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More bacon... dry rub cured... 7-4.. 7-16...7-17... 7-18...7-23..

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daveomak

daveomak

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Nov 12, 2010
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Omak,Washington,U.S.A.
I'm doing a poor version of Brican's bacon....   Lightly sprinkled a mix of seasoned spice mix (no salt) on the 1/2 slab (2050 grams)...      Then weighed out 2% of the commercial  Maple Sugar cure mix...    1/2 on each side of the slab....    Then I gently poured a light coating of my home made maple syrup on one side....   Into the refer for a week or so, on wire racks.... 

Stacked for convenience to dry out the meat and dehydrate the maple syrup, (hopefully)...  I didn't have maple sugar BUT there is maple sugar in the commercial mix...

In a week or so, I will rinse the slabs to remove any "surface" stuff and recoat with syrup, if it has dehydrated satisfactorily....  I may have to regroup and ponder if this doesn't work...

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Watching this. You cure on racks? Isnt the cure to draw out the moisture in the meat then when the meat sucks the water back in, it takes the cure with it?
 
The refer dehydrates the surface liquid...   I've not had more than a TBS of liquid in the pan...  even at that or even more, the loss of additives to the meat is insignificant..    I suppose it could lower the nitrite 2-3%...   still well within safe limits...

If the meat lost 10% of it's moisture to the pan, at 150 Ppm, that would be 135 Ppm remaining in the meat...    at 120 Ppm that would be 108 Ppm remaining..  that's what you start with when you do skin on belly....   anywho....  I'm not a commercial bacon maker so no one checks up on me....   LOL.... 
 
The bellies are in the smoker for a weeks worth of smoke....   

Today will be 10 hours of Pitmasters Choice pellets Todd sells...   Very mild flavor everyone seems to like..   don't know what pellets I will be using next....   I do have an assortment of Todd's flavor woods.... 

Preheated the smoker to 275 to kill all the pathogens growing in the smoker coating...   turned off the heat and hung the bellies to dry and warm up...   I removed them from the refer and rinsed off the excess seasoning and home-made maple syrup glaze...   reglazed them a week ago...

The smoker was about 170 when I hung them inside...   in 45 minutes the smoker temp was 80 deg. F...   close enough... it's still dropping.....

Temp tonight is supposed to get down to 53 with a RH of 50%...  I recently read where you want a RH of ~75% for cold smoking...  SOOOO, I added a pan of water to the smoker...  I keep learning..  we will hopefully see an improvement in the finished product....

I didn't weigh the bellies before all this started but...  they have dehydrated in the refer over the last 2 weeks and concentrated all that great flavor...  they will still lose weight over the smoking cycle...   similar to dry aged beef or pancetta...   Smoke will be added nightly for a week or so....

Hopefully the temp will drop further ...  it should....    between 10 PM and 9 AM the temp is supposed to be below 70 deg. F....   that will work for me....

First batch of smoke and water pan to increase humidity.....

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Sounds like a lot of smoke time.

You going to keep them in the fridge for a few days after smoking

Richie
 
I've got a cool room where my freezers are...  It's air conditioned to about 55-60 deg. F....   I'll hang them in there....  or in the refer for a week or so....

The smoke time is a target...  I'll check the color...  They are going in the cool room about 10 AM until it cools down tonight, or tomorrow night...   Smoke on....  smoke off..   the rest period is important...  I'm thinking 12 smoke--36 no smoke might be a good test..  I've never followed a previous recipe exactly... always tweaking something to see if there's an improvement.... 

I could change my mind tomorrow..  stand by !!!! 
 
Very interesting, I am going to keep watching, Bacon is on list...... But there is always so much to do and haven't had time to finish the smokehouse......
 
Well it sure looks fantastic!

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  Al
 
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Well, after I decided to add 8 more hours of cold smoke, and looking at the belly, I'm done with the smoke...   

Now comes the "aging" for a week or so in my cool room...   about 60 deg. F...  

To try and stop the case hardening of the slab, I decided to use a technique folks use on drying meats...   I coated the 2 slabs with lard...  That should stop or slow down the case hardening...  the belly is moist internally..  I can feel the "squish"...   I do hope this lard layer keeps the moisture inside....

FWIW and those of you thinking 60 deg. is too warm.....   The belly is cured..  I did NOT over heat the meat to degrade the nitrite...  The nitrite is still working, the meat is still curing...   the salt, sugar and spices are still mingling around inside the muscle tissue because of the meat temperature...  Any moisture inside the meat is being redistributed to parts that are drier to become one beautiful homogenous hunk of maple cured bacon...   AND The smoke is an antibacterial agent preventing mold from growing and penetrating....  

Darn good looking hunk of meat I do think.....

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Impressive Dave!

Am I reading that right you have done 12 hours of cold smoke then you added 8 more for a total of 20 hours done over the 6 days? But your picture says 72 hours over 8 days??? I have done up to 36 hours and I thought that was plenty smoke flavored for my tastes. The even longer drying and aging period... wow!

Anyway, it looks great. Look forward to your end product. (I had to go look up Brican's method too).
 
atomicsmoke said:
Dave,
Since the objective is not drying and weight loss but aging why not vacuum pack them?
Click to expand...
Evening Atomic...   I've have some great flavored bacon when I allow extra time sitting in air and aging...   Somehow the flavor mellows and intensifies at the same time..   
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 ....

 Previously, it's sat in the refer on wire racks...  this time I'm choosing to cool room to let is hang...    sort of a summer root cellar...  

The lard is a new twist also...  Not wanting shoe leather, I thought the lard coating would do something special also...  

Seems I never do the same thing twice, looking for that "THAT'S IT!!!!!!!" moment...    I hope I don't find it... this smoking stuff is way too much fun....
 
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