Help with first time bacon.

[Winterrider]

Ive used a lot of kosher salt over the years to cure. It works just fine in brines, but in dry rub applications the size of the crystals are to large and dont blend well with the cure #1 and sugar they classify themselves away from the salt. So using a granulated salt mixes better and stays mixed together much better for a more uniform application. Just my experience.

I've used it in dry curing without any issue, but I now use non-iodized table salt because the particle size is about the same as the cure#1 and granulated sugar.

Makes sense, I used pickling salt the couple times I have made.

 

[DougE]

Makes sense, I used pickling salt the couple times I have made.

I think that long as you make up the cure for each piece of meat, even if the coarse salt isn't quite distributed evenly, it all works out in the end.

 

[Fueling Around]

I run my salt, cure, & spices through a blade style coffee / spice grinder to make a uniform powder.
I use pickling salt or sea salt. I once bought non iodized table salt and discovered it has anti caking added and couldn't find if it was compatible with cure. Chucked it and went back to pickling or sea salt.

 

[HowlingDog]

I noticed that the belly is Skin On. I just made some bacon with the same Costco belly last week, but I did cut the skin off. I am not sure how the cure penetrates skin and since I had never done a skin on bacon, I chose to cut it off. It made the bacon a bit thinner than I normally do, but still turned out great.

I use maple sugar for my curing. Nice taste, but when fried, it does get a tad sticky. Worth the trade off to me. Here is how mine turned out:




Good Luck and Enjoy.... You will never go back to store bought!

HowlingDog

 

[SmokinEdge]

I noticed that the belly is Skin On. I just made some bacon with the same Costco belly last week, but I did cut the skin off. I am not sure how the cure penetrates skin and since I had never done a skin on bacon, I chose to cut it off. It made the bacon a bit thinner than I normally do, but still turned out great.

I use maple sugar for my curing. Nice taste, but when fried, it does get a tad sticky. Worth the trade off to me. Here is how mine turned out:

View attachment 715861
View attachment 715862

Good Luck and Enjoy.... You will never go back to store bought!

HowlingDog

Skin on really isn’t a problem. You do have to deal with it at some point though.

When I was a kid my folks bought slab bacon from our local butcher. We cut under the skin and then sliced the bacon by knife, using the skin as a cutting board if you will. When the bacon was gone we had the skin piece left which was always cooked in beans. I still cure some bellies skin on just for the bean pot.

 

[philpom]

For beginners wanting a dry cure method I couldn't recommend mortons tender quick stronger. Others will disagree, usually because you have no control over the salt content but it's premixed and no matter what you are doing it's 1 tbs per pound of meat period. Simple and fool proof, just rub it on, vacuum seal it and use the general guide of 1 day of cure time per 1/2" of meat 3 days minimum. Flip daily, a typical pork loin is done in a week. Add any other flavors you want before you seal it.

Good luck, best wishes!

 

[Fueling Around]

Skin off belly is slowly coming back at Costco. Business Center has skin off at 50¢ less per pound.

For beginners wanting a dry cure method I couldn't recommend mortons tender quick stronger. Others will disagree, usually because you have no control over the salt content but it's premixed and no matter what you are doing it's 1 tbs per pound of meat period. Simple and fool proof,
..

No way Jose
I ruined a lot of meat using TenderQuick
Not for a beginner

 

[philpom]

Skin off belly is slowly coming back at Costco. Business Center has skin off at 50¢ less per pound.



No way Jose
I ruined a lot of meat using TenderQuick
Not for a beginner

Genuinely curious, I have used it many times in the past flawlessly. I knew some folks would throw shade when I posted and I said as much.

What was your experience and why do you think it went south? Could be useful info for folks who see this in the future.

 

[Astralogics]

Genuinely curious, I have used it many times in the past flawlessly. I knew some folks would throw shade when I posted and I said as much.

What was your experience and why do you think it went south? Could be useful info for folks who see this in the future.

In all honesty, I think it's just easier to find a recipe you like using cure #1, where you can really dial in your salt levels. If they'd like to use TQ, I'd direct them to Bear's tutorials.

 

[Fueling Around]

...
What was your experience and why do you think it went south? Could be useful info for folks who see this in the future.

