Making bacon

[Habanarrow]

I decided to venture into the world of curing meats.
Started with a 10 lbs pork belly
3/4 cup of pure maple syrup ( not pancake syrup)
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
Mix all these in a bowl and rub over the belly real good. Put in a ziplock bag in fridge and flip it over once a day for about a week.
In the end they should look like so:

I used mesquite for about 4 hours and got a nice smoke

Once done, I let them rest and put them in fridge for a day.
They were ready to slice.


No chemicals and tastes out of this world

[TP3]

Dang Brian what do you get for a pound of that pre sliced?

[Habanarrow]

I paid 31.50 for a 10 pound belly.
Looking at other " finer" packaged bacons they wanted 6 a pound.
I'll stick with this one from now on!

[TP3]

I like those numbers.

[TC]

Looks great, i'm going to have to try this. What temp did you smoke them at?

[Dspivey]

I'd love to make some of that.

[Junebug]

Big fan of makin bacon!

My basic cure is 1lb kosher salt
1 cup of white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
8 teaspoons of pink salt.

Cure a week to ten days.
Wash and pat dry.
Smoke for 3 hours at 250

Incredible

[Strummer]

Did you use curing salt ?

[Ron]

That some good looking bacon. It's making my mouth water

[Habanarrow]

I had the pit about 200-215 average
As far as salt, I used Morton's kosher salt, recipe calls for either kosher or pickling salt.
This was a lil cheaper.

[LWD]

Where can you buy pork bellies? I want to try this.

LWD

[Junebug]

A good meat market will have them.
Central market and whole foods usually have them in the back if you ask the butcher.

[Strummer]

But no pink cure salt ?

[Habanarrow]

But no pink cure salt ?

I didn't use any

[Ironman]

Can't you cold smoke bacon? For some reason, I always thought it was cold smoked.