General questions about bacon

[steves8860]

There's so much info about bacon that I want to double check. Cold, warm and hot smoking... just came across the warm idea.

I plan to do hot at this point until I get a good cold smoking technique down.

I plan on putting the zip locked meat in the fridge for a week or so. As I understand it the whole point is to draw out the water and to give flavor. If I don't get all the water out no harm done except the texture may suffer.

So while in the fridge no curing salt is needed?

Then if I hot smoke it, keeping the temp above 160, no curing salt is needed.

If done is >145 degrees then don't need to cook it in a pan or whatever to eat it.

If done is less than 145, then cooking it in a pan is needed.

Now about storing it in the fridge afterwards. Is curing salt going to help keep it longer? Seems like I get mixed messages on this.

Please correct any errant thinking I may have.

Thanks.

 

[JLeonard]

Here for the answers. I also am getting close to trying my hand at bacon (hot smoked).
Jim

 

[steves8860]

There's so much info about bacon that I want to double check. Cold, warm and hot smoking... just came across the warm idea.

I plan to do hot at this point until I get a good cold smoking technique down.

I plan on putting the zip locked meat in the fridge for a week or so. As I understand it the whole point is to draw out the water and to give flavor. If I don't get all the water out no harm done except the texture may suffer.

So while in the fridge no curing salt is needed?

Then if I hot smoke it, keeping the temp above 160, no curing salt is needed.

If done is >145 degrees then don't need to cook it in a pan or whatever to eat it.

If done is less than 145, then cooking it in a pan is needed.

Now about storing it in the fridge afterwards. Is curing salt going to help keep it longer? Seems like I get mixed messages on this.

Please correct any errant thinking I may have.

Thanks.

Also, it seems that the amount of curing salt it done by the weight of the meat, but I'd think that if you cut the meat in pieces then you would have much surface area that needed covering. Just curious about that as well.

 

[SmokinEdge]

So while in the fridge no curing salt is needed?

NO! Cure salt must be added at 0.25% meat weight or 1tsp per 5# meat. This is included with salt and sugar in the beginning of the cure phase in the zip bag for a week.

Yes the cure #1 does act as a preservative mostly slowing rancidity of the fat.

 

[daveomak]

When prepping for bacon and a dry cure.....
Weigh the piece of meat in grams...
Add 0.25% cure... ( X 0.0025 weight of the meat)
Add 1.5 - 1.75 % Kosher salt.... ( X 0.0150 - 0.0175 weight of the meat)
Add 1% white sugar... ( 0.0100 X weight of the meat)
That's what I use... Add the above ingredients to a container and sprinkle over the meat trying to be uniform.... Place on a wire rack on a sheet pan.. In the refer for 12-14 days...
That will dehydrate the meat some and concentrate the flavor...

 

[Dr.Feelgood]

Newbie question on the same topic. I have pork belly on curring in the fridge that will be ready in 2 days.
The target is to have it ready for slicing and eating after the smoking.
If I start with cold smoke for 8 hours and continue with warm smoke until 175 F meat temp is reached, would that be good and safe approach to have ready product for slicing and eating as-is?

 

[SmokinEdge]

Newbie question on the same topic. I have pork belly on curring in the fridge that will be ready in 2 days.
The target is to have it ready for slicing and eating after the smoking.
If I start with cold smoke for 8 hours and continue with warm smoke until 175 F meat temp is reached, would that be good and safe approach to have ready product for slicing and eating as-is?

The internal temperature should not exceed 155* Above that the fat will melt and makes the meat greasy. I shoot for IT of 145*

If you cold smoke 8 hours then try to finish the bacon to safe IT, that will make for a long day for sure. I would either cold smoke the 8 hours rest it in the fridge then hot smoke the next day, or I would just hot smoke to begin with. Start the smoker temp at 130* no smoke for 1 hour to dry the surface of the bacon, then apply smoke and increase temp to 140* increase temp 10* every hour until bacon IT is 145* do not take the smoker temp beyond 170*

 

[Dr.Feelgood]

The internal temperature should not exceed 155* Above that the fat will melt and makes the meat greasy. I shoot for IT of 145*

If you cold smoke 8 hours then try to finish the bacon to safe IT, that will make for a long day for sure. I would either cold smoke the 8 hours rest it in the fridge then hot smoke the next day, or I would just hot smoke to begin with. Start the smoker temp at 130* no smoke for 1 hour to dry the surface of the bacon, then apply smoke and increase temp to 140* increase temp 10* every hour until bacon IT is 145* do not take the smoker temp beyond 170*

Thanks, so 155 is like 68 C inner temp, and that would "safe IT", nice, i thought i needed to go higher for the pork belly. I do have nitrite salt in the cure together with brown sugar and black pepper.
I just built my smoker and made a venturi smoke generator that has been tested and it's ready for the first run.
Will do some salmon and char tomorrow and pork belly after.
I have an electric heater that i could adjust for warm smoking, the smoke is always cold from the external generator, the outside temp here in Sweden is around 50F now so the cold smoke will not go above 70 at any time.

