Maple Bacon
Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 6:39 pmWhere does one begin.... Well first thing first, I have to apologise to a long time member as I had promised to do this (post this recipe) too many days ago. The days have been long; in fact they have been so long the milkman beat me home most days. Doing production in the early hours of the morning one has time to reminisce on the whys and wherefores of what I do day in and day out for a living always doing my best hoping that somewhere along the way that I bring a smile.
When I signed on many months ago there was a question/debate on the whys and wherefores of making/curing maple bacon. With this in mind I asked the ‘why’ question to people injecting maple syrup into the meat (bellies) and in my (vivid) mind would be right down messy as well as a pain in the you know what.
Please understand that I do realise that one has to use what was has on hand, that being said I did offer a remedy if that person wanted and all it would involve was a PM. Whether that person thought I was talking out of my rear end or not or just thought the cost of a pint of beer was too expensive is food for thought.
With that being said the following is how we do Maple Bacon dry cured, just plain and simple and simply delicious.
After boning out the selected bellies proceed by rubbing two handfuls of All Purpose curing salt into the rind side of the belly (takes about a minute; until it starts to sweat). My two handfuls weigh 160 gm (a little over if fine), place in a non corrosive container rind down and elevated off the bottom so that it will not sit in the juice that comes off the meat as this will harden the meat.
Next; take another two handfuls of All Purpose curing salt and rub into the meat side of the belly, again this will only take a couple of minutes.
Following the All Purpose curing salt the next step is to lightly (please note I said lightly) coat/cover the surface of the salted belly with your spice mixture after which we put on top a light to medium coat/cover of the maple sugar.
Repeat until all bellies are done (in my case there was four of them), place the container in the cooler/fridge for one week uncovered.
One week later take the bellies out of the cooler/fridge and take to the sink area where the bellies are rinsed with tepid water, container rinsed out and bellies placed back into the container. Cover the bellies with cold water and leave for one hour (this will/should eliminate any saltiness that can occur.
After one hour take out of the water and hang to dry down so that we can apply the second coating of maple sugar. If the bellies are too wet then the maple sugar dissolves too fast to be effective. When restacking the bellies rotate top to bottom as one would normally do.
Replace the bellies (in the container) back into the cooler/fridge for one more week.
At the end of the second week we hot smoke this bacon, the following are my notes:
Start temperature at 155 degrees F.
No wet bulb and damper open
Cook to an internal temperature of 132 degrees F.
Believe me when I say that this is one of the simplest bacons to do, not having a smokehouse should not put anyone off at all as the cooking process can be done in an oven in anyone’s house.
Wallie; let me know how things go, any question by all means ask.
bellies boned
curing salt
maple sugar
salting the rind side
coating with spices
maple spice
bacon at one week
soaking in water
start of week two
close up of maple spice
When I signed on many months ago there was a question/debate on the whys and wherefores of making/curing maple bacon. With this in mind I asked the ‘why’ question to people injecting maple syrup into the meat (bellies) and in my (vivid) mind would be right down messy as well as a pain in the you know what.
Please understand that I do realise that one has to use what was has on hand, that being said I did offer a remedy if that person wanted and all it would involve was a PM. Whether that person thought I was talking out of my rear end or not or just thought the cost of a pint of beer was too expensive is food for thought.
With that being said the following is how we do Maple Bacon dry cured, just plain and simple and simply delicious.
After boning out the selected bellies proceed by rubbing two handfuls of All Purpose curing salt into the rind side of the belly (takes about a minute; until it starts to sweat). My two handfuls weigh 160 gm (a little over if fine), place in a non corrosive container rind down and elevated off the bottom so that it will not sit in the juice that comes off the meat as this will harden the meat.
Next; take another two handfuls of All Purpose curing salt and rub into the meat side of the belly, again this will only take a couple of minutes.
Following the All Purpose curing salt the next step is to lightly (please note I said lightly) coat/cover the surface of the salted belly with your spice mixture after which we put on top a light to medium coat/cover of the maple sugar.
Repeat until all bellies are done (in my case there was four of them), place the container in the cooler/fridge for one week uncovered.
One week later take the bellies out of the cooler/fridge and take to the sink area where the bellies are rinsed with tepid water, container rinsed out and bellies placed back into the container. Cover the bellies with cold water and leave for one hour (this will/should eliminate any saltiness that can occur.
After one hour take out of the water and hang to dry down so that we can apply the second coating of maple sugar. If the bellies are too wet then the maple sugar dissolves too fast to be effective. When restacking the bellies rotate top to bottom as one would normally do.
Replace the bellies (in the container) back into the cooler/fridge for one more week.
At the end of the second week we hot smoke this bacon, the following are my notes:
Start temperature at 155 degrees F.
No wet bulb and damper open
Cook to an internal temperature of 132 degrees F.
Believe me when I say that this is one of the simplest bacons to do, not having a smokehouse should not put anyone off at all as the cooking process can be done in an oven in anyone’s house.
Wallie; let me know how things go, any question by all means ask.
bellies boned
curing salt
maple sugar
salting the rind side
coating with spices
maple spice
bacon at one week
soaking in water
start of week two
close up of maple spice
as I did the prep work for the sausage rolls. You really know how to cut one off at the knees 
Very interesting with the propylene glycol included (as a humectant?). I wonder why. The salt should serve the same purpose. Same thing with the silica.
