab—a piece weighing about 4 to 5 pounds. Make sure the pork belly has the rind (the skin) ON. If you want to be a perfectionist, call your butcher and ask when they get the pork bellies in. Should be once a week. Go on that day to ensure you get the freshest meat.
Once you’ve picked out your pork belly, pay for it and take it home. This part is obvious.
Step 2: Cure
This is also easy. Curing, back in the day, was the way people preserved meats without refrigeration. You see, cured cells exert osmotic pressure that prevents undesirable micro… you know what? Nevermind. Point is that nowadays, since we have crazy inventions like electricity, curing is no longer used to preserve. Instead, it’s used as a way of enhancing flavor, as curing extracts much of the water content from the meat’s cells thereby intensifying the flavors. To cure your pork belly, rub that bitch down with something akin to the following.
4 cups Kosher salt
2 cups brown sugar (for flavor, cuts the salt)
You can add a variety of things to this rub: black pepper, garlic, ground bay leaves, mermaid tears, angel farts, whatever. Use your imagination. What flavors you add will come through in the meat. Now use ALL the rub to cover the pork belly, then stick it in a zip lock bag, and put it in the fridge. Then kick back, relax, check your email, watch the game, make a Bed, Bath and Beyond run, and just generally live your life for the next 7 days. Check on it periodically, maybe turning it over and draining any accumulated liquid.
After that week, pull it out, rinse it off, pat it dry. You’ll notice it looks a lot like, well, cured meat.
Now you’re going to leave it in the fridge, uncovered, for a day. Why? The pork belly needs to form a pellicle. “Forming the pellicle” sounds like a military assault tactic, but it’s actually way worse: the pellicle is a tacky, gooey layer that forms on the outside of the meat after curing. Kind of gnarly, but it is essential for the next step.
Step 3: Smoke
Smoking is the final step, and the trickiest one. It imparts that necessary smoky bacon flavor, and helps give the meat that perfect bacon texture. Good news is, if you have a BBQ, it’s fairly easy to accomplish. If you don’t, well, use your friend’s BBQ. If you don’t have any friends with a BBQ, use the internet to find a DIY smoker plan. If you don’t have any friends period, well, I’m sorry, that sucks. Maybe you should get out more.
The key here is that you are only smoking your bacon, not cooking it. You don’t want your pork belly exposed to direct heat, so use about half the coals you normally would, move them all the way to the side, and toss a few pieces of wood (hickory, maple) soaked in water for half an hour on top to produce good smoke. You don’t want the temperature inside the smoker to get above about 200 degrees (use a meat thermometer). Place the pork belly inside, rind side up. That sticky pellicle will help the smokey flavor adhere to the meat. Close the lid up, and keep the smoke coming out the vent nice and ample for the next two hours, by adding the necessary briquettes and wood chunks. It’ll take about 2 hours for a proper smoke, so hang out by the grill for a while and do something enjoyable, like drinking beer or watching bunnies mate.
After about 2 hours, pull it out, and cut the skin away while it’s still warm, taking care to leave as much fat underneath as possible.
Now, if you have done things correctly, you will be holding in your hand the something that’s damn near divine. Cut slices off the pork belly to the thickness you prefer, cook over low heat to your desired floppy/crispy level. It’ll keep for a week in the fridge, or months if frozen.
Final point: when you cook your homemade bacon in the pan, you’ll have a healthy, er, substantial amount of melted fat left in the pan. DO NOT THROW THIS AWAY. Bacon fat is amazingly tasty, and you’d be throwing away the equivalent of white, creamy gold. Instead, pour it into a heat-resistant container and store it in the fridge. You can use it for a bunch of stuff. You like fried eggs? Instead of greasing the pan with butter, try bacon fat. Next time you make popcorn, drizzle a little melted bacon fat on instead. Anything that calls for oil or butter, try bacon fat. Pastas, salad dressings, even toast. The uses are endless, as are the rewards. You may never go back.
Maple Bacon
INGREDIENTS

  • 2 1/2 to 3 pounds of thick, center cut pork belly (skinless)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • 1 tablespoon bourbon
  • 2 tablespoons coarse salt
  • 1 teaspoon curing salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
If Oven Smoking

