Homemade bacon ?

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jsperk

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I started my first pork belly for bacon. I put the tender quick on and sealed with my food saver last night. I noticed one bag seems to have more air in it today. Should be ok or should I rewrap it? I hate to waste bag but I also don't want to ruin the meat.

Thanks
 
It's pretty common to use a Ziploc bag for curing bellies. People don't have problems with the little bit of air that is left in them. I'd leave it and continue as is.

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I'm not 100% positive on this, but using a food saver bag may not have been a good idea. By vacuum sealing, you eliminate the room for the liquid the pork belly will release when it cures. I've only attempted bacon twice, so I'm no pro, but each time the salt has caused the belly to release liquid.

I'm interested on how this turns out for you, please keep us posted.
 
I use plastic wrap on slab bacon and it's not air tight. You could make a small hole in the bag, let the air out and reseal.
 
Thanks for the inpit all. My plan was using saran wrap and zip locks then I started to late at night and didn't realize I was out of saran wrap. So I went with food saver bags since I saw it done like by someone else.
I'm half temped to run to run out and get saran wrap and take out the food saver bags.
I guess it wont go bad in the food saver bag though.
 
I usually just stick my belly slabs in either 1 or 2 gallon ziplocks for the curing process and save the food sealer bags for the finished product.
 
I dry cure.

Salt the meat, put in a tupperware in the fridge and each day drain off any liquid that has come out of the meat.
 
I have used the gallon sized vac bags for dry curing bacon. The air (or lack of air) will not harm the process. Just make sure that if the air causes the liquid to pool to one side, be sure to rotate the bag for even coverage. The vac-pac keeps the bellies surrounded with the liquid, almost eliminating the need to rotate. But always rotate for equal dispersion of the curing agents.
 
I put mine in a pan and a weighted pan on top after I put the cure one ..then let it sit in fridge for 7 days..rinse off then put back in fridge on a rack in pan to let air dry for 24 hrs..then off to the smoker..not sure if its the proper way but it comes out great ..tastes like bacon
 
Thanks everyone. I will let them go and if the pics are good enough I will post them.
 
Red Valley BBQ said:
I'm not 100% positive on this, but using a food saver bag may not have been a good idea. By vacuum sealing, you eliminate the room for the liquid the pork belly will release when it cures. I've only attempted bacon twice, so I'm no pro, but each time the salt has caused the belly to release liquid.

I'm interested on how this turns out for you, please keep us posted.
Click to expand...

Actually, I vac-packed my bacon when I did it and still got moisture out of it. It was my first time, tho and i'm not sure that it was the same amount that would have come out if I had used ziplock bags, but it didn't seem to inhibit the process either.
 
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