How about the salmon/char inner temp if i go the same way, first cold for some 8 hours and then turn on the heater with inner temp measurement?

 

[SmokinEdge]

thirdeye would be the guy to give you best answers on smoking fish.

 

[SmokinAl]

When prepping for bacon and a dry cure.....
Weigh the piece of meat in grams...
Add 0.25% cure... ( X 0.0025 weight of the meat)
Add 1.5 - 1.75 % Kosher salt.... ( X 0.0150 - 0.0175 weight of the meat)
Add 1% white sugar... ( 0.0100 X weight of the meat)
That's what I use... Add the above ingredients to a container and sprinkle over the meat trying to be uniform.... Place on a wire rack on a sheet pan.. In the refer for 12-14 days...
That will dehydrate the meat some and concentrate the flavor...

Yea that^^^^^^^, and then cold smoke it for the best bacon ever!
Al

 

[thirdeye]

When prepping for bacon and a dry cure.....
Weigh the piece of meat in grams...
Add 0.25% cure... ( X 0.0025 weight of the meat)
Add 1.5 - 1.75 % Kosher salt.... ( X 0.0150 - 0.0175 weight of the meat)
Add 1% white sugar... ( 0.0100 X weight of the meat)
That's what I use... Add the above ingredients to a container and sprinkle over the meat trying to be uniform.... Place on a wire rack on a sheet pan.. In the refer for 12-14 days...
That will dehydrate the meat some and concentrate the flavor...

So Dave, you are doing 'open curing' as opposed to bagging the pork bellies? I've considered that because my Grandfather and his buddies did that too.

 

[thirdeye]

There's so much info about bacon that I want to double check. Cold, warm and hot smoking... just came across the warm idea.

I have an article that is a general summary only of dry cured bacon you might find interesting. Or raise some more questions....

thirdeye's Dry Cured Bacon

My Buckboard Bacon page and Lynne's Breakfast Bacon page are two of the most popular pages on my site. Now I want to share a third bacon me...

playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com

Will do some salmon and char tomorrow and pork belly after.
I have an electric heater that i could adjust for warm smoking, the smoke is always cold from the external generator, the outside temp here in Sweden is around 50F now so the cold smoke will not go above 70 at any time.

How about the salmon/char inner temp if i go the same way, first cold for some 8 hours and then turn on the heater with inner temp measurement?

I smoke salmon and trout with a hot finished technique, and also make a cold smoked Nova lox. Here are both methods. Feel free to ask more questions, but it's maybe best to start a new thread in the Fish forum so others can share advice too.

SEAFOOD - Dry Cure for Salmon, Trout or Steelhead

Revised 1-13-2022 Cured fish has been prepared for centuries as a means of food preservation. Because of refrigeration and our knowledge ...

playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com

~thirdeye's~ Nova Lox

If you are a regular reader you know I really field test any recipe, or technique before publishing it here. My technique for Nova Lox was...

playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com

 

[clifish]

So Dave, you are doing 'open curing' as opposed to bagging the pork bellies? I've considered that because my Grandfather and his buddies did that too.

curious about that too, I would think being open it is suseptable to taking on unwanted flavors from other stuff in there. In my fridge it would probably have a strong flavor of IPA...lol

 

[tallbm]

There's so much info about bacon that I want to double check. Cold, warm and hot smoking... just came across the warm idea.

I plan to do hot at this point until I get a good cold smoking technique down.

I plan on putting the zip locked meat in the fridge for a week or so. As I understand it the whole point is to draw out the water and to give flavor. If I don't get all the water out no harm done except the texture may suffer.

So while in the fridge no curing salt is needed?

Then if I hot smoke it, keeping the temp above 160, no curing salt is needed.

If done is >145 degrees then don't need to cook it in a pan or whatever to eat it.

If done is less than 145, then cooking it in a pan is needed.

Now about storing it in the fridge afterwards. Is curing salt going to help keep it longer? Seems like I get mixed messages on this.

Please correct any errant thinking I may have.

Thanks.

I just want to point out a few fundamental things that are super important when doing bacon or any cured meat.

The bacon smoking process is basically the same as the sausage smoking process.
You bring the smoker temperature up slowly over a number of hours so you don't melt out the fat and you don't go over a smoker temp of 170F degrees.

This process means that the meat will be in low unsafe cooking temps for unsafe amounts of time UNLESS you use cure#1 which solves the safety issue.