  • 3 tablespoons of real liquid hickory smoke
DIRECTIONS

  1. Rinse the belly and thoroughly pat it dry until the surface is tacky. Trim off any thin edges so that the piece is one long rectangle.
  2. In a large, rectangular baking dish or pan, mix the sugar with the maple and bourbon until thoroughly incorporated. Then mix in the 2 tablespoons of salt, curing salt, and pepper and rub it evenly into the meat (like a relaxing, porcine spa treatment), spreading it evenly around the sides as well as the top and bottom. Tuck the meat, encased in all of the rub, carefully inside a sealable plastic bag (gallon sized will work, but oversized are better if you can find them) and lay it flat in the refrigerator for 7 days, massaging the liquids that will amass inside the bag into the meat and flipping it daily.
  3. After 7 days, inspect your bacon. It should be firm to the touch all over, like touching a cooked steak — a sign that it has been cured. If the flesh still feels spongy and soft in spots, leave the meat in the bag and sprinkle it evenly with an additional 2 tablespoons salt and check it again after 1 or 2 days.
  4. Once the bacon is fully cured, discard the solids, rinse the meat well, and pat it completely dry. The next step to giving bacon that familiar flavor is the addition of smoke.
Smoking

  1. Smoke in your grill or smoker using your favorite wood until the meat reaches 150°F (you must check with a meat thermometer).
Roasting and Liquid Smoke

  1. Heat the oven to 200°F. Place the belly, fat side up, on a rack over a roasting pan and roast for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until the interior temperature of the meat reaches 150°F (you must check with a meat thermometer). Gently brush the liquid smoke over the entirety of the bacon, covering both sides evenly.
Homemade Maple-Espresso Bacon


  • Unsliced homemade bacon pulled right from the smoker. The house smelled incredible!
But without a doubt, one of my favorite ways to use homemade bacon, since it has the right amount of firm meat, is for lardons–those marvelous little creatures that can be sprinkled on salads, tossed in coq au vin, folded in doughs, or eaten out of hand. If there is one thing I want you to take away from this post—the one lesson that Fatty Daddy can give you is this—YOU CAN MAKE BACON AT HOME. You must make bacon at home. It’s an imperative—that is, if you love bacon. Sure, you need some sort of smoker, but your tiny rusty Weber grill that you wheel out into the middle of the driveway every weekend can work. Trust me. Now go forth and start makin’ bacon.
Homemade Maple-Espresso Bacon

You’ve heard this a million times, but when it’s crucial to find a great butcher, one you can talk to and explain all the odd things you’re doing and how he or she can help. Once a butcher knows you’re not a dilettante but really care about what you’re cooking, you’ll have a friend for life. The new blood-stained love of my life is my butcher, Christy Buso of the Meat Center in Watertown, CT. Whenever I call, she’s never daunted, just challenged. She gave be some excellent pieces of pork belly for this recipe. The One is jealous.
Pink salt, is a curing salt (made of 94% plain ole salt and 6% sodium nitrite) that does a few special things to meat: It changes the flavor, preserves the bacon’s red color, prevents fats from developing rancid flavors, and—most importantly in home curing—prevents many strains of bacteria from growing. It’s sold under various brand names, such as Tinted Curing Mix or T.C.M., DQ Curing Salt, Prague Powder #1, Curing Salt #1, and Insta-Cure Salt # 1. Do not buy Insta-Cure Salt #2, which is used for air-cured meats that aren’t cooked, such as pepperoni, hard salami, Genoa salami, prosciutto ham, dried farmer’s sausage, capicola, etc.
Homemade Maple-Espresso Bacon Recipe

Ingredients


  • 5 to 6 pounds skinless pork belly (make sure the pork belly is trimmed to an even thickness and doesn’t taper at the ends)
  • 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • 1/4 cup kosher salt
  • 1/4 cup instant espresso powder
  • 2 teaspoons Cure salt #1, also known as Prague Powder #1 or Curing Salt #1
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup water
  • Hickory or applewood sawdust, chips, chunks, or bisquettes
Directions


  • 1. Rinse and pat the pork belly dry. Trim any scraggly edges so the pork belly forms a neat rectangle. Save the scraps for sausage, if desired. (Who in his right mind doesn’t desire sausage?)
  • 2. In a medium bowl, mix the brown sugar, maple syrup, salt, espresso powder, curing salt, pepper, and enough water to make a sludgy mess. Using your hands, slather the mixture all over the pork belly, turning to coat all sides. Slip the floppy belly into a large resealable plastic bag and seal it. Fit the belly, in its bag, into a baking dish and then slide the whole thing into the fridge. Refrigerate for 7 days, making sure to flip the bag and massage the liquid that accumulates in the bag into the pork belly once a day.
  • 3. After 7 days, remove the pork belly from the bag, rinse it thoroughly under cool running water, and pat it lightly dry. Set up your smoker, Charcoal grill, or gas grill for hot smoking using sawdust, chips, chunks, or Bradley bisquettes.
  • 4. Smoke the meat in your smoker (or, if using a charcoal or gas grill, over indirect heat) making sure to keep the temperature at 200°F (93°C), until the internal temperature of the bacon registers 150°F (65°C), roughly 3 to 4 1/2 hours, give or take some time depending on the size of your pork belly and the exact temperature of your smoker. [If you don’t have the means to smoke the pork belly, you can make the bacon by brushing the fatty side with liquid smoke and then baking it in a 200°F (93°C) oven until it reaches an internal temperature of 150°F (65°C).] Remove the bacon from the smoker and let it rest until it’s cool enough to handle.
  • 5. Grab a sharp knife, slice the cooled bacon as thickly or as thinly as you please, and cook it up any way you want it. I can’t resist sizzling it up in a skillet. Wrap the rest tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 1 week or freeze it for up to 2 months.
Homemade Brown Sugar and Black Pepper Bacon Recipe

