Complete guide on how to cure bacon outlines all the steps for curing, drying, smoking and hanging, with a simple classic rec ipe.
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What could be nicer than the smell of grilled bacon? Right! The smell of self-smoked, grilled bacon. We have just the thing for you! Making bacon yourself is not difficult! An absolute delicacy!
In general, you should avoid cheap, packaged bacon slices in the supermarket. However, sometimes it is inevitable. For example, if you have forgotten to get the bacon from the butcher you trust. But why not just lean how to make bacon yourself and cut it into slices, vacuum pack and freeze it in portions?
How to cure bacon: the ingredients
For a really good self-smoked bacon you only need two things: a little time and the right outside temperature. The amount of ingredients is calculated for 1 kg of pork belly. If you want to do more or have a bigger piece of pork belly, you can simply adjust the amount of ingredients.
Ingredients per kg of bacon:
1 kg pork belly with rind
40 g nitrite curing salt
5 g cane sugar
1.5 g cilantro (coriander)
1.5 tsp juniper berries
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
2 dried bay leaves
1 teaspoon garlic granules
1 pinch of clove powder
Preparation
All of the above ingredients (except for the pork belly and the nitrite curing salt) are put in a mixer or mortar and all ingredients are chopped up very thoroughly. Then you mix in the curing salt.
When choosing the pork belly, you should make sure that the rib bones and the cartilage are removed, because you don’t want to chew on the cartilage later. Ideally, the butcher will do this for you. If not, it is not much of a problem to cut out the rib bones and cartilage yourself. The rind stays on.
How to cure bacon: curing
Then you can start curing. The pork belly is rubbed with the curing mixture and then vacuumed (reading tip: vacuum sealer purchase advice ) or placed in a bowl and placed in the refrigerator for a week. It is important to turn your stomach once every other day so that it cures evenly.
The general rule of thumb for curing is: one day of curing time per centimeter of meat thickness + two days as security. Since a pork belly is usually around 5 cm thick, we come to 5 days + 2 days security, i.e. one week.
After the curing week, the belly is removed from the vacuum, the meat juice is poured out and left to burn or ripen in the bowl for another 3 days in the refrigerator. Then you take the pork belly out of the refrigerator and wash off the salt and spices completely under running water. Now you fill a bowl with cold water and put the pork belly in for about 30 – 45 minutes. Soaking the bacon doesn’t make it too salty afterwards.
How to cure bacon: drying
The meat is then dried in the air for 48 hours. The point is that the pork belly gets nice and dry on the outside because if you hang it wet in the smoke, it would taste bitter afterwards. Drying should be done in the cold cellar or you can hang it in a refrigerator. If necessary , you can also put it in a bowl with a grate, such as the Koncis oven dish
How to cure bacon: smoking the bacon
When the meat is dry, it’s time to smoke it. The bacon is cold smoked. To do this, you use an economy brandy with smoking flour made from beech wood chips. The chips should be very fine. We recommend the grain size 500/100, for example of smoked gold .
The outside temperature is important for cold smoking, because cold smoking should ideally take place at outside temperatures of 5-15 ° C. Therefore the cold season is the ideal smoking time. It wouldn’t work in the summer. If you smoke in spring or autumn and it is too warm during the day, you can also smoke at night, as the temperatures are then usually in the ideal range.
Hanging the pork belly
You hang the cured pork belly in the smoker and smoke it a total of 5 times every other day for 5 hours. This results in a smoking period of 10 days with a day break in between. During the smoking break you should hang the bacon back in the cellar or refrigerator. Five smoking cycles ensure a pleasant and mild smoke taste. If you want a more intense smoke aroma, you can smoke the bacon longer.
After the last round of smoking, the bacon is hung up again for a day to rest. Then you can remove the rind and cut it into thin or thick slices – whatever you want.
Making bacon yourself is not difficult, it is just time-consuming. After around three weeks from start to finish, our self-smoked bacon is ready. Now it can be cut into slices of any thickness and it also tastes perfectly defrosted when vacuum-sealed and frozen.
Making bacon yourself is worth it! Homemade bacon is ideal for breakfast, on a burger, as a net for a bacon bomb or simply as a snack in between. An effort that is worth it! Have fun copying!
Tip: Make more than 1 kg straight away, because the homemade bacon is so good that it doesn’t last long!
