A couple weeks ago I started started another small batch of bacon. I've been trying out various spices in addition to the basic cure to see if I can find some interesting flavors. Started out with two ~1.2kg slabs of belly, skin on. Cure mix is Instacure #1, dextrose and kosher salt. For one slab I added crushed bay leaves, crushed szechuan peppercorns, and crushed garlic cloves. The second slab got crushed juniper berries, yellow mustard powder and onion powder. Each slab put into ziplock with cure and spices for 8 days, overhauled daily. Then rinsed thoroughly with water and hung in the fridge for 3 days. I tend to hot smoke more than cold smoke mainly because I don't have a means to easily cold smoke yet, so the slabs were smoked over applewood for about 5 hours at temps around 100. Then cooled a bit and sliced off the skin. Thought I took some pictures of the prep work but all I can find is starting when I hung them to smoke.
Didn't have time to taste as I got sick so I just chucked them in the freezer and will taste later. Really need to find a way to cold smoke as I know the taste would be significantly different. Hoping this summer I get rig up a cold smoker. Hope you enjoy....
Kevin
Didn't have time to taste as I got sick so I just chucked them in the freezer and will taste later. Really need to find a way to cold smoke as I know the taste would be significantly different. Hoping this summer I get rig up a cold smoker. Hope you enjoy....
Kevin
