US BELLY TASTE TEST

[Robert H]

HI ALL
I was at Costco last week and picked up a belly, and got it out today to start dry cure. I usually buy my pork from a local abbattoire, pay a bit more but it's always one day after kill fresh and you cant beat that. Anyway, our local Costco does not normally put out whole bellies, but there they were, so I picked out the nicest one in the pile.As I was pulling off the wrap, I notice "product of USA" on the back side.
So, I thought I would do a totally unbiased test to see which one of our awesome countries has the best tasting piggies. Stay tuned, I will report in a few weeks.

 

[RichGTS]

following

 

[SmokinEdge]

Any clue as to breed of hogs?

 

[Robert H]

No way to know about this one....I'm gonna see if I can get one from my usual source for tomorrow. I can ask them upon pickup.

 

[Robert H]

Ok, so I finally have this belly smoked and it hung overnight in the garage. It is resting in the fridge now, and will slice up and report in a few more days.It looks great, has nice colour and I expect it to be great. I never did get another belly from my local supplier to do a real scientific comparison. This was mostly for covid fun and I have no doubt the American born piggy tastes just as good as it's Canadian cousins. I did add more black pepper and put a bit of sage into my regular bacon recipe. I am sticking to dry cured bellies for good now. I love pops brine and still used it for backbacon and picnics and especially for hocks.

 

[Robert H]

Well, my U.S. pork belly came out pretty damned good if I do say so myself. This was a real nice belly from Costco and the price was pretty good $35 CDN if I recall. I used my regular dry cure recipe but added more black pepper and this time I put in a bit of sage. So, I am happy to say that your pork is every bit as good as the pork up here lol. I smoked it in my admiral fridge smoker and used Lumberjack hickory pellets for the smoke. I set the temp at 175F and pulled it at 145F.
I hope you are all getting through this whole ordeal intact and that we can get back to some degree of normal soon.
A few pics and the sample fry.......made a nice bacon and tomato sammy, but it strangely disappeared?