Cured, smoked & sliced CB..some pink, some 'blush'/whiter - is this safe to eat?

[SmokinAtTheLake]

Hey guys..here's the cured, smoked and sliced Canadian Bacon I've been working on the past 2+ weeks.

How's it look? One piece (where it was thinner) has a nice rich pink..other parts of it are more 'light blush'/almost whitish in color.

Cure was 2% Kosher Salt, 2% sugar, 0.25% IC #1 (weight of water + trimmed loins), cured for 14 days with 1 day in fridge to dry before smoking to 145+. (Actually, one piece got away from me and was low 150s before I caught it..cooked WAY faster than I expected - about an hour and a half @ 250 degrees on the Cookshack smoker using 2 oz Apple and 2 oz Cherry wood).

Note that the last pic below looks particularly weird to me..almost like the IC penetrated the outer 'ring' of the pork loin more than the inner.

Worth mentioning - I did not move the loin around in the brine during the curing process. I put it in on day 1, covered it, and left it alone the entire time. So, no rotating or moving around. Maybe that's why it's not more evenly pink throughout?

Appreciate all opinions on if this is good and most importantly safe to eat!

TIA..

 

[BigW.]

It is fine. There are two types of muscle in the loin. One is a bit darker than the other. You could have kept all these questions in one thread instead of three for simplicity.

 

[chopsaw]

Looks fine to me . That's just the different section of a whole loin . The tail section has the light and dark meat in it . Those are the best in my opinion .
This is a whole loin cut into sections . Cured and smoked .

This is just smoked , no cure . You can see that's how they are at different sections of the loin .

 

[SmokinAtTheLake]

Whew! Glad to hear it should all be good. Not sure why I didn't think of the dark/light meat thing..Heck of a lot of work to make this, but I was able to get 33 packages of 6 slices each from a 8 lb (before trimming) loin so looks like we'll be having CB for quite a while before I need to try this again..

Do any of you rotate or move around the loin in the brine? Or just leave it be the entire 14 (or whatever) days?

Thanks for the replies..maybe I'll need to try 'streaky' (aka American) bacon at some point too..