Had a couple of pieces of belly that have officially become bacon now. The closest place around that has belly on a consistent basis always cuts them down to pieces between 1/2 and 1 lb......no big deal I guess, just makes more packages to deal with. Not sure why they do it that way......my Spanish was not good enough to understand what he told me.
Just happy to have a place nearby that has belly for sale.
Anyhow, I cured a couple of pieces (.60 lbs and .72lbs) using the basic dry cure recipe from Charcuterie for one piece and the basic cure + maple syrup for the other. The basic cure is just kosher salt, dextrose, and pink salt. I forgot to take pictures before I started, but here is how they looked after I smoked them last night. They cured for 6 days if I remember correctly.
Did a hot smoke with hickory......took about 3 hours to hit 150 internal in the little guys. Took them out and cooled them over night and sliced them this evening.
The pic is just of one of them sliced. Finished slicing the other, packaged up all but one slice of each and fried it up for the taste test.
Remarkably, they tasted like bacon. LOL One like regular bacon, and the other like maple flavored. The basic cure in the book would be a good starting place to add other flavors if anyone is looking for a starting point out there.
Anyhow, I cured a couple of pieces (.60 lbs and .72lbs) using the basic dry cure recipe from Charcuterie for one piece and the basic cure + maple syrup for the other. The basic cure is just kosher salt, dextrose, and pink salt. I forgot to take pictures before I started, but here is how they looked after I smoked them last night. They cured for 6 days if I remember correctly.
Did a hot smoke with hickory......took about 3 hours to hit 150 internal in the little guys. Took them out and cooled them over night and sliced them this evening.
The pic is just of one of them sliced. Finished slicing the other, packaged up all but one slice of each and fried it up for the taste test.
Remarkably, they tasted like bacon. LOL One like regular bacon, and the other like maple flavored. The basic cure in the book would be a good starting place to add other flavors if anyone is looking for a starting point out there.
