A couple of weeks ago I took a look at a thread that was started by Smokey Dokey where he was making some canadian bacon that was apple cured. I liked his recipe and so I took the liberty of following it almost exactly with two of my pork loins and I will be doing the other two loins a bit differently since I want to spice some of it up a bit. I am certainly no expert at this because this is only my second attempt at making canadian bacon. First of all we used a variation of pop's brine by making half of the liquid apple cider and the other half water and added some pepper corns, bay leaves, and allspice. I left mine in the curefor two weeks. I bought two loins that were about six pounds each and cut each of them in half. I decided to lace them up with butchers string so that they would hold a better shape. I injected each piece of loin with just under 10% of it's weight with the brine. The link below will take you to Smokey Dokeys thread where you can see the beginning pics. My pics are below.
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/133875/apple-cured-canadian-bacon-w-the-q-view-part-one
This is a shot of the four sections all laced up after they just came out of the brine. I missed a little bit of the silverskin when trimming them up which I don't think will matter as far as taste goes, but they might have been prettier if I had trimmed better. I will next time.
Another shot of the same.
Here they are in my extra refrigerator where I will let them sit overnight or maybe longer to form a pellicle.
I intend to rub two of them with a coat of honey and crushed pepper corns and the other two will get a mix of adobo sauce or cayenne pepper and honey. I would like to work a little burbon flavor on one of them. I'll have to sleep on it and then decide.
I also did this piece of BBB today. I thought that the color turned out so great that I decided to give you a look at it as well.
Pork butt in pop's brine for ten days and then smoked at 180 for about four hours to Internal temp of 140.
Another shot of the same.
More pics of the canadian bacon will follow after the smoke which I plan to do tomorrow if weather permits. Thanks for looking!
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/133875/apple-cured-canadian-bacon-w-the-q-view-part-one
This is a shot of the four sections all laced up after they just came out of the brine. I missed a little bit of the silverskin when trimming them up which I don't think will matter as far as taste goes, but they might have been prettier if I had trimmed better. I will next time.
Another shot of the same.
Here they are in my extra refrigerator where I will let them sit overnight or maybe longer to form a pellicle.
I intend to rub two of them with a coat of honey and crushed pepper corns and the other two will get a mix of adobo sauce or cayenne pepper and honey. I would like to work a little burbon flavor on one of them. I'll have to sleep on it and then decide.
I also did this piece of BBB today. I thought that the color turned out so great that I decided to give you a look at it as well.
Pork butt in pop's brine for ten days and then smoked at 180 for about four hours to Internal temp of 140.
Another shot of the same.
More pics of the canadian bacon will follow after the smoke which I plan to do tomorrow if weather permits. Thanks for looking!