Ingredients:
¼ cup salt
½ cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoons coarse black pepper
½ teaspoon ground bay
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
½ teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon of pink salt cure (cure #1)
3-4 pounds fresh pork belly
Before we get too deep into the recipe I am sure some of you are wondering – what in the stinking heck is pink salt (Cure #1)? First let me tell you what is it NOT. It is NOT Pink Himalayan Salt. That stuff is great but it won’t do anything to make bacon.
Pink salt or Cure #1 as it is called is more than just salt. It also contains 6.25% sodium nitrite. (There is a Cure #2 but they are not interchangeable.) This is NOT table salt and should never ever be used as such. Do NOT I repeat DO NOT eat it raw. It is for curing only and when not in use should not even be left in the confines of your kitchen so that it is not used accidentally to season your French fries.
Besides providing that awesome pinkish color and pure bacon-y taste to the bacon (nitrite free bacon just pretty much tastes like spareribs) sodium nitrite helps inhibit botulism so if you plan on cold smoking (below 100 degrees) do not skip this. If you are oven or hot smoking/baking (above 160 degrees) you can omit it if you hate bacon that much.
Ok. Back to the recipe.
In a plastic container mix the salt, brown sugar, black pepper, bay, garlic, onion and thyme together well. Taste to make sure you like it. You do not HAVE to taste it but if you want to taste it you want to make sure you do it BEFORE you add the pink salt. Remember what I said earlier? It is for curing not for eating. It tastes like BLECH and can make you sick.
Once you have tasted the seasoning and like it add the pink salt (Cure #1) and mix well. This is your cure. Now apply this curing mix all over your pork belly. Push it into the cracks and crevices of the belly. Get the whole thing good and covered.
Now take the seasoned pork belly, lay it in a deep glass baking dish. Cover and place in the refrigerator and forget about it for 7-10 days. You can under cure bacon but you can not over cure bacon. So make sure you leave it at minimum a week.
Ignore the juices and water that accumulate at the bottom of the pan. It is harmless and expected. The cure will also slowly start to disappear but that just means it is working. After 3-4 days (I know I said ignore for 7-10 days but you know you were thinking about that bacon anyway…) flip the pork belly, re-cover and put back in the fridge..
After a week or so remove it from the refrigerator and give it a good smell. Does it smell rancid or rotten? Don’t think twice just toss it away. Sorry but there is no saving rancid meat. Try again and this time make sure the whole thing is good and covered with the cure mixture.
Smell good? Then under cold water rinse off as much of the cure as possible and pat dry.
Planning on smoking it? Then we need to let it sit overnight and let it form the pellicle.
Basically you take the meat and put it on a rack in a pan “suspending the meat” so airflow can hit it on all sides. This dries the surface of the meat out and forms a sticky layer on the outside that helps with smoke penetration.
No smoker? Cook your bacon in the oven. (No need for the pellicle.) Set the oven to 200° and cook it until 155° internal at its thickest part. There are too many variables to give an exact time such as thickness, but expect a good 1.5 hours per lb.
Hot Smoking: Run about 200°-215° and cook until 155° internal at its thickest part. Expect a good 1.5 hours per lb.
Cold Smoking: If you ever wanted to try cold smoking this is the meat to do it. The sodium nitrite makes sure you are not serving botulism ridden death meat. (Jeff wrote that part. See he IS romantic!)
The easiest way we have found for cold smoking is by spending 30 bucks and buy an Amazen tube and follow their instructions. Expect about 3.5-4 hours on the 12 inch tube which means you will have to reload it one time. It works great and is stupid easy.
You can also MacGyver it up with dryer venting (Don’t believe me? Google it)
You want to cold smoke for 7 hours for fruit wood and 6 hours for hickory. This gets good smoke penetration and nice smoky flavor. After your time is up, pull it off, cut off a slice, and fry it up and give a taste. Need more smoke? Throw it on for another hour and try again. Taste AWESOME? You are done. Slice it up and enjoy.
*Pro-tip: Freeze bacon on a foiled cookie pan in a single layer. Once frozen, remove and wrap and return to freezer. You can pull individual slices of bacon out of the freezer whenever you need it.
Maple-Cured Bacon

