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Sean "Puffy" Coals
10-29-2012, 09:02 PM
So, I got my boss to split a case of pork bellies with me so I could try my hand at home-made bacon!

Now I need a good recipe so as not to disappoint him. We were both thinking of something with a little sweetness to it, possibly some maple syrup, and some sort of chiles for a little kick but not overpowering.

I will also be using wild cherry wood for smoke.

Anyone got a cure recipe like that?

Also, any tips/times?

captndan
10-30-2012, 07:35 AM
I assume you mean mop not cure. Should be a good combination. Thirdeye has some good stuff on bacon.

Sean "Puffy" Coals
10-30-2012, 08:13 AM
I hit up the search bar for some cure recipes and techniques. Here's my plan:

Cure the bellies using Morton tender quick, brown sugar, black pepper, some clove, chipotle chile, bay leaf and coriander.

I'll apply the cure and vac pack the bellies. They'll go into the fridge for 5 days, flipping each day.

After the 5 days, soak overnight with at least 2 water changes. Then, back into the fridge, uncovered, overnight to form the pellicle.

Next day: smoke w/ cherry wood and baste with maple syrup. I don't know if I will need to use a bowl of ice in the smoker or not, it depends on if I can get the drum to settle in at a low enough temp.

Remove from the smoke once the internal temp reaches 155*, cool and slice.

I'm going to make my Boss's with the chipotle and some of mine, but most of mine will be without because wifey can't eat it.

I will post pics as the process goes along, but it will be quite a while as I have to finish my Fridge (http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146830) Mods, then procure the meat and the cure & smoke have to be scheduled in a way that it ends on my day off so I have time to smoke, chill, slice and package.

Whew! Looking at the process on "paper" it seems like a whole lot of work, but it'll be worth it.

captndan
10-30-2012, 08:22 AM
Dam right it will be worth it! And ask the boss for a raise.

Sean "Puffy" Coals
10-30-2012, 09:07 AM
Dam right it will be worth it! And ask the boss for a raise.

If this turns out as good as I think it will, I won't have to ask- he'll be throwing money at me!

BTW- any tips for making poblanos into chipotles? We sell fresh poblanos at my work and was thinking of roasting them myself and using in the bacon. Would I need to dry them out after roasting or just finely dice and rub into the meat along with the cure?

chad
10-30-2012, 09:39 AM
Chiplote is dried/smoked jalapeno. Dried pablano is ancho.

Morton Tender Quick is a good way to go, or check out Michael Ruhlman's book "Charcuterie"...I use this book as a go-to. If you are curing the bacon just remember it takes 7-10 days for the cure to pentrate.

My son does an herb rubbed fresh bacon with no cure. He leaves it in the herb rub/marinade and then cooks in the smoker to about 160. His latest project was a meat-ode to Simon & Garfunkel "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme" bacon! He rubs with sugar, salt, herbs and does not use cure (no pink salt or Mortons). He lets it cure in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.

chriscw81
10-30-2012, 10:25 AM
Just wait, you will never buy store bacon again. I just cold smoked 6 pounds of cured bacon with cherry and it was great. I used the thirdeye and cowgirl recipe....except for the smoking method. Others seem to have lots of success smoking at higher temp but I prefer the cold smoking route. I do it in a kamado though so the temps probably got up to around 100 degrees. Check out the a-maze-n pellet smoker, it works great. It will cold smoke for hours and hours and your temps will remain low. Or you can use my simple homebrew method using smoke pellets, expanded metal, and some foil
http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146356

Good luck, I'll be looking forward to some pron

Chris

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-08-2012, 09:49 AM
Well, first time I went to pick up the bellies, the butcher didn't have them. Apparently the place they get their meat from ran short. The guy was very apologetic. But this morning, I called to see if they were in before wasting a trip.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon001.jpg

The case weighs in at just over 23lbs. I wasn't expecting them to be loose like that- I thought they'd be in cryo, but this way will actually be easier I think.

