Heritage bacon

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zzerru

Meat Mopper
Original poster
SMF Premier Member
Apr 14, 2007
178
86
Ann Arbor
Since moving, I’ve now gotten regular access to awesome pork from heritage breeds raised on the farms around me. I got this particular pork from Mastodon Farms and it is head and shoulders above the sidepork I used to get from the supermarket. I hadn’t made bacon in a couple years but when I got these, I just couldn’t help myself.
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Roughly 12.5lbs pork belly.
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Cut up into slabs.
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Maple syrup (grade B, also from Mastodon Farms), salt, maple sugar and pink salt for the cure.
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All mixed up by my 6 year old daughter who wanted to help make bacon.
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Half the cure on one side.
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Rubbing the cure in was messy work, so it was right up my kid’s alley! Once it was done on that side, then the other half of the cure on the other side, making sure to get it into all the nooks and crannies.
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Then it was layered into the brining bucket and the slabs rotated from top to bottom and mixed with the brine that formed from the rub every two days. Cured in the fridge for 10 days.
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Out of the bucket, patted dry with paper towels and put on racks under a fan to form the pellicle.
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Pellicle formed with surface nice and tacky.
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Into the smoker for a 12 hour cold smoke with applewood using an A-Maze-N smoker tray. Then hot smoked for 6 hours with apple until internal temp was 125F.
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Pulled out of the smoker and onto racks to bloom for an hour or so.
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Purely gratuitous bacon shots.
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Slicing some up.
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Some fried up to test. I’ve never had truly bad bacon but this was outstanding and the quality of the pork really shone through. Hope you enjoyed watching as much as I did making it!
 
Last edited:
Ok, coming from someone who cures and smokes a couple hundred pounds every few months...this is absolutely amazing! Beautiful work, great write up! Great pics too!
 
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Maple sugar? Don't you mean brown sugar? Looks good.

Stubbs, it’s actually maple sugar. It looks like brown sugar, but instead of being from cane, it’s made from maple sap. It has a super strong maple flavor instead of just being sweet/caramelly like brown sugar. If you can’t get it around your area, I think Butcher Packer sells it. It’s awesome for curing.
 
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Man that looks great. I get ahold of Berkshire around here at times. It is very good compared to average store bellies. I think there are some Duroc breeders nearby too.
 
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That looks great. I am a great fan of the cold smoke/hot smoke method.
 
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...
I’ve never had truly bad bacon but this was outstanding and the quality of the pork really shone through. Hope you enjoyed watching as much as I did making it!
LOL and Grrr!
I remember the slab bacon from my youth before the commercial stuff took over the meat case.
A treat when I can find it now. Tried making my own bacon from commercial pork belly. Just isn't the same.
 
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