Ingredients
One 3- to 5-pound pork belly, skin removed
MAPLE RUB:

  • 2 tablespoons dark maple syrup (Grade B or dark amber)
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons kosher salt

  • 1 teaspoon pink curing salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Directions

Pat the belly dry and place into a large plastic bag. Mix together the syrup, sugar, kosher salt, pink curing salt and pepper, and massage into the belly until mostly absorbed. Seal the bag and refrigerate for 7 days.
After 7 days, rinse the belly and pat dry. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
Place the belly, fat-side up, on a rack on a roasting pan and roast until the internal temperature reaches 150 degrees F, about 2 hours.
Slice and cook as desired, or wrap well in plastic wrap and keep for a week in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer.

Smoked Maple Bacon Recipe

Ingredients

  • 2 to 3 pounds/0.9 to 1.3 kg pork belly
  • 1/2 cup/115 ml grade A or B maple syrup
  • 3 tablespoons/45 gr kosher or other coarse, non-iodized salt
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon curing salt (optional)
Nowadays, so few people cure their own bacon or salt pork at home that most butchers don't carry fresh Pork belly. I order mine from a local farm. You can also ask the butcher at your local supermarket if it is possible for them to order it for you. Pork belly is usually a very inexpensive cut.
Steps
Rinse the pork belly under cold water. Pat it dry with paper towels or a clean dishcloth.
Combine the maple syrup, salt, pepper and curing salt (if using) in a small bowl.
Rub the seasoning mixture into all sides of the pork belly, using your scrupulously clean hands. Spend a couple of minutes massaging the seasoning/curing mixture into the meat.
Place the pork belly, along with any leftover curing mixture, into a plastic bag and seal it shut. Store it lengthwise in the refrigerator for 10 to 14 days, turning the bag over occasionally. The bacon should be fully cured at this point, with a firm texture and no soft spots.
Rinse the bacon and again pat it thoroughly dry with paper towels or a clean, dry dishtowel. Roast the cured bacon in a 200F/93C oven until the internal temperature reaches 150F/66C. This should take about 2 hours. Store the bacon in a tightly sealed container or bag in the refrigerator for up to 1 month or in the freezer for up to 1 year.
Or if you prefer, give it a smoked flavor by using one of the two methods below.
Turn It Into Smoked Bacon

  • Using Real Smoke
If you have a smoker, or want to make a simple smoker, you can use that to smoke your bacon. Use hickory or apple wood shavings for the best flavor. Skip the roasting described above and instead smoke the cured bacon until it reaches an internal temperature of 150F/66C, which should take between 1 and 2 hours.

  • Using Liquid Smoke
Alternatively, you can "cheat" by using liquid smoke. If you opt for this version, be sure to buy liquid smoke made from natural (usually hickory) smoke and not one of the harsh-tasting synthetic versions. Roast the cured bacon in a 200F/93C oven until the internal temperature reaches 150F/66C. This should take about 2 hours. Then:
Baste the cured and roasted bacon with the liquid smoke. Use a pastry brush to evenly coat all sides. Place the bacon on a rack over a pan (to catch any liquid smoke drippings) and air dry for 30 minutes. Transfer to a tightly sealed container or bag and refrigerate for up to 1 month, or freeze for up to 1 year.
Homemade Bacon

Ingredients

5 pounds pork belly, skin on
1/4 cup kosher salt
2 teaspoons pink curing salt
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup honey (preferably chestnut honey)
2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons smoked sweet paprika
1 teaspoon cumin seeds

Directions

Rinse the pork belly and pat dry. Transfer to a resealable 2-gallon plastic bag. To make the spice rub, mix the kosher salt, pink salt, brown sugar, honey, red pepper flakes, paprika and cumin in a bowl. Coat the pork belly all over with the mixture.

Close the bag and refrigerate 7 to 10 days, flipping once a day, until the pork belly feels firm. It should take 7 days for a thin belly that is about 11/2 inches thick, longer for a belly that's 2 to 3 inches thick.

Remove the pork belly from the bag, rinse thoroughly and pat dry. Refrigerate the belly on a rack, uncovered, 48 hours.

Set up your smoker according to the manufacturer's instructions using applewood chips, and set to 200 degrees F. Smoke the pork belly 3 hours, or until the bacon reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees F.

Remove the rind (optional), then slice and cook as desired. To store, wrap the bacon in plastic wrap and refrigerate up to 1 week or freeze up to 2 months.

Pink curing salt is a mix of salt and sodium nitrite. It keeps the meat pink and protects it from bacteria. You can find it at specialty food stores or online
 


Fly Carpin

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johnr

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if all else fails, cloverdale has this shit all figured out..
 

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