So you MUST use cure#1 and salt and such on the meat before cooking for the proper amount of time NOT to draw out the water but to give the cure#1 the proper amount of time to fully penetrate the meat so it can prevent dangerous bacteria growth in the meat during the low temp bacon smoking/cooking process.

It's my understanding that cure#1 and salt travel at about 1/4 inch every 24hrs. You must use the proper amount of cure #1 for the amount of meat you have (by weight).
Once you have the proper amount of cure#1 (a scant 1tsp cure#1 per 5 pounds of pork belly or a 1/4 teaspoon per pound) you coat your pork belly all around with it and salt and everything else.
So in 24 hours the cure#1 and salt will travel 1/4 inch from top and 1/4 inch from bottom so giving you 1/2 inch of travel a day total. If you have a 2 inch thick pork belly WITHOUT the skin (cure and salt don't travel through skin so well) then it takes a minimum of 4 days for cure#1 and salt to fully penetrate the meat. You give it 2 more days and you can ensure that your meat is fully cured and will prevent dangerous bacteria from growing while you smoke it.

So that is SUPER important to understand as to why and how you use Cure#1 for making bacon.

As for hot smoking, it's my preferred method. You only need to take the pork belly to an Internal Temp (IT) of the meat of 145F. The bacon comes out 100% cooked and edible and texture is like store bought bacon.

If you go much over that then you will end up with meat that is more like a cooked pork chop which is not bacon.

No matter what approach you take you will need to vac seal or bag and freeze. Cure#1 is killed with heat so you may get a couple of weeks fridge life out of it once you are done smoking it.


Please take all of this into consideration so you safely make you some great bacon.
Once you get this down we can talk exact cure #1 measurements by weight and wet curing vs dry curing etc.

 

[tallbm]

Thanks, so 155 is like 68 C inner temp, and that would "safe IT", nice, i thought i needed to go higher for the pork belly. I do have nitrite salt in the cure together with brown sugar and black pepper.
I just built my smoker and made a venturi smoke generator that has been tested and it's ready for the first run.
Will do some salmon and char tomorrow and pork belly after.
I have an electric heater that i could adjust for warm smoking, the smoke is always cold from the external generator, the outside temp here in Sweden is around 50F now so the cold smoke will not go above 70 at any time.

How about the salmon/char inner temp if i go the same way, first cold for some 8 hours and then turn on the heater with inner temp measurement?

I take my hot smoked bacon to 145F which is the minimal safe cooked temp. If you keep going higher you end up less like bacon and more like pork chop.

Pork belly bacon cooked to 145F internal temp is still like store bought bacon but you can eat it out of the pack :D

 

[steves8860]

Some things are being cleared up. I did not understand that the nitrite from the curing salt was to get inside the meat. Makes sense now.

And the slow increase of temp and keeping the goal IT at 145 makes sense also.

A bit more nuanced than some other things that I have read.

I appreciate everyone's input.

 

[Dr.Feelgood]

Here in Europe, we have nitrite salt blends that contain a 0.5% sodium nitrate blend. Pink salt or Prague mix is not available. Recommended ppm for NaNO2 is <80 ppm in finished product. How does this co-relate to cure #1?

 

[SmokinEdge]

Here in Europe, we have nitrite salt blends that contain a 0.5% sodium nitrate blend. Pink salt or Prague mix is not available. Recommended ppm for NaNO2 is <80 ppm in finished product. How does this co-relate to cure #1?

Cure #1 contains 6.25% nitrite. Our target is 156ppm in finished product. 200ppm is maximum for regular curing and 625ppm for dry cured aged products. About 50ppm is concerned minimum for any meaningful curing effect.

 

[thirdeye]

Here in Europe, we have nitrite salt blends that contain a 0.5% sodium nitrate blend. Pink salt or Prague mix is not available. Recommended ppm for NaNO2 is <80 ppm in finished product. How does this co-relate to cure #1?

Curing salt mixes are regulated by country, so some European countries allow different percentages than the US has deemed 'safe'. And for some reason curing salt blends are hard to come by in some countries.

Tenderquick by Morton Salt Co., was so hard to find and expensive in Canada a few years ago, a friend asked me to send them a couple of bags. I sent along some local Buckboard bacon cure. Even with shipping and tariffs, it less than half price.

 

[Miket482000]

curious about that too, I would think being open it is suseptable to taking on unwanted flavors from other stuff in there. In my fridge it would probably have a strong flavor of IPA...lol

That is a definite possibility if you have strong orders in the refrigerator while open curing. I have a separate refrigerator for curing and drying so it is not an issue, but if I need to cure in my regular refrigerator I Vacuum bag my meats. If I want to dry them after I will at times hang it in the kitchen for a few days before I smoke it.