Too much salt and sugar for my taste in Tender Quick. Also never got the timing down for a gradient cure versus the equilibrium. Gradient cures are time based to cure for a number of days, wash off the cure and let it rest for a number of days.

If a person has cure #1 in hand it is much better to use an equilibrium cure where it doesn't matter if you go too long in the curing plus the user controls the total salt and sugar levels.

 

[DougE]

If a person has cure #1 in hand it is much better to use an equilibrium cure where it doesn't matter if you go too long in the curing plus the user controls the total salt and sugar levels.

Ditto what John says. Once you have your desired salt and sugar dialed in, you get the same result time after time. I actually go longer than needed to cure the piece of meat. The added time aids in flavor development but doesn't change the salt/sugar balance in any way.

 

[JC in GB]

This is the method I use and it has worked very well for me. I call it the 10% brine method. Check it out. I know you have a lot of information on this already.

Bacon using the 10% brine method

Good day all. Just got done making 2 bellies of bacon this weekend. I used the 10% brine method and cured for 13 days. A bit longer than I normally do my cure but circumstances demanded it. I took a good amount of photos for your enjoyment. I had family over helping yesterday so I got a...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

JC

 

[hooked on smoke]

Good to know. Thanks everyone.

 

[indaswamp]

Just out of "curiosity", I read somewhere that Kosher salt is not recommended for making bacon. The reason was it dissolves to quickly before it gets a chance to do its thing. What you say ?

I use sea salt when salting Salumi whole muscles, just like the way the Italians do. You can use sea salt, but it must be very coarse and not fine.

 

[DougE]

diggingdog site is great. I've been using it for 8 years or better. And we dry cure up to 300 lbs a month of pork bellies

Works fine as long as you know that this calc, and most others I've seen combine the salt from the cure#1 and regular salt to give you a total salt value.

For example, I do 0.25% cure#1 and 1.5% regular salt
(1.75% total salt). If I were to input 1.5 % as my salt value in the calc, it adds the cure#1 and additional salt, giving me 1.5% total salt. I would have to know that I would have to enter 1.75 for the salt value to get the salt amount I use.

It's much easier to do the calculations myself than to second guess these calcs. I know I got it right if I do my own math.

 

[Brokenhandle]

Many ways to cure bacon. Tenderquick gets a bad rap here, but following Bearcarver's step by steps, I made a bunch of great bacon using his method.
Probably my first bacon curing I did was using Pop's brine... also very easy and never had a bad batch of bacon using his method either. Now I mostly use cure #1... but doesn't mean the other methods don't turn out just as good.
The way I see it is if you don't try all the methods yourself, you don't know which method you like best. We don't all like our ribs done the same way, we can't agree if chili should have beans in it, do you like your steak still mooing, or closer to shoe leather lol?
Either way there are alot of people here to help with whichever method you choose to use if you have questions.

Ryan

 

[hooked on smoke]

Is someone available to check my math before I do this? Also the belly seams very uneven in thickness. One end looks more like pork shoulder a bit. ??

I ended up portioning the belly into 3 pics. That's the reason for three measurements.

 

[DougE]

Is someone available to check my math before I do this? Also the belly seams very uneven in thickness. One end looks more like pork shoulder a bit. ??

I ended up portioning the belly into 3 pics. That's the reason for three measurements.

Checked all 3 pieces. Your math is spot on for
0.25% cure#1
1.5% salt
0.75%sugar

Now go make some bacon!

 

[hooked on smoke]

Checked all 3 pieces. Your math is spot on for
0.25% cure#1
1.5% salt
0.75%sugar

Now go make some bacon!

Thanks for getting back so quickly. This is happening!

 

[tallbm]

Is someone available to check my math before I do this? Also the belly seams very uneven in thickness. One end looks more like pork shoulder a bit. ??

I ended up portioning the belly into 3 pics. That's the reason for three measurements.

Cure and salt travels about 1/4 every 24 hours so every day will give you 1/2 an inch total. From there you calculate how many days and add a couple days for buffer/safety and you know you are good to go on a minimum number of days to ensure it's cured all the way through :D