Smoked some bacon today

[vivid]

My girlfriend surprised me with a tender-belly bacon kit for valentines day.  The kit came with a 4lb pork belly along with the cure/rub mixture.  If you guys haven't tried making your own home-made bacon yet I highly encourage you to do so.  I don't care that it takes a week to sit in the dry rub, I'm never buying store-bought crap ever again!

Here's the pork belly, thawed and dried and ready for the cure:

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• vivid
• Mar 31, 2016

Cure is on:

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• vivid
• Mar 31, 2016

One week later I've taken it out of the fridge after flipping it multiple times throughout the week to distribute the cure evenly.  I smoked the bacon at about 225 for roughly 3.5 hours until internal temps reached 150.

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• vivid
• Mar 31, 2016

SOOO GOOD.

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• vivid
• Mar 31, 2016

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• vivid
• Mar 31, 2016

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• vivid
• Mar 31, 2016

 

[SmokinAl]

Looks excellent!

Your hooked now!!

Al

 

[b-one]

Looks tasty!:drool

 

[worktogthr]

Looks great!!! Bacon making or curing in general is addictive.

 

[pc farmer]

Looks great.

 

[nozzleman]

Nothing better!

 

[bluefrog]

Where did your girlfriend get the kit?

 

[wade]

That looks good. What did the cure/rub mixture contain? Did you have to weigh out the mix or did you just have to add the whole sachet/packet to the belly?

 

[slipaway]

Did you do a saltr test after it cured? I recently made bacon and I am very glad I tested it for salt before smoking it. Way too salty until I soaked it for over an hour.

Then...perfect.

Yours looks great - much more meat than most bellies I have seen around here.

What's next? Pastromi?

 

[vivid]

My girlfriend got me this "Man Crate" for valentines day.  It included the porkbelly, all the seasonings, and a pound of their own bacon.  Pretty awesome:  http://www.mancrates.com/projects/bacon-curing-kit

As for a salt test?  I don't have any test other than my own tastebuds, but it does taste less salty to me than regular store bought bacon.

I may try to do pastrami next, especially since I have my own commercial grade meat slicer! :)