Smoked Bacon without a Smoker

[alanywiseman]

Hi All,

I am going to start dry curing my first peice of pork with the hope of producing some nice bacon but time will tell. I have ordered 2kg of middle and was going to cut that in half and make a differnet rub for each. Both rubs will be based on the calculator produced by a very kind forum member (sorry I can new and can not remeber your name). For one of the pieces I was going to add some cracked black pepper and bay. The second I had the idea of adding some liquid smoke to to try and give a smokey taste.

Has anyone tried this and will it work? or is there a obvious reason not to do this?

Thanks for any and all advice

Alan

[alanywiseman]

Should have used the search function before posting Seems that a few people have tried it out with some success. It seems in this case less is more so I will use it sparingly.

[captain wassname]

Sounds OK say 2% salt and 1% sugar will give an average type of cure
Ithink you are most likely to be using Phils calculator,so you you should have no problems.
Im not familiar with liquid smoke But bye its name wouldnt be suitable for dry curing
For a first go try a dry cure with some pepper and/or juniper berries and the other half just salt and sugar.
A plain cure will give you a reference point to work from

Jim

[alanywiseman]

Fair point. I suppose I could work on the smoked variant at a later date. From having a look on the forum it seems a few have used the liquid smoke with success when dry curing. It seems you only need a couple of drops.

[wheels]

I don't think that there's any problem with using either liquid, or powdered, smoke.

I recall some discussion about the amounts - maybe do a search of the forum for more. As I recall, many advised using more than the recommended amount - up to double as I recall.

HTH

Phil

[alanywiseman]

Cheers Phil. I should have had a better look before starting the thread. I will see what I can dig up and make a decision from there.

[alanywiseman]

Picked up 3kg of middle yesterday. The plan is to split the belly and the loin then half each of those. One piece of belly will be simply cured with sugar and salt, the other will be brushed with liquid smoke then a run of sugar and salt added. For te loins I plan on smoking one the same as the belly and the other I will add juniper, bay and black pepper.

Will try and post some pics later today at some point.

[Greyham]

iT WORKS PERFECTLY WELL USING HICKORY SMOKE POWDER AS PART OF A DRY CURE. COMBINED WITH MUSCAVADO SUGAR, WILL CREATE A CARAMALLY SMOKEY FLAVOR. USING BOTH LOIN AND BELLY. I USED 2G PER KILO

[alanywiseman]

Thanks for that Grayham.

I set up the pork to cure on Sunday. I slpit the middle down as I said and ended up with 2 pieces of belly (one plain and one brushed with liquid smoke) each wieghting about 400g. Then the two pieces of loin, one with liquid smoke and one with black pepper, juniper and bay.

Now just need to wait 4 days for the belly and 7 days for the loin.

[alanywiseman]

So I removed the belly parts from the fridge today and rinsed them. The meat is definetly firmer and has chage colour slightly during the curing processes. They have been dryied with paper towel and placed back in the fridge to dry out for at least 24hrs.

THe loin portions will be continued to be turned ever 24hrs till Sunday.

I have seen few people drying there bacon for periods up to a week after curing. Do the extra days make a hugh difference?

[captain wassname]

Its a matter of personal preference.Air dried bacon is fairly common in these parts but not to my taste.
Think of progressing towards parma ham.
You could cut one of the belly pieces in half then eat one now and one in say a weeks time.
You could leave the loins curing for a bit longer before deciding what to do with them.

Jum

[alanywiseman]

Tried my bacon this morning and i will be surprised if it lasts till next week! It is so much better than I expected and thanks to Captain Wassname for making me do some with just salt sugar and cure.

The liquid smoke has not added anything to the other piece at all really except staining the flesh and fat a bit. That piece is also slightly chewy which may be due to it being undercured? or due to the liquid smoke? I will definetly just leave it out next time.

[captain wassname]

Never used the smoke powder but assuming your calculations were on the mark then there is no reason for you to think that one piece is undercured.
Mind you some did say to use more than instructions said.
Glad that the "straight bacon" turned out well.

Jin