True Dry Cured Bacon.

[SmokinEdge]

Thanks guys!!! This "true dry" method has me intrigued. Think I'm gonna cut this in half and do 1 true dry and 1 vac sealed dry. Plan is to get everything going this Saturday and cure until April 19th. That's right about 3 weeks and puts me ready to smoke on a week that I have a Friday off.

A side X side comparison. I like that. Curious your final thoughts.

I generally do not recommend doing bacon naked longer than 2 weeks. So if pushing for another week I would suggest you bag it in a zip bag at the end of 2 weeks or you could start the whole process with collagen sheets. Either way, 3 weeks is to long naked.

That is unless you can keep humidity 75-80% the whole time, in which case 3 weeks is a breeze. Most refrigerator humidity is in the 40% range.

 

[Florida Chris]

I generally do not recommend doing bacon naked longer than 2 weeks.

Yes, now I remember reading that previously in the thread but thank you for reminding me. The fridge I'm using for this is definitely not the best for temp and humidity control so I'll be keeping a close eye on both.

It's a Roper fridge. How long have they been out of business now??? Still runs strong after ~30 years but it has it's cold spots and I'm not sure they even knew how to measure humidity back when this thing was made : )

I'll be watching the "true dry" and either zip locking or vac sealing when the time comes, but I'll do my best to try to let them cure an equal amount of time for a true side x side.

What's your thoughts on starting maybe mid-week or next weekend rather than this Saturday? Now you got me thinking that I'm also going to want the vac sealed sample to dry in the fridge a bit before smoking. How would you approach this to keep them on equal ground??

 

[saskelec]

New to the forum, I have a pork belly going to do the dry cure to make bacon. one question are you using brown sugar or white sugar in this recipes? way back when we would butcher a hog and make hams and bacon we used brown sugar in the wet brine and soaked in crocks for 10 days.

 

[SmokinEdge]

New to the forum, I have a pork belly going to do the dry cure to make bacon. one question are you using brown sugar or white sugar in this recipes? way back when we would butcher a hog and make hams and bacon we used brown sugar in the wet brine and soaked in crocks for 10 days.

First of all, welcome to the SMF.

As to sugar for the dry bacon, I use white sugar, but feel free to use brown sugar, cane sugar or sugar in the raw. No worries.

 

[vince m]

This is our favorite bacon. Here is a 6.5# slab of belly that I dry rubbed with my usual 1.5% salt, .75% sugar and .25% cure #1. I finish with eyeball amounts of white pepper and gran garlic. This will go on a stainless grate into the fridge with a catch pan underneath. 14 days naked no bag. This extracts the moisture and concentrates the flavors. The end result is delicious. Fries better in a pan too. Sorry for the low quality pictures, from my phone and not buying a fancy camera just for this stuff.

View attachment 688285
View attachment 688286
Btw, this goes on the rack meat side down. See you in 14-ish days.

 

[vince m]

This is our favorite bacon. Here is a 6.5# slab of belly that I dry rubbed with my usual 1.5% salt, .75% sugar and .25% cure #1. I finish with eyeball amounts of white pepper and gran garlic. This will go on a stainless grate into the fridge with a catch pan underneath. 14 days naked no bag. This extracts the moisture and concentrates the flavors. The end result is delicious. Fries better in a pan too. Sorry for the low quality pictures, from my phone and not buying a fancy camera just for this stuff.

View attachment 688285
View attachment 688286
Btw, this goes on the rack meat side down. See you in 14-ish days.

So you don't have to vaccum seal during the cure process? I thought oxygen was bad.

 

[SmokinEdge]

So you don't have to vaccum seal during the cure process? I thought oxygen was bad.

Nope oxygen is never bad in curing whole muscle like belly. Where did you get that idea?

 

[DougE]

So you don't have to vaccum seal during the cure process? I thought oxygen was bad.

If that were the case, curing as a way of preserving meat would never have been possible until the advent of vacuum sealers. Obviously, the art of curing meat has been done since ancient times.

 

[KBFlyer]

Equilibrium Curing
If you’re worried about wasting so much salt, there is another (more modern) method you can try. First, weigh the meat. Apply 3% of that weight’s worth of salt onto the meat, covering evenly and thoroughly, then use a vacuum sealer to seal everything up and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 5 days. This technique is called “equilibrium curing.”

 

[SmokinEdge]

Equilibrium Curing
If you’re worried about wasting so much salt, there is another (more modern) method you can try. First, weigh the meat. Apply 3% of that weight’s worth of salt onto the meat, covering evenly and thoroughly, then use a vacuum sealer to seal everything up and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 5 days. This technique is called “equilibrium curing.”

3% salt? No thanks.

 

[KBFlyer]

3% salt? No thanks.

You can adjust your salt to what ever is safe and aceptable to you , this is just a copy and paste so do what you want and stop trolling my posts.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Slicing day on the last batch.

 

[mr_whipple]

That's a nice belly.

 

[DEERMAKER]

Slicing day on the last batch.

View attachment 698479

Thats awesome Beatiful work!

 

[indaswamp]

Beautiful Bacon!

 

[SmokinEdge]

Thanks guys. Pretty basic stuff. That was about 3/4 of 1 belly. Sliced 1/8” and bagged it 10 slices per bag, because that’s what comfortably fits in my hand to bag. All in 13 bags with 2 6# bellies. Plus the ends and pieces made another 4 bags just big enough for beans and such.