First attempt at Canadian bacon - YES!

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kentucky fisherman

Fire Starter
Original poster
Apr 30, 2008
35
48
Louisville, KY
Started with a 4# pork loin and decided I wanted to try Canadian bacon. Found some really good posts by Bear and others. Decided I wanted to use Bear's instructions, but couldn't find Morton's Tender Quick locally. Ordered it from Amazon and had it in about two days. Here's what the loin looked like after being thawed. Sorry for the huge image size; I'll get that figured out.
Before the smoke (1).jpg

Next step was to rub on the Tender Quick and brown sugar and put the two pieces of loin into a 1 gal Ziploc. It went into the fridge for 13 days, getting flipped each day. Within the first few hours the salt had pulled maybe 3/4 cup of liquid from the loin, which then acted as a brine.

After 13 days I pulled the loin out, rinsed it, dried it well, and sprinkled on some onion, garlic and CBP. Here's how that looked just before putting it into the fridge overnight to form a pellicle.
Pepper applied (2).jpg


The next day, I preheated the smoker, got the smoke tube going with cherry, and put the two loin pieces on the middle rack. I followed Bear's temp stages and hit 145 in about 7 1/2 hours. Here's what the loin looked like coming out of the smoker.
In the smoker (3).jpg
Finished (5).jpg


Per the recipe, I pulled the loin, let it cool to 100, wrapped it in Saran, and put it in the fridge for two days. Bear doesn't spell it out, but I assume that fridge rest lets both the smoke and internal moisture equalize throughout the meat. At this point the loin pieces felt a little hard, but I knew the final product would be a lot like ham, so I wasn't worried.

After two days in the fridge, I unwrapped the loin and cut it about 1/8" with my meat slicer. I've since eaten some of it as a hot ham and cheese sandwich, and I added a couple slices to an egg sandwich on toast. Both were great and the meat was tender, with excellent flavor. While there's only a small amount of pepper around the edge of each slice, it makes a difference. Here's what the sliced "bacon" looked like.
Sliced (2).jpg

I wouldn't have been nearly as successful in this first attempt without the posts by Bear and others. I really appreciate this community and the HUGE amount of information that's available. Responses to queries on this forum are almost always helpful and positive, which isn't true everywhere on the Internet. I plan to become a much more regular member and will do my best to pay forward the help I've received. Smoke on!
 
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Nice!!!! I can think of 100 ways to help you deplete your abundance of goodness there......ham & beans.......Brussel sprouts.......wrapped around cheese.....omelette....jambalaya ...and so on.......Nice job!
 
Loin bacon yum!
You didn't mention your final internal temp.
I use the daveomak daveomak recommended pasteurization to keep the bacon cooked and very moist.
I cannot find the link. Hopefully, Dave will reply.
 
Decided to make pizza tonight and since I had Canadian bacon, pineapple and onion at hand, I made it a Hawaiian Pizza. Fried up the CB in a pan to make it a little crisp, then gave it a chop. Worked fine on the pizza.


Excellent Utilization!!!
A Man after my own heart !!

Bear
 
Dude, I think Bearcarver Bearcarver needs to put on a weekend long seminar on his methods. I vote for the spring at the Bear den and we all bring our own supplies and cookers. LOL!
That CB looks darn good.
Jim
 
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Just made another batch of Canadian bacon, same Bear technique as before. This time I used two loins, about 4 pounds each. Came out great again. This batch I ran through my slicer set pretty thin, almost "deli shaved" thin. Immediately piled about 1/4 pound on a nice bun for a hot ham and cheese sandwich. Killer! Thanks again, Bear.
 
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Just made another batch of Canadian bacon, same Bear technique as before. This time I used two loins, about 4 pounds each. Came out great again. This batch I ran through my slicer set pretty thin, almost "deli shaved" thin. Immediately piled about 1/4 pound on a nice bun for a hot ham and cheese sandwich. Killer! Thanks again, Bear.


You're Welcome!!
I'm just Glad you're still enjoying the CB !!
Like.

Bear
 
Bear, I have a dilemma, and I apologize if I've already asked and just forgotten. If I'd asked, I'd probably have a note written on my paper printout of your instructions, and I don't.

The dilemma is this: My wife bought a nice 7 1/4 pound loin for me to cure. she said there were none anywhere close to being round, so the one she brought home is 2" by about 4" and 24" long. My dilemma is how to calculate the cure time. When you say measure the 'thickest part," I could interpret that about six different ways. I could measure from the thinner dimension and say from there to the middle is 1 inch. Or I could measure from the long dimension and say the thickest part is 2 inches. From smoking summer sausage, jerky and such, I assume 1/2" per day is the rate the cure enters the meat. If that is true and if I rubbed Tender Quick over the whole loin, then the cure only has to cure from the thinnest dimension to the middle. So if the thinnest dimension is 2" then it's only 1" to the center. The cure should reach the middle in only two days, right? Then your process calls for, I think, two additional days.

Am I understanding this properly?
 
I'll try this:
Let's look at it like a 3' long 2 X 6.
It's the 2" side you want to use, so if the 2" happens to be 2 1/2" in the middle, that 2 1/2" is what you want to cure (Thickest spot of the Thinnest side). So that would be 3" plus 2" additional days = 5 days.
However No loin is that thin anyway, but I think I have on all of my Step by Steps, that I never cure anything less than 8 days. So that rule would over-ride the others on the 2 X 4.
Hope that helps.

BTW: Mine are never round---That's not natural, and I never want them round. If I got one that was round, I would flatten it, so one way is shorter for curing. IJTWIA

Bear
 
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