First time makin' Bacon

dan_fash said:

This may be the issue. The YouTube videos I watched implied that the more salt the better... There were even mentions of adding more salt daily if spots were not coated. I probably used 1/2 - 3/4 cup of Morton's Kosher for EACH of 3 2lb. slabs.

In my one brine batch, I used 4 quarts of water, 1/2 cup of salt, 1/2 cup brown Sugar.

Guessing I can't soak post smoking?

Does everybody cook a piece b4 smoking?

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That is way too much salt. I always cook a piece before smoking. If you make red beans, salt pork is a good seasoning.:wink:

dan_fash said:

Ok, now I'm more confused.... The "recipe" I followed recommended 1 tsp of Morton's Tender Quick mixed with 1 cup of Morton's kosher. (For 1 gallon brine), but same mixture of tender quick /kosher for dry cure.

I tried looking on the Morton's recipe page before beginning my cure, but the only cure recipes were for a whole ham, and some beef cut (can't recall). For bacon, it just seemed to push me to buy their curing meats book.

Should I have just used the tender quick (1tsp) and no kosher at all

Desperately wanting amazing bacon

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I just looked on my bag of TQ. On the back, it says 1 tablespoon per pound of meat. thats for any meat.

Are you sure your recipe called for TQ, not curing salt? TQ has salt and curing salt in it. If you only use curing salt (curing salt is pink called #1), its a tiny (like 1/4 tsp) per lb, something like that

I have soaked post smoke with success. Not optimal but it salvaged my 1st (and only) wet brined bactch of bacon. I too missed the fresh water soaking step.

Here is the Basic Dry Cure that I use:
1 pound/450 grams pickling salt
8 ounces/225 grams granulated sugar
2.4 ounces/68 grams pink salt (Prague Powder #1)
Makes about 3 1/2 cups


Once that is mixed up I use a tablespoon of the mix per pound of meat, add additional spices (pepper, brown sugar, etc) and cure for 7ish days. I haven't had to do a fresh water soak in the last 100ish pounds of bacon and pastrami that I've made using the cure above.

dan_fash said:

Here are the recipes I found on line


excellent results with this honey cure. You'll need:

1 lb chunk of pork belly (or larger)
2 ounces honey
2 tablespoons (or more) coarsely ground black pepper
1 cup salt
1 tsp Morton TenderQuick (optional)


And for brine:

First, my "default cure." I make a "hot smoked" bacon which turns out a ready-to-fry but fully cooked product very similar to Russian Bacon. Because of this, I have had a lot of success with a brine cure:

1/2 gallon water
1 cup of Kosher or pickling salt
1 tsp Morton TenderQuick curing salt (optional)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar

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I would not use either of those. The first one has no curing salt if you omit the TQ. The second one is hot smoked, so you really dont need it.

But I still would not use it.

1 lb bacon
1 tbl spoon tender quick
brown sugar, pepper, whatever else you want.

Rub it all in, make sure you get the tender quick worked in well. put it in a ziploc bag, in the fridge for about a week, turn it every day

thats all you need