Maple smoked bacon

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matt0058

Newbie
Original poster
Jul 30, 2013
26
10
Toronto
Hey guys put this in the wrong place before. So today I smoked some bacon at work came out nice but I want a little more of a maplely sweeter flavor I am using a maple brown suagr in my brine to bump up the sweetness I am not a huge fan of Salty bacon and I like a nice smoke flavor so I like to add a little more sugar in my brine. I don't know if it is just a matter if adding in some more of the maple sugar or if I should use some strong maple syrup maybe (#3 I believe has the strongest flavor). Anyways here are some photos
 
Looks like you got some good heat and smoke to those. What did they weigh? How long did you brine them? Smoke & Heat temps?

My last batch I tried maple sugar, worked great. On one small batch I tried Maple flavored liquor/extract and they colored up really nice and had a nice sweetness to them and also seemed to soak up the smoke better.
 
Each weighed about 12 lbs and I brined them for about 4 days. I smoked them for about 4 hours or so at about 225. I was thinking about the maple extract or maybe even injecting some maple into the bellies after I take them out of the brine but I don't know if that will effect the brine at all.
 
4 day brine
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Any cure in your brine?
 
I use a curing salt in my brine with some maple suagr mustard powder, Garlic, onion, black pepper. Here we have experimented with the curing time and we find that 3-4 days works the best for us we usually cure 3-4 bellies at a time around 12lbs each.
 
Bacon looks good. I'm guessing you are doing a wet cure brine and I'm not real familiar with the curing times with it, I dry rub cure and go up to 10 days with bellies that size.

I've been doing maple bacon as well and it's hard to get a strong maple flavor. I've injected maple syrup as well into them and even brushed the outside with maple syrup before smoking. If you figure it out or get an answer, let us know!
 
I am no expert but that is what works for me. The reason that we do it that way at my work is because a lot of people have salt sensitivities and no salt diets that they need to follow so our response is a bacon that still has all the taste of bacon but not the salt. Now I know it is not 100% traditional bacon but it sells here. We started of letting it brine for about 7-9 days depending on the size of the bellies but we found the best results for what people want here is a little less time.
 
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I appreciate all the input guys like I said bacon is something that I am new to and unfortunately doing this stuff at work I gotta do more what the customer wants as opposed to what I want but I can say I don't get to use a cookshack 360 at home lol. But as far as dry curing for a 12-15 lb belly would you dry cure it for about a week to a week and a half
 
The weight of the bacon will determine the amount of cure used if dry curing.  The thickness will determine the length of time.  For a dry cure, figure seven days per inch of thickness for pork belly, less for Canadian bacon if desired.  Others can help you with the wet cure as I only dry cure bacon.

Tom
 
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