First time making our own bacon

[ab canuck]

Well it's been a trying May and June so far.... I work away from home, and last yr was a crazy one, Finally home 3rd week of March the wife and I went on a much needed holiday. When we got home it was time to tackle everything that was neglected through the course of last fall and winter, as well as things that I do at home. We had 1 of our bradleys die on us, my lap top had the blue screen of death, brought it in to get repaired and it was toast, finally I am back up and running again. We finally got to build our smokehouse to the point that we could do our bacon.
We did 2 kinds using a dry brine and digging dog calculator that Dave Omak shared, and a batch in a wet brine that Pops shared and a back bacon ( Canadian bacon for our southern friends). We did use maple sugar in place of some of the reg white sugar.
We brined our bacon / bellies from our pigs we butchered last fall. we left all in brines for 12 days, I did not soak them just a quick rinse, I wanted to see how they would turn out as we have another 50-60 lbs to do yet, we did soak the back bacon for 3 hrs which we did fry test on. Let me know what you think and or pointers, We loved the back ( Canadian ) bacon it turned out amazing, Our bacon turned out good as well, although now I know that I should rinse and soak some. I found it salty but still good. Thx for looking.

 

[73saint]

Looks great. I’ve got so much bacon curing in my fridge it’s hard to keep up!!

 

[rexster314]

Cut back .5% or 1% of the salt in the calculator and you won't have to soak. It'll still take the cure just fine. I do about 160 pounds every month and cut out the soak when I cut back on the salt

 

[SmokinAl]

All of your bacon looks delicious!
I guess it's a matter of taste, some think it's too salty without the soak & others don't.
Al