After seeing all the great results people on here have had making their own bacon, I decided it was time to give it a go. I couldn't decide between brining or dry curing so I did both, using pops' recipe for the brine (with some cracked black pepper, and garlic and onion powders added), and Todds' dry cure recipe. I bought a pork belly from my local butcher, and into the cures they went. I filled the ziploc bag with brine and not water in case the bag leaked and diluted the solution. The dry cured piece was flipped every
day.
Brined belly
Cry cured belly
After 9 days curing. I was planning on 10 days but time constraints meant I had to cut it short to 9. The brined
belly is on the left, the dry cured belly on the right.
The fry test. The dry cured belly was spot on but the brined was a little too salty so I soaked it in cold water in
the fridge for an hour and the next test slice was much better.
Before putting in the fridge to form the pellicle I rubbed in more cracked black pepper, garlic powder and onion
powder to each piece.
My new AMNPS (this thing is seriously brilliant!) smoking away nicely. To date I've only ever used hickory to
smoke so went with hickory pellets.
After 12 hours of smoke. With both ends of the AMNPS lit, the pellets lasted about 6-6 1/2 hours before I had
to refill. I only refilled two rows and lit just one end for the second run.
All sliced up. I put the bellies in the freezer for 2 hours before slicing. Halfway through they had become too soft
to slice easily so I had to put them back in the freezer for another couple hours before finishing them off.
The end product!
Overall I'm pretty happy with how everything went, and with the end product. I would have liked the pork belly to
have been thicker but you can only work with what's available at the time. And as much as I love the flavour of hickory,
I'm not sure if it's the right choice (for my own taste anyway) of wood for bacon. Any recommendations for other wood
or wood mixes would be great! Thanks for reading and happy smoking!
Pete
day.
Brined belly
Cry cured belly
After 9 days curing. I was planning on 10 days but time constraints meant I had to cut it short to 9. The brined
belly is on the left, the dry cured belly on the right.
The fry test. The dry cured belly was spot on but the brined was a little too salty so I soaked it in cold water in
the fridge for an hour and the next test slice was much better.
Before putting in the fridge to form the pellicle I rubbed in more cracked black pepper, garlic powder and onion
powder to each piece.
My new AMNPS (this thing is seriously brilliant!) smoking away nicely. To date I've only ever used hickory to
smoke so went with hickory pellets.
After 12 hours of smoke. With both ends of the AMNPS lit, the pellets lasted about 6-6 1/2 hours before I had
to refill. I only refilled two rows and lit just one end for the second run.
All sliced up. I put the bellies in the freezer for 2 hours before slicing. Halfway through they had become too soft
to slice easily so I had to put them back in the freezer for another couple hours before finishing them off.
The end product!
Overall I'm pretty happy with how everything went, and with the end product. I would have liked the pork belly to
have been thicker but you can only work with what's available at the time. And as much as I love the flavour of hickory,
I'm not sure if it's the right choice (for my own taste anyway) of wood for bacon. Any recommendations for other wood
or wood mixes would be great! Thanks for reading and happy smoking!
Pete
