BACON UPDATE

Last year, I posted my first experience with making bacon at home, starting from a pork belly purchased from COSTCO.   I posted a basic recipe that I found online, and my results.  

It's better now!

You'll need: 

Pork Belly.  Two bellies here because people have requested bacon to take home.

Pink curing salt

Kosher salt 

Brown sugar

Maple sugar

Cocoa powder

Instant coffee

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Baking sheet with a rim

Vacuum sealer OR gallon-size ziploc bags

Kitchen scale

Medium-sized kitchen bowl.

Cooling racks.

Ok, got all that?

Let's review the math: 

FIRST convert the pounds and ounces on the meat wrapper to grams.  "hey siri, convert Xlbs Xoz to grams."  

for brown sugar and salt, you'll take 2% of the total weight of the pork belly:

That's WEIGHT IN GRAMS x .02 = GRAMS OF SALT and GRAMS OF BROWN SUGAR

You're weighing the salt and the brown sugar separately.  

for curing salt, you'll take .25% of the total weight of the pork belly:

That's WEIGHT IN GRAMS x .0025 = GRAMS OF PINK CURING SALT.

 

Mix all that in your medium-sized kitchen bowl.

Now, add ONE TABLESPOON EACH of maple sugar, cocoa powder, instant coffee, garlic powder. Add ONE TEASPOON onion powder.

Mix everything together.  You might want to use a fork to break up clumps of brown sugar.

 Put the cure mix into that rimmed baking sheet.

 

 Get your vacuum sealer and gallon-sized bags ready.

 

 Fold a cuff on each bag.  That way, when you put your pork belly in there it doesn't smear all over the sides of the bag.  You might not care, but who knows how picky your spouse might get about pork juice in the fridge?

 

If you want to cook your entire pork belly in one piece, you can do that.  I prefer to cut it into thirds.  Short fat thirds, not long skinny thirds.  I do this so each piece will fit into my vacuum sealer bags, and no other reason.  So, here's a third of a pork belly, in the cure mixture.  I flip it over, and make sure I stand it on all four edges to completely cover the meat.

That's sealed up, ready for the fridge, where they'll sit to cure for seven days.  Turn them daily to make sure all that juicy goodness circulates.

It's a week later.  Remove the meat from the vacuum bags and RINSE EACH PIECE THOROUGHLY IN THE SINK.  Pat it dry with paper towels.  Get the blue paper towels from AutoZone.  Seriously: they don't leave paper towel fuzzies on the meat.

You might wanna rinse those bags out before you put them in the trash, unless tomorrow is trash day.  I just happen to know.

All dry? Then we're ready for the smoker.  Personally, I start from a cold smoker because I'm lazy.  I set it to 200F.  I use a wireless temperature probe in the thickest piece of pork belly.  

Get your cooling racks ready.  I put them on baking sheets to catch the drips, but paper towels will be just fine. There WILL be drips.

You'll pull it off at 145F and let it cool on those racks to room temperature.

Your bacon has cooled a bit, and you're excited to try some!  You've waited a week, so you can wait another hour or two.

It will slice more easily if you let it chill in the refrigerator for an hour or so after it cools to room temperature.  

I recommend slicing across the short end.  Slicing long-ways you'll end up with bacon burnt in the middle and not done enough on the outside.

Sorry...not all of the bacon made it to the serving plate.

I put one third of the bacon into a ziploc bag in the refrigerator.  The other two thirds go back into vacuum sealed bags, get dated on the bag in Sharpie, and put in the freezer.