Alright I have tried the pops bacon brine and all the bacon turned out great the only problem was that 13 pounds was not enough bacon because everyone that came over for thanksgiving wanted to take a pack home with them I had purchased a charcuterie book on amazon and decided to try my hand at dry curing some porkbellys to mix up some flavors.
I had bought 2 porkbellys both at about 9 pounds and just cut them right down the middle so they ended up both being right around 4.5 to 4.75 using the bacon calculator added appropriate amount of cure,salt,and sugar I am using cure #1 for cure
Then here comes the flavor train
1st belly was my control I just used a straight bacon cure no flavor to see how the dry cure process would turn out
2nd belly added just plain 1/4 cup maple syrup to the mix dumped it in the bag with the cure to give it a hint of maple
3rd belly I used bacon cure but added a quarter cup of garlic powder 1/4 pinion powder and a quarter cup fresh coarse ground black pepper and rubbed it all it
4th belly I used a recipe from the book using the bacon calculator I added 5 chopped garlic cloves and and 1/8th cup cracked pepper corns with 3 crushed basil leaves
Vacuum sealed and into the fridge they went for 8 days each belly was anywhere from 1" to maybe an 1 1/2" flipped daily to disperse cure pulled them out after day#8 all bellys were firm to the touch all the way to the middle washed patted dry and put back into the fridge for 2 days for dryin
Now the only problem I really was concerned about was I had purchased these bellies from a local market and when I cut into the cryovac they smelled kinda funky but after a wash before I put the cure on the smell seem to really be a lot milder. After the cure the smell was almost all but gone on all the bellies except the control belly #1 it still kind of lingered on it but not too bad I am figuring it was just some of the gas build up in the cryovac and think it will probably smoke out when I put some heat on it kind of smelled like some of the ribs I have cooked in the past when the cryovac kinda lifts off the meat when and is loose around it hopefully when I smoked tomorrow all turns out well
I had bought 2 porkbellys both at about 9 pounds and just cut them right down the middle so they ended up both being right around 4.5 to 4.75 using the bacon calculator added appropriate amount of cure,salt,and sugar I am using cure #1 for cure
Then here comes the flavor train
1st belly was my control I just used a straight bacon cure no flavor to see how the dry cure process would turn out
