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wet/immersion cure for bacon please

Posted:
Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:18 pm
by shanew
I've got a nice thick end of belly and want to try a wet cure, i've got most herbs and spices and cure 1 and salt petre. I've done a search but can only find dry cures

Posted:
Thu Mar 01, 2007 1:50 pm
by saucisson
Quiet in here isn't it ?
I think we almost all dry cure bacon here on this site.
I've seen this recipe:
800g salt, with about 400g sugar (for 3 litres beer). There's some discussion of wet bacon cures over on the River Cottage site, what's intersesting is they rarely put nitrite/nitrate or saltpetre in their wet bacon cures.
Dave

Posted:
Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:37 pm
by jenny_haddow
I'm going to try a wet cure with my next lot of bacon, I've had complaints from himself that the dry cure makes the bacon too dry. I thought I would try two three pieces with different recipes then smoke some and leave some, and compare the results.

Posted:
Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:47 pm
by Big Guy
I wet cure my bacon.
I brine it for about 7-10 days in a brine kept cold in the fridge, or usually in my garage in the late fall. I use a crockery 8 gallon crock. You can use plastic pail, just nothing reactive like aluminum.
1 cup coarse salt
1 cup brown sugar(packed)
1 tbs cure
20 cups water.
after brining I hang to dry for a day them smoke at 130F for 2 hrs , raise the smoker to 150F apply a heavy maple smoke and go to I reach an intrenal temp of 140F in the bacon.
works for me.

Posted:
Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:20 pm
by saucisson
I thought my post might bring out a few wet curers
Big Guy, is that cure#1 you use?

Posted:
Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:29 pm
by DarrinG
I wet cure all of my streaky bacon. However I use a dry cure for the Hillbilly bacon.
My recipe is just like Big Guys except I add some bay and garlic to my brine.
DarrinG

Posted:
Fri Mar 02, 2007 10:08 am
by shanew
I went and modifed the wiltshire wet cure, replaced most of the fluid with pressed apple juice and used golden syrup instead of sugar. It's a nice taste but you wouldnt know it had been near an apple! It'll get eaten

i've got a full back joint, all 3ft of it dry curing at the moment, i've used palm sugar on that for a change. The car show seasons about to start so im prepairing the food for bbq's. I'll be off the Netto and clear them out of shoulders! still think there bloody good value

Posted:
Fri Mar 02, 2007 2:31 pm
by Big Guy
Yes cure#1 is what I use.