Friday, September 28, 2012

Makin' Bacon- Part 1

Bacon that you buy from the grocery store these days is just terrible Whatever happened to slow dry curing and careful smoking? Well- it was replaced by injection curing, wet aging and bypassing the smoking process completely by replacing it with liquid smoke.
The only way to get good bacon these days is through careful sourcing from a butcher that buys directly from a smoke house or to make it yourself.

In the next few posts I'll be walking you through the whole process of makin' bacon yourself- step by step.

Sourcing the Pork Belly
Pork belly is a cut that comes from the fatty belly of the pig and is the outer layer between the skin and ribs. It is highly unlikely that your run of the mill national supermarket will carry the cut, however they should be able to order it for you. The cut is far more commonly carried in Mexican and Chinese supermarkets and I found mine at the local Mi Pueblo Mexican supermarket. After explaining what I needed in painstaking detail they hand trimmed the belly to remove the ribs and the rind (the outer skin) while I waited. The total weight after trimming was 7lbs and cost about $3/lb. Once you get the belly home you want to cut the belly into a couple of workable pieces and once cut, you can move on to curing.

Trimmed Pork Belly
Curing the bacon
Curing the bacon is a necessary process to help preserve the bacon for a longer post smoking shelf life,  to prevent bacteria while you store it in the fridge and to infuse flavor. This is not an optional step. The cure and the use of sodium nitrate in the cure ensures that you won't die of botulism, so make sure your cure has the right ingredients.
There are 2 ways to cure- a dry cure where you only rub the meat with the cure or a wet cure where the meat is submerged into a curing liquid. I opted to try the dry cure.
To make the cure I used 1 Tbsp or Morton's Tender Quick and 2 Tbsp of brown sugar for each lb of meat.

The Belly, Morton's Tender Quick and Brown Sugar
After combining in a bowl I applied the cure to the entire surface of the 3 pieces of belly and transferred each piece to ziploc bags and put them in a drawer in the back the fridge where they will sit for the next 7-10 days and will be ready for the next step- Smoking.
The belly cut into pieces and cure applied
Check back in a week or so for an update!