Turn my Pork Belly (no Jokes, Please ) into Smoked Bacon

[Count Porcula]

Couple of days back, I smoked some grocery store salt pork and used it in green beans. It was incredible. Now I want to keep smoked salt pork or the equivalent on hand, frozen, so I can be ready to fix beans and greens at the drop of a hat.

Today my local store, miraculously, had pork belly for sale. I picked up 3.6 pounds. I have some pink curing salt arriving from Amazon later.

Who wants to give me some tips on smoking this stuff? I guess smoked salt pork is bacon, so how do I turn this into bacon?

Also, has anyone tried oak with bacon? I have hickory, but I like oak for ribs, and I have a lot of it.

I should add that I will have to use a Smokin-It, so there will have to be some heat.

 

[Count Porcula]

I guess a smart person could put a pipe in the Smokin-It exhaust and run the smoke to a box on top of it, eliminating most of the heat.

 

[nicefly]

Free advice, worth what you paid for it.

Backstory. Happened to be at the local watering hole at the right place at the right time. Someone walked in, owner or pitmaster or whatever, and handed out samples. Brisket and Belly.

Some of the best stuff I have ever had and that is a statement. I asked about how they did the belly.

He said they treat it just like brisket. Salt pepper smoke. I am dying to try it myself but I have alot going on.
With a 3.6# cut I would just try it that way. Once I do get some belly I am going to give it a try.
Good luck,
John

 

[Count Porcula]

Hey, I ate some of the salt pork I smoked, before using the rest to season beans. It was excellent.

No rub, no nothing. Just smoke and salt pork.

 

[tx smoker]

That is a really small belly. The ones I get from Costco run 10 to 12 pounds each. Insofar as a recipe, apologies but I'm limited on time here so cannot go find it for you. Do a search for making bacon by a member that goes by disco I followed his recipe a long time ago and it has yielded nothing but perfection every time.

As for smoking bacon with oak, I have 2 half bellies of Berkshire pork on the smoker right now smoking with oak. This is day 3 of cold smoking them at 8 hours per day. First time using oak so the jury is still out.

I hope the "pink salt" you got is Cure #1 as opposed to Cure #2 or Himalayan pink seal salt. There is a HUGE difference so don't be fooled into thinking they are interchangeable just because they are all pink.

Robert

 

[Count Porcula]

The pork belly seems to be way too salty to be decent bacon. I thought I was supposed to apply a lot of salt, but I guess I overdid it. Now it's salt pork.

 

[thirdeye]

So, salt pork is cured, but not smoked. By smoking it, you would have bacon (or really fatty bacon).

Fun fact: cure #1 does not really have a curing effect on fat because fat does not contain myoglobin. However, long cure times do make pork fat more tender. For this reason some people cure their salt pork in salt only. I use my same dry cure that I use on bacon.

When you make salt pork with more a few more veins of meat, it's called streak-o-lean. HERE is a post of mine on streak-o-lean.

 

[SmokinEdge]

The pork belly seems to be way too salty to be decent bacon. I thought I was supposed to apply a lot of salt, but I guess I overdid it. Now it's salt pork.

This is what I do.
1.5% salt to meat weight.
0.25% cure #1 to meat weight.
Rub this all over the meat, get it all on there. Place in a plastic zip bag with all of the cure mix that didn’t stick, seal and refrigerate for minimum of 10 days, turning the bag over every day or so. Then rinse or not, pat dry with towels and smoke low at below 150F for 4-5 hours then cool and refrigerate or freeze, you have cured bacon. While cure #1 (nitrite) does not effect fat visually, it does impart flavor beyond just the salt. It’s worth while and absolutely delicious.

 

[Count Porcula]

Thanks for the measurements. I tried to find that kind of information when I started, but it didn't pop up in searches. Time to get more pork belly.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Thanks for the measurements. I tried to find that kind of information when I started, but it didn't pop up in searches. Time to get more pork belly.

Add between 0.5 and 1.0% sugar also. This makes a very nice balance in flavor.