My first go at bacon (and smoking)

Air dried cured meat and salami recipes

My first go at bacon (and smoking)

Postby Bobbo » Mon Jul 26, 2010 12:15 pm

Hi all,

Just got back from the butchers with a lovely piece of pork loin to make my first piece of bacon. The weight is 1.145kg so plan to use the following mix as advised in the beginners cures thread of this forum:

Salt 21.2g
Sugar 11.5g
Cure #1 2.9g

I plan to cure the meat this week and then cut it in half and smoke one half of it in my kettle BBQ with the proQ cold smoke generator that turned up last week (great service from that company by the way) so if it goes wrong I will still have my unsmoked bacon to eat (assuming the curing worked OK).

Fingers crossed. I'll post some pics at each stage.
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Postby wheels » Mon Jul 26, 2010 12:51 pm

That cure is a fairly mild one. If you like saltier bacon feel free to increase the salt - I currently use 25gm salt for this weight of meat and also reduce the sugar to 8gm - this isn't salty, but has a more bacon(y) flavour.

There's a calculator for this cure here:

http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/weblog ... =my_weblog

Phil
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Postby Bobbo » Tue Jul 27, 2010 7:00 am

OK, so the bacon went on last night. I did a compromise between the two recipes and did 23g of salt, just in case the 25g was a bit over the top for me.

Well I have to say it was ludicrously simple to prepare compared to making sausages.

The bacon is bang on 2ins thick so I'll leave it to cure until Sunday (4 days per 1/2 inch plus 2), give it a rinse, a pat dry and then hang it for 2 days before smoking half of it.

I'm getting pretty excited about trying the first butty. I went to the butchers to get my large Victorinox knife professionally sharpened so I can cut the slices by hand as I don't have a slicer and don't want to buy a cheap one that won't work. Hopefully I can get them thin enough by hand. I know others on the forum cut by hand so I know its possible. The knife is razor sharp now so no problems there.
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Postby wheels » Tue Jul 27, 2010 2:03 pm

Don't worry about the timing, as long as they're in long enough a bit longer won't hurt. They won't get any saltier so it's no problem.

Drying the meat in the fridge until firm and then getting it really cold before slicing makes it easier.

Phil
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Postby Richierich » Tue Jul 27, 2010 3:30 pm

Bobbo wrote:OK, so the bacon went on last night. I did a compromise between the two recipes and did 23g of salt, just in case the 25g was a bit over the top for me.

Well I have to say it was ludicrously simple to prepare compared to making sausages.

The bacon is bang on 2ins thick so I'll leave it to cure until Sunday (4 days per 1/2 inch plus 2), give it a rinse, a pat dry and then hang it for 2 days before smoking half of it.

I'm getting pretty excited about trying the first butty. I went to the butchers to get my large Victorinox knife professionally sharpened so I can cut the slices by hand as I don't have a slicer and don't want to buy a cheap one that won't work. Hopefully I can get them thin enough by hand. I know others on the forum cut by hand so I know its possible. The knife is razor sharp now so no problems there.


Cutting by hand is far better than with a machine, do as I do and make 0.5kg do about 4 slices by hand, great butties. :wink: Machines are better if you want it to last!
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Postby Bobbo » Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:13 am

Just two days to go until the air drying :D . The meat is slightly firmer compared to how it started out. Its also changed to a slightly more red colour.

The small amount of juice that came out the meat a few days ago also appears to have been reabsorbed.

I'm getting even more excited now. I think I need to get out more.......
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Postby Richierich » Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:50 am

You can make bacon and get out more, you just need to make more of it, slice, vac pack and freeze it. If you arrange the slices in the vac pack bag in the right way defrosting can be a 10 minute job, freeze in a lump and wait a lot longer.

Out of interest whereabouts in Oxford are you Bobbo?
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Postby Bobbo » Mon Aug 02, 2010 1:15 pm

I work in Cowley but live south of Oxford in Didcot

I probably will freeze it in batches. It shouldn't be a problem.
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Postby Bobbo » Fri Aug 06, 2010 9:11 am

I cut the bacon in half last night. I looks superb.

I sliced the first half of it with no problems at all. Didn't even need to freeze it as the knife was so sharp. The butcher did a great job putting an edge on it.

The second half I put in the BBQ overnight with the CSG. What an amazing piece of kit! Stuck it on at 8pm and it was still smoking at 7.30am this morning when I took the bacon and cheddar out before going to work.

The bacon just looks so much better than that cheap danish crap I normally buy (I refuse to pay the extortionate prices for 3 rashers of decent dry cure stuff). You can visibly see (and feel) there is less water in my bacon but it still looks lovely and moist and not dried out.

I'll be doing a decent fry up for breakfast tomorrow with homemade sausages and my new bacon. Now all I need is a hen for some eggs........
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Postby Zulululu » Tue Aug 17, 2010 5:33 pm

Hi Wheels,
I have had your bacon on the back burner for some time and finally got down to making a Kg. must say I was impressed, salt balance is just perfect.Should have taken it off the back burner long ago.Thanks for sharing. :) :) :)
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Postby wheels » Tue Aug 17, 2010 6:24 pm

Glad you like it. :D
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Postby Bobbo » Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:27 pm

Just to let you know, my bacon was also very nice. I think it would be much better if i could cut it thinner as it was a bit gammon-like, but the flavour and texture was fantastic.
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Postby wheels » Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:48 pm

Thanks, now you've got the basics sorted you can let your imagination go wild with the flavourings.

Phil
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Postby Lord-Foul » Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:06 pm

wheels wrote:That cure is a fairly mild one. If you like saltier bacon feel free to increase the salt - I currently use 25gm salt for this weight of meat and also reduce the sugar to 8gm - this isn't salty, but has a more bacon(y) flavour.

There's a calculator for this cure here:

http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/weblog ... =my_weblog

Phil


That's great to know, my first batches of bacon were nice but I felt it lacked salt and wasn't as bacon(y) as I would have liked, It's nice to know I can be more flexible with the salt/sugar amount - Thanks for that.

One last thing, the link you posted, is that for the original combination of ingredients or the amended more bacon(y) formula?
Rick :)
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Postby wheels » Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:44 pm

Increasing the saltt/sugar can mean that the cure level needs adjustment. I'd start with the non-soluble things like herbs, spices etc first.

The link in your quote is for the slightly saltier one.

If you want one with even more salt, just shout.

Phil
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