GREAT POST!! I will be watching as now my interest in trying this has increased greatly! I remember my grandparents doing exactly what you wrote about, nothing better than homemade smoked bacon, cathead bisquits with home churned butter and yes, hoecakes!!! not to mention the homemade suasage and redeye gravy, and they never even heard of the word cholesterol and lived to be in their 80's :-D

You're making me want to try it. :-D:thumb:

What a great story, it evoked wonderful memories of my own childhood.
My Mama would make hoecakes and cook home cured bacon that
my Great-Uncles made in their Smokehouse on the Farm.
Thanks for sharing!!!
Looking forward to the fruits of your effort...

We always called it side meat, good stuff with a piece of corn bread and onion.

I LOVE this thread! I too am on my way down the path to ressurecting the lost art of curing/preserving meats.Charcuterie such as it is.I plan to build an AUTHENTIC smokehouse this summer.I have been using the Hi-Mountain cures on butts and loins with success but I am ready to go to the next level.Thanks for the thread and the memories.:thumb:

Also when green beans come in would cut a hunk off and cook it with garden vegetables

Those are great memories. Me not so lucky but my wife was and tells of hog killing time in October. Her Dad was in town this weekend and had all kinds of stories, how they salted the meat and then knocked it off to put on brown sugar. I've got build a smoke house and have him show me.

Old school rules!!!

Something else that sticks in my memory about my Dad's bacon was how incredible is smelled before it was even cooked. It smelled so good I remember asking if it could be eaten without being cooked. Of course, I was told real quick that it needed to be cooked first. The smoked pork from our smokehouse had a nice golden brown color on the skin, the lean meat was nice and red, the smell of hickory mixed with the aroma of the pork and the salt and pepper rub covering the entire outside surface is a memory I will never forget.

After about 30 hours of curing, I took a look at the bacon and some liquid had accumulated in the bags. Since my Dad used to hang his bacon I know that it never cured in liquid.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/pi...pictureid=3790

So, I removed it from the bags and applied some more salt and pepper to it and put it in new bags and back in the fridge. This pic shows that it is already beginning to pick up some of that great red color.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/pi...pictureid=3791

The bacon has been curing for about a week in the fridge. This morning at about 7AM I removed a piece of the pork belly from the plastic bag, rinsed off as much salt as I could, patted it dry with paper towels and put it back in the fridge unwrapped in the hopes that it will dry overnight and develop a pellicle.

Tomorrow (Sunday AM) I will smoke this piece of the pork belly with hickory until it reaches an internal temp of about 140-150. I will report the results. I am keeping the other two pieces of belly in the salt/pepper cure for now. I want to see how this piece works out after a week of curing in the salt and pepper.

Now, my Dad's bacon was a beautiful brownish color on the outside, smelled of pepper and hickory, and the lean meat had a dry and reddish appearance. So, we'll see tomorrow night how this one measures up.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/pi...pictureid=3821

Thanks for looking!

Looking forward to this

Me too!

This is a must try for me! Thanks for this great post:clap2:

Ross

Thank you for sharing this story. Can't wait to see more pics of the process.

I can't wait to try this, I guess I'm off to the butcher for some side meat! JB

The slab of belly has been sitting in the fridge uncovered since Saturday morning. Here are some pics.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/pi...pictureid=3832

This is a pic of the belly using the camera's flash. Notice how the light shines on it. That's not moisture causing that shine. The surface of the belly is pretty dry. What's making that great shiny surface is the pellicle that has formed.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/pi...pictureid=3833

The pellicle does three main things. It helps to prevent the fat in the meat from rising to the surface and spoiling; it provides a good surface to hold smoke and it also helps to seal in moisture.

I got a late start today on the smoke process. I will post some pics of it as soon as I can.