First bacon adventure

[Scallywag]

After seeing people make their own bacon I figured hey why not? Did a lot of research and decided on a dry brine.. here is what I used.. Kosher salt, curing salt.. couldn't find pink salt in Canada as it is not required to be pink here.. hope it does not affect the final look of it.. a good amount of fresh cracked peppercorns and some good old Canadian maple syrup

Sorry no prep photos.. I rubbed them down with the salts and a generous coating of pepper and then a good drizzle of maple syrup. Put it in a zip lock bag in the fridge for 7 days and flipped it twice a day. Rinsed it really well and let rest to form the pelicile

Onto the Traeger at 180 untill it reaches 150 then I will chill it over night and slice tomorrow


To be continued....

 

[Scallywag]

all done after 3 hours...

Quality control... don't want any one getting ill...
Smelled amazing. looked great... way to salty though... any thoughts on how to improve this????

 

[sparky]

looks good to me. i think its cool you did it. saltness? your have to ask TH or tanya. did you see tanya's bacon. man, that was some of the best bacon i have ever seen.

 

[Scallywag]

I might soak it in water before I slice the rest.. salt was overpowering

 

[ACW3]

I had the same exact thing happen to me the last time I made some pepper bacon. Way too salty! The next time I will use less salt and also rinse/soak a lot longer than I did. In the mean time I use the bacon cut up and added to something like beans. I use less salt (almost no salt) and let the bacon flavor it. It's hard to undo the salt.

Art

 

[harvey]

i have dry cured pork loins and made ham, when done curing i soak in fresh cold water for 1 hour, then again with new fresh cold water for 30 min to an hour and a half depending on how thick and how salty i want it. my guess... the bacon slab is alot thinner id try soak for 45 minutes.
also someone mentioned trying less salt. i assume they meant the cure, dont use less than your supposed to, soak some back out when its cured

 

[Tatonka3A2]

It looks amazing though!!

A really good rinsing won't cut the salt. It needs to be soaked for awhile. We did this same mistake on our first bacon run.

Did you weigh out the cure needed? There could have been too much. Our recipe calls for Tenderquick, I haven't used the pink cure for bacon. 1 TBS per pound of the belly - then you can add whatever other flavors you want. I added about 1/3 cup of brown sugar to each belly and then they were off to the fridge.

After the 9 days I rinsed really well and then I soaked in really cold water for about 30 mins. Took them out and cut of a little sliver and did a fry test....it was still too salty. Put it back in the sink and fresh cold water for another 15-20 mins. Did another fry test and it was good to go!!

We smoked ours in a Masterbuilt electric smoker - had it set for 110° with maple and hickory in the AMZNPS and smoked until i seen the color I wanted, was about 8 hours.

 

[Scallywag]

Thanks for the info... I guesss I could chop this up and freeze for other recipies like you said. Half the fun is the trial and error...

 

[TentHunter]

The bacon looks great! I bet it tastes great. I love Maple syrup.

here is what I used.. Kosher salt, curing salt.. couldn't find pink salt in Canada as it is not required to be pink here.. hope it does not affect the final look of it..

The pink tint doesn't affect on the color of your meat & I don't think it's a requirement here in the U.S. either. The Cure #1 I have now is yellow & the other brand I normally get isn't pink all the way through either but instead has little pink flecks in it. It doesn't matter, as long as it contains 6.25% Sodium Nitrite(and no Nitrate) you know it's cure #1.