Bacon and lunch meat at the same time

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dstar26t

Fire Starter
Original poster
Nov 9, 2015
62
62
Ridley Park, PA
I ordered a slab of fresh pork belly from my local butcher and plan to follow Pop's tutorial (http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/a/making-bacon) and use his curing brine for 2 weeks.  I'm going to swap the sugar and brown sugar for maple sugar and maple syrup for S&G.  Since the brine will be made already, can I just throw a couple turkey breasts in with the belly if there's room, remove the breasts earlier and smoke them for lunch meat?  I was thinking of setting all the meat in the brine this weekend, smoking the turkey next weekend and the belly the weekend after.  As long as there is liquid between all the pieces of meat it should be good right?
 
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Ok, I got it started over the weekend.  On Friday (1/15), my fresh 15 lb belly arrived at the butcher so I picked it up.  The next day I cut it in half so it would fit in the bucket.  I planned to remove the skin before anything but that seemed impossible without butchering it (no offense to any butchers out there).  I've read it's easier to remove the skin after cooking but with the compromise that the slab won't get smoke all over it, oh well.  Maybe I'll try to remove the skin halfway through the smoke.

Made 3 gallons of brine in a 6.5 gal food grade bucket.  To 3 gallons of carbon filtered tap water, I added 3oz (85g) of cure #1 (6.25% NaN02) and enough salt to reach a measured 30º (another 865g kosher salt).  Also added 3 cups maple sugar (429g) and 3 cups maple syrup (945g).  Stirred it all up until dissolved and added the pork belly, 2 boneless chicken breasts and 2 boneless turkey breasts.  Kept it all submerged with a 2 gallon ziploc bag full of water and placed it in the 38ºF temp controlled chest freezer.  I will update this thread as events occur!  Any advice is appreciated.

Nate





 
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If I don't get to smoking the chicken and turkey breasts this weekend (after 7 days in the curing brine), will there be a negative flavor impact on them to go the full 2 weeks in the curing brine with the pork belly?  Or should I take them out and keep them cold for another 7 days out of the brine until the belly gets smoked?

Thanks for any help.
 
I didn't consider cross contamination with the poultry and pork and don't want to cook the pork to 160F.  Is this an issue?  Based on the results in this thread, I probably only have 76 ppm nitrite in the belly...no idea about the poultry nitrite pick-up.
 
For the record, I threw out the belly and felt awful about it.  Didn't want to cook it to 160F.  Kept the chicken and turkey though.
 
You still needed to fry or bake the bacon to eat it taking it to a much higher IT of 165*, so im thinking it would be ok.

I probably would have kept it. But I've been wrong more than once in my life...lol
 
I was going to cook the bacon to 145F to be eaten right away or to be fried later.  I don't have a cold smoke set-up.  I suppose all I'd need is something from a-maze-n placed in the bottom of my Weber kettle or the offset cooker?  The lunch meat turned out great though - LINK
 
I was going to cook the bacon to 145F to be eaten right away or to be fried later.  I don't have a cold smoke set-up.  I suppose all I'd need is something from a-maze-n placed in the bottom of my Weber kettle or the offset cooker?  The lunch meat turned out great though - LINK

You can use the amazin tube smoker in your weber or offset. Heck you can use a cardboard box as a cold smoker.
I'd PM chef jimmy j and ask him about the cross contamination and if you fried the bacon would it be safe. I know you already tossed it, but for future reference the info would be great.
 
Wish I had seen this thread 20 days ago. Pop's does not recommend putting different types off meat in his brine at the same time. I asked him the same question several years ago when I wanted to cure pork for bacon and beef for pastrami. He advised against it, which is what my gut told me.
 
Call it eager ignorance.  I wanted to just keep throwing more meat in there.  Now I have multiple buckets dedicated to brining/curing.  Ordered an AMNPS to use in my offset so the new batch of belly that replaced the lost batch will be cold smoked.
 
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