Looking for some opinions on my first attempt at both buckboard bacon and dry curing. I will say I have made many batches of wet cured pork belly bacon without issue, so I do have some experience with this stuff but far from an expert.
I saw Jess Pryles' blog post about buckboard bacon, and my meat share has blessed me with an abundance of ~2lb boneless pork shoulders, so this really piqued my interest. I had two 2-pounders and a regular pork belly, so I decided to cure and smoke them all together. I followed the calculator she linked to precisely, but the water % confused me when I would have to calculate enough water to submerge the meat, so I figured, "Why not try dry curing this time?"
Again, I followed the cure recipe exactly. I do have a scale that measures to hundredth of grams, so I really was that specific. Pork belly and one shoulder got straight up cure, the other shoulder also got the black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder from her recipe. I bagged each chunk of meat separately with every bit of the cure mix, squeezed air out, and double bagged. Every day, I flipped, massaged, and did what I could to ensure the cure reached all parts of the meat. Many inappropriate jokes were made about "massaging my meat" to the extent I may have lost valuable body parts should I attempt yet another.
Today, 14 days later, I fired up the smoker and planned to hot smoke the bacon to 165º-170º, which I've been liking for my bacon smokes lately. The hot smoked bacon is easier to slice evenly by hand, and I still crisp it up in the pan before eating. Haven't had an issue. So... I open up the pork belly bag, everything looks good. I rinse the cure off, pat it dry, and set it aside. Things got weird when I opened the unflavored shoulder. There were some areas of brown meat that I didn't like. They smelled a bit off, but not so much that I'd freak out. I decided to trim the offending areas off until I felt more comfortable with it. Rinsed, patted dry, set aside. Then I opened the flavored shoulder, and there seemed to also be brown areas. Thing is, with the flavoring, I couldn't detect any off-ness by smelling, and I wondered if the seasoning had something to do with the coloring. Trying to play it safe, I trimmed it quite heavily until I felt okay with it. Rinsed, patted dry, and loaded everything into the ready smoker.
Smoked at 180º (MES 30 with hickory pellets) until they all stalled at 158º for well over an hour. Thinking the stall was caused by the fat rendering, and not wanting to lose it all, but really wanting to get these over 165º, I cranked the MES to 220º until the lowest of the three hit ~168º. Shut everything down, let them cool a little, then double wrapped in plastic, wrapped in foil, and into the fridge. Typically, I wait two days wrapped like this before trying bacon. This is where I am right now. ('Que View attached, pork belly at the top, seasoned buckboard center, plain buckboard bottom)
My question is, how do I know these are okay to eat? I'm pretty confident the pork belly is okay, but what should I be looking for come slicing time to know if the cure fully penetrated? As for the shoulders, is having some brown edges before smoking normal? I look at the picture of Jess' buckboard bacon on the post I linked above, and it looks to me some of the edges do look a bit grey and funky. Was I being overly cautious by trimming the brown stuff away? My gut is singing the "When in doubt, throw it out" mantra, and to be honest, it's not the end of the world if I lose a few chunks of meat. But if the general response here is that this is typical and all is fine, I'd certainly feel better come taste-testing time.
I know this was a freaking novel... thanks for bearing with me. I truly do appreciate your time and insight!
I saw Jess Pryles' blog post about buckboard bacon, and my meat share has blessed me with an abundance of ~2lb boneless pork shoulders, so this really piqued my interest. I had two 2-pounders and a regular pork belly, so I decided to cure and smoke them all together. I followed the calculator she linked to precisely, but the water % confused me when I would have to calculate enough water to submerge the meat, so I figured, "Why not try dry curing this time?"
Again, I followed the cure recipe exactly. I do have a scale that measures to hundredth of grams, so I really was that specific. Pork belly and one shoulder got straight up cure, the other shoulder also got the black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder from her recipe. I bagged each chunk of meat separately with every bit of the cure mix, squeezed air out, and double bagged. Every day, I flipped, massaged, and did what I could to ensure the cure reached all parts of the meat. Many inappropriate jokes were made about "massaging my meat" to the extent I may have lost valuable body parts should I attempt yet another.
Today, 14 days later, I fired up the smoker and planned to hot smoke the bacon to 165º-170º, which I've been liking for my bacon smokes lately. The hot smoked bacon is easier to slice evenly by hand, and I still crisp it up in the pan before eating. Haven't had an issue. So... I open up the pork belly bag, everything looks good. I rinse the cure off, pat it dry, and set it aside. Things got weird when I opened the unflavored shoulder. There were some areas of brown meat that I didn't like. They smelled a bit off, but not so much that I'd freak out. I decided to trim the offending areas off until I felt more comfortable with it. Rinsed, patted dry, set aside. Then I opened the flavored shoulder, and there seemed to also be brown areas. Thing is, with the flavoring, I couldn't detect any off-ness by smelling, and I wondered if the seasoning had something to do with the coloring. Trying to play it safe, I trimmed it quite heavily until I felt okay with it. Rinsed, patted dry, and loaded everything into the ready smoker.
Smoked at 180º (MES 30 with hickory pellets) until they all stalled at 158º for well over an hour. Thinking the stall was caused by the fat rendering, and not wanting to lose it all, but really wanting to get these over 165º, I cranked the MES to 220º until the lowest of the three hit ~168º. Shut everything down, let them cool a little, then double wrapped in plastic, wrapped in foil, and into the fridge. Typically, I wait two days wrapped like this before trying bacon. This is where I am right now. ('Que View attached, pork belly at the top, seasoned buckboard center, plain buckboard bottom)
My question is, how do I know these are okay to eat? I'm pretty confident the pork belly is okay, but what should I be looking for come slicing time to know if the cure fully penetrated? As for the shoulders, is having some brown edges before smoking normal? I look at the picture of Jess' buckboard bacon on the post I linked above, and it looks to me some of the edges do look a bit grey and funky. Was I being overly cautious by trimming the brown stuff away? My gut is singing the "When in doubt, throw it out" mantra, and to be honest, it's not the end of the world if I lose a few chunks of meat. But if the general response here is that this is typical and all is fine, I'd certainly feel better come taste-testing time.
I know this was a freaking novel... thanks for bearing with me. I truly do appreciate your time and insight!
