- Jan 11, 2014
- 75
- 64
So I have always wanted to get a pork belly and try some bacon. And the last time I was at Restaurant Depot they had a whole pile of pork bellies! So I figured it was meant to be and I picked out a nice looking 13lb belly. I have done a ton of reading on here (too much maybe) and decided to go with a dry cure rub for the curing process and will then cold smoke it in my RT-700 (no power, only smoke from an A-MAZE-N).
I used diggingdog's online cure calculator to come up with 0.5oz cure #1, 3.5oz salt, and 2oz sugar. I followed this very closely, using a digital kitchen scale to weigh out the cure, salt, and sugar. I have to admit, it did not seem like very much dry rub at all! I cut the belly into 4 roughly equal pieces and divided the mixture evenly over them and rubbed it into all surfaces. I put each piece in a gallon Ziploc, squeezed out all the air, sealed them up, and put them all in the fridge.
They have been in the fridge for 8 days now and I just took them out, rinsed them off well, and put them in an ice water bath. After an hour I plan to dry them off and put them back in the fridge to dry out until morning when I will start cold smoking.
But here is my issue...I am not sure that the curing process "worked"! The curing process didn't seem to pull any moisture out of the bellies. There was no liquid in the bags at all. The bellies are definitely firmer than they were, but not as much as I expected. They do not seem "dry" at all. Are my expectations just totally off here? Or did this not work right? I want to trust the process, but also don't want bad bacon!
Thanks to all in advance for any help on this!
I used diggingdog's online cure calculator to come up with 0.5oz cure #1, 3.5oz salt, and 2oz sugar. I followed this very closely, using a digital kitchen scale to weigh out the cure, salt, and sugar. I have to admit, it did not seem like very much dry rub at all! I cut the belly into 4 roughly equal pieces and divided the mixture evenly over them and rubbed it into all surfaces. I put each piece in a gallon Ziploc, squeezed out all the air, sealed them up, and put them all in the fridge.
They have been in the fridge for 8 days now and I just took them out, rinsed them off well, and put them in an ice water bath. After an hour I plan to dry them off and put them back in the fridge to dry out until morning when I will start cold smoking.
But here is my issue...I am not sure that the curing process "worked"! The curing process didn't seem to pull any moisture out of the bellies. There was no liquid in the bags at all. The bellies are definitely firmer than they were, but not as much as I expected. They do not seem "dry" at all. Are my expectations just totally off here? Or did this not work right? I want to trust the process, but also don't want bad bacon!
Thanks to all in advance for any help on this!