New Member First Time Bacon Cure Questions

[tfire136]

Hello Everyone,

Stumbled upon this forum a few days ago and am glad I did.  I have picked up a decent amount of knowledge over the last few days and decided to give dry cured bacon a try.  I have a couple questions I am hoping people can help me with.  I picked up a pork belly weighing 5.21 lbs and put together a dry cure of 7.6g pink salt, 70g kosher salt and a 1/2 cup brown sugar along with some spices.  I mixed everything well and spread it evenly over the belly and have it resting in the refrigerator.  I used a calculator on this website......do my ingredient measurements look good??  I also decided to take the rind off prior to curing (it had nipples lol).  I ended up with a minor hack job.  I separated the rind by scoring it off the belly with a knife......this was not an easy task.  My concern is that I took off to much fat with the rind.  It was almost impossible to separate the rind with taking off some fat.  I ended up with a belly thinned and uglier than I anticipated.  I figured it would help to get some input.  At the end off the day I figured once its smoked it wont really matter how pretty it is.  Thanks in advance!

 

[s2k9k]

I've never done any bacon but it has been a hot topic here lately so you should get a lot of responses to your questions.

I see this is your first post here, when you get a minute would you do us a favor and go to "Roll Call" and introduce yourself so we can get to know you and give you a proper welcome, also would you add your location to your profile, we like knowing where you are when we talk to you, Thanks!

 

[chef jimmyj]

Looks like you should be fine...JJ

 

[smokinhusker]

Hello Tfire136! 

When you get the chance would you mind swinging by Roll Call and introduce yourself? That way we can give you a proper SMF Welcome. It would be quite helpful too if you could update your profile to include a location. Helps when answering questions to know what part of the world you are in.

Looks like you should be fine...JJ

X2...I've done belly bacon and cut the skin off the first time before curing it. I've found cutting off the skin after curing and smoking worked out better for me. Use a really, really sharp knife and I barely took any fat off.

 

[tfire136]

Thanks for the info.  I figure it should come out decent.......hopefully