Hi all,
My name is Brian, I've been smoking meat for about 5 years now, but I have never cured any meat (I'm not sure why). I just finished my labor of love, an all stainless steel vertical smoker: I will use this for hot smoking (obviously), but plan on cold-smoking the bacon. I built this because this cost me about $800 in materials, vs. $5000-$8000 if I were to buy one pre-made of this size and completly SS.
I have since cleaned off the lines I drew when drilling and tig'ing it together, but I was impatient and used it first! I am actually very surprised, this thing holds 216 degrees with 1 full chimney starter of llit charcoal over a bed of unlit charcoal like it's its job! (it is :) ) The only thing that isn't SS is the firebox door, (bottom right), and the black paint is a high-temp grill paint, because I knew the SS would discolor with the heat. That little chute on the side is how I can add more wood, carcoal etc. without opening the door and losing heat!
Anyway.... sorry for going off topic!
But, I spent the better part of the day yesterday reading this forum, for what to do, what not to do, etc. when curing pork belly into bacon. I had ordered a side of pork belly, and I picked it up, and it was about 10lbs. I split it into 5-~2lb slabs, and measured out the instacure #1 based upon the final weight of the delicious pork block, along with kosher salt.
But, my girlfriend had an idea to make different flavors of bacon, like an "Apples and Honey", "Jalepeno and Chipotle", "Lemon and Pepper" etc. So, after reading, I have seen that people put maple syrup on their slabs all the time before curing, so I thought it would be ok.
When I rubbed the salt into the slabs, I put them in ziplock bags. Then, before I could say anything in went the juice of 4 lemons, and an ounce of cracked black pepper. I though the lemons were going to be in slices, not juiced. Anyway, there was now liquid in the bottom of the bag, and it seemed to wash off some of the salt. Does this make it more of a brine? Or should liquid never be added in this fashion when dry-curing? Will this be safe to eat even though the salt isn't completly covering the slab? Will it cure properly as the other dry-slabs will, because I added the dry-cure amount of #1 not the brine amount? I realize that a "cure" is drawing out moisture to leave an inhospitable environment to bacteria, so is there even a point to putting anything on the outside because it won't be drawn into the slab?
Thanks for listening, I've gotten some great info from this site already! I look forward to becoming a seasoned (no pun intended) member of this site!
-Brian
My name is Brian, I've been smoking meat for about 5 years now, but I have never cured any meat (I'm not sure why). I just finished my labor of love, an all stainless steel vertical smoker: I will use this for hot smoking (obviously), but plan on cold-smoking the bacon. I built this because this cost me about $800 in materials, vs. $5000-$8000 if I were to buy one pre-made of this size and completly SS.
I have since cleaned off the lines I drew when drilling and tig'ing it together, but I was impatient and used it first! I am actually very surprised, this thing holds 216 degrees with 1 full chimney starter of llit charcoal over a bed of unlit charcoal like it's its job! (it is :) ) The only thing that isn't SS is the firebox door, (bottom right), and the black paint is a high-temp grill paint, because I knew the SS would discolor with the heat. That little chute on the side is how I can add more wood, carcoal etc. without opening the door and losing heat!
Anyway.... sorry for going off topic!
But, I spent the better part of the day yesterday reading this forum, for what to do, what not to do, etc. when curing pork belly into bacon. I had ordered a side of pork belly, and I picked it up, and it was about 10lbs. I split it into 5-~2lb slabs, and measured out the instacure #1 based upon the final weight of the delicious pork block, along with kosher salt.
But, my girlfriend had an idea to make different flavors of bacon, like an "Apples and Honey", "Jalepeno and Chipotle", "Lemon and Pepper" etc. So, after reading, I have seen that people put maple syrup on their slabs all the time before curing, so I thought it would be ok.
When I rubbed the salt into the slabs, I put them in ziplock bags. Then, before I could say anything in went the juice of 4 lemons, and an ounce of cracked black pepper. I though the lemons were going to be in slices, not juiced. Anyway, there was now liquid in the bottom of the bag, and it seemed to wash off some of the salt. Does this make it more of a brine? Or should liquid never be added in this fashion when dry-curing? Will this be safe to eat even though the salt isn't completly covering the slab? Will it cure properly as the other dry-slabs will, because I added the dry-cure amount of #1 not the brine amount? I realize that a "cure" is drawing out moisture to leave an inhospitable environment to bacteria, so is there even a point to putting anything on the outside because it won't be drawn into the slab?
Thanks for listening, I've gotten some great info from this site already! I look forward to becoming a seasoned (no pun intended) member of this site!
-Brian
