1st Canadian Bacon with Q-view

[seboke]

Started my first attempt at Canadian Bacon last night. Got lots of good info from cowgirl. Used her basic brine and followed her method of changing it up a bit.

Started with a 6.78 lb loin from Costco.



Cut it in half...


and trimmed it up.


Brine fixins:
2 gal water
2 c TQ
1/2 c brown sugar
1 tbsp red pepper
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
2 big onion slices
8 smashed cloves garlic


Ready for the fridge. Added some green pepper, probably just for some color in the brine. Can't hurt right?


See ya'll back here in 5-6 days for the follow-up!

 

[fatback joe]

Costco?............I thought you went to McDill...........glad I didn't hide in your trunk for that trip. LOL

Looks like you are off to a good start on the loin.

 

[seboke]

Costco always beats the commissary on the loins, and they ain't this big! Butts and ribs can't be beat on base though. Heading there today to stock up for Mem Day smoke!

 

[bb53chevpro]

Looks like a nice start. Looking forward to seeing the end results.
Andy.

 

[dadwith4daughters]

OK, so you got me thinking about doing my own "first" canadian bacon. I've never used the Morton's product Tender Quick. What exactly is that and do you use it in anything else?

 

[lcruzen]

Looking good! I usually do a dry cure on mine so I'm curious to see the end product.

 

[sumosmoke]

Seboke - good luck on your first canadian bacon smoke! Looks like you're off to a good start and if you're under cowgirl's wing, you're definitely on the right track

 

[travcoman45]

Lookin good, cant wait ta see how it comes out!

 

[seboke]

I see the MTQ in a lot of recipes for curing, but have seen a lot more positive reviews on the Hi Mountain cures. MTQ is a salt based curing agent for meat for lack of a scientific description. I could not find in anywhere locally and finally ordered some from the Morton's website. This is my first time using it on anything.

 

[seboke]

Yeah, I bothered cowgirl a lot to get her method/recipe. She was great in PMing and emailing answers to all my (dumb?) questions.

 

[ronp]

Well, I did some research and just as I thought. It has sodium nitrates, sodium nitrites, and propylene glycol. They are all suspect to be cancer causing chemicals in the natural health industry. We had a dog here that was killed from licking antifreeze from the floor. They blamed it on the propylene glycol, a main ingredient in antifreeze. I even found it in my dogs treats. I've been wondering about that lately and glad I researched it.

Think about this, when smoking was created for preservation, those chemicals didn't exist and it worked. I think the nitrates are mainly for a nice pink color, hell, I just did a canadian bacon without the cure and it tastes awsome, not the color of commercially canadian, but if I was blindfolded I don't know if I would care.

I am a health food nut and read about the nitrates all the time, now I know Mortons has them.

You can go here to read about the dangers. of nitrates and nitrites.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...ite+and+cancer

Thanks for bringing up this subject, I'll pass for now and use sea salt and brown sugar etc.

 

[cowgirl]

Seboke...you've never bothered me....and you've never asked a dumb question. PM or email me anytime.

Don't know if I'm much help, but I'll try...
Hope it all turns out well for ya.

 

[seboke]

Hey Patty, was just jerking your chain knowing you'd read this. But really I'm giving you a bunch of kudos! There are several members in this forum that I turn to specifically to get answers to methods I want to try and you are one of them! A big public THANKS for helping me out with the CB, and from what ronp said, I hope it doesn't kill me!

 

[cowgirl]

Thank you for the kind words Seboke.....I appreciate all the help you've given me too. I enjoy your posts and your awesome Qviews.

 

[seboke]

I hope to have a bunch of q-view up after this weekend. I actually get to smoke twice over the long weekend. Having guests over Sat for a B-day party (pork and beef ribs, london broil, pig candy), but the CB cure won't be ready. Looking at Sun or Mon for that.

 

[cowgirl]

Sounds like a great party Seboke, dibs on any leftovers.

 

[seboke]

OK, 6 days in the brine cure, turned once at day 3. Sliced off a couple chunks yesterday morning to fry up for the salt check. Were mildly too salty, so today I game them the fresh water bath for 3 hours, changing the water every 3 hours. Got them drying in the fridge now, and am going to light the fire as soon as I post this. Running Q-view to follow!

 

[seboke]

Here we go!

Day 5 of the brine, pulled off two slices for the frying pan salty test






Came off a little salty. Didn't have time for the rinse then smoke yesterday, so the loins got one more day in the brine. Figured it couldn't make it THAT much more salty, especially since I was going to give them the water soak to pull some salt out.

Here's the loins going into the fridge to dry out a little while the fire burns down.


Fire is charcoal and oak "logs". Will let the oak burn down to coals - by then the charcoal will be down to dust. Ssed charcoal only to keep the oak burning. Will toss in some hickory chunks as needed to keep the heat and smoke flowing!


To be continued!

 

[jbg4208]

DUDE!!

the suspense !!

 

[sumosmoke]

Keep the pics up to continue this story of your 1st canadian bacon! It looks good so far, hope you have an awesome smoke!