I have been listening to the advice given in my previous thread and I'm learning and adjusting my recipes. I've extended my cure time and I have a few cure variations on the go.
I'm still not happy with the quality of the meat I'm getting but I think I've found out why. The general public are allowed into the meat market at 8AM but the restaurants get in at 5AM and take all the good belly cuts for the Chinese braised belly dish. This is reason above all to get legal I guess.
Anyway, I have just finished curing at oven fake smoking this belly (basted with liquid smoke in a 93c oven until the meat reaches 66c).
There are parts of the fat that I'm not happy with. A little chewey even when fried well. Do I need to heat it a little higher? Longer?
Is this something a real smoker would eliminate? Or am I doomed until I get a better meat supply?
Once again thanks for all the good feedback.
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The bacon doesnt look bad at all.
I think I see rind (skin) on your bacon and that may be what is so chewy. If you remove the rind (skin) and then do your process, I think that would eliminate the extra chewy later.
If there is no rind (skin) on your pork bellies than ignore what I just mentioned hahaha.
As for temps I also think that 93c/199.4F is a bit high.
If your oven can go down to 76c/170F then that would be much better. Many ovens cannot go lower than 170F and some may not even that low.
Internal temperature of the bacon is tricky.
In the US our pork is safe to eat at an internal temperature of 145F/62.8C degrees. This is because the pork is regulated and tested and no reports of parasites have been indicated in so many years that USDA pork is safe to eat at those temperatures.
In China I don't know if that is the case.
I personally smoke my bacon to 145F/62.8C degrees internal temperature of the meat. I do this because I enjoy eating it as I'm slicing it and once I vacuum seal it in bags I enjoy defrosting a bag and eating it without ever frying it. I end up eating 95% of my bacon this way hahaha.
Again, I am buying USDA pork bellies. China may be a different story and food safety is a priority so you don't get people sick.
In any case many people only cold smoke or partially heated smoke their bacon.
Those that partially heat smoke their bacon only take it to an internal temperature of like 128-135F/53-57C.
This is bacon is considered not cooked and must be fried or cooked before eating.
Without actually smoking your meat, I'm not sure you will get that really nice cold smoked color and texture. It may just look like raw cured pork belly, which is fine too if your customer base is ok with the look and with cooking it all the way.
Now the issue is that it will NOT look so much like bacon and will look more like a completely raw piece of meat. You may have already trained your customers to expect what you are producing and changing that on them may not be an option because they simply won't understand the difference between what you have sold them in the past vs just a cured and non-oven cooked product.
Doing an oven cook to 128-135F/53-57C will give them a closer to look to what you are currently selling them but they MUST understand that the bacon needs to be cooked if they have not been cooking what you are giving them now.
OK, I gave a ton of information there to consider.
In short, I would figure out what your safe internal meat temperature is for Chinese pork bellies and then make some decisions from there.
You know what you are doing now is working. I think improving to ensure safety is the highest priority and then you can continue to figure out if you want to cook to lower internal temperatures or not. I would still reduce the oven temperature to 76c/170F if it will go that low and understand that the cooking will take longer BUT the texture of the meat and fat should come out better :)