I also got some of my anniversary presents a couple days early, which included a new slicer:

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/DSCN0451.jpg

That sucker is sharp, too! Gonna make slicing this bacon very easy. I'm salivating already!!!

Hopefully going to get the cure going tomorrow after work, saturday at the very latest.

chriscw81
11-08-2012, 10:21 AM
Well, first time I went to pick up the bellies, the butcher didn't have them. Apparently the place they get their meat from ran short. The guy was very apologetic. But this morning, I called to see if they were in before wasting a trip.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon001.jpg

The case weighs in at just over 23lbs. I wasn't expecting them to be loose like that- I thought they'd be in cryo, but this way will actually be easier I think.

I also got some of my anniversary presents a couple days early, which included a new slicer:

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/DSCN0451.jpg

That sucker is sharp, too! Gonna make slicing this bacon very easy. I'm salivating already!!!

Hopefully going to get the cure going tomorrow after work, saturday at the very latest.

I like to start my cure on a Friday or Saturday and 2 Sundays later I'm ready to smoke my bacon. It works out perfect for 6 or 7 days to cure, 1 day resting out in open in the fridge, and day to smoke.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-11-2012, 08:20 PM
Well, I finally got started on home-made bacon batch #1 yesterday!!!!

The 23.5lb case contained 2 belly halves, one of which weighed about 10lbs and a monster (comparatively) that weighed the remaining 13.5lbs.

Here's the little one:

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon002.jpg

And the big one:

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon005.jpg

With this one I could more clearly see where the belly transitioned into the front and back legs.

I cut them as evenly as possible into approximately 3lbs pieces so they'd fit in the Food Saver bags for curing.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon003.jpg

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon006.jpg

I used Morton Tender Quick for the cure, some allspice, ground black pepper and turbinado sugar.

When it came to actually applying the cure, I got a lil confused. The directions on the bag say to use a tablespoon per pound of meat, but that gets diluted when you start adding other ingredients into the mix.

I figured I'd apply it like a rub- enough so you know it's there, but not so much that you cant see the meat underneath it:

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon008.jpg

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon009.jpg

After rubbing the cure into all the pieces and vac-packing them, I still had some cure left, but I figured that would account for the little bit of fat I trimmed off.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon007.jpg

The pieces went back into the fridge around 11:00pm. Today I flipped them. I will post more pics when it's time to remove from the vac-pack and rinse.

Thanks for looking!!!!

LM600
11-14-2012, 02:28 PM
Looking very cool!

Just to throw my hat in the ring.....what I do is....

Get a pork loin and weigh it.
Measure out some Supracure (salt / sodium nitrite mix) at a ratio of 5% cure to the weight of the meat.
Rub ~a third of the cure into the meat.
Place meat in a container and pop into the fridge.
Each day take the meat out of the container and drain then rub with a little more of the cure....repeat this until all of the cure is used up, this'll take about 3-5 days.
Leave the meat for a total of 7 days (I have gone upto 14 but with no benefit imo).
On day 8 rinse and soak the green bacon, changing the water regularly.
Dry the green bacon and pop back in the fridge to form a pellice for a day.
I then cold smoke for five days.
Slice, vac pack and freeze then cook as needed.

Nice and simple!

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-14-2012, 04:46 PM
Looking very cool!

Just to throw my hat in the ring.....what I do is....

Get a pork loin and weigh it.
Measure out some Supracure (salt / sodium nitrite mix) at a ratio of 5% cure to the weight of the meat.
Rub ~a third of the cure into the meat.
Place meat in a container and pop into the fridge.
Each day take the meat out of the container and drain then rub with a little more of the cure....repeat this until all of the cure is used up, this'll take about 3-5 days.
Leave the meat for a total of 7 days (I have gone upto 14 but with no benefit imo).
On day 8 rinse and soak the green bacon, changing the water regularly.
Dry the green bacon and pop back in the fridge to form a pellice for a day.
I then cold smoke for five days.
Slice, vac pack and freeze then cook as needed.

Nice and simple!

Smoke for 5 days????? Can u give me a little more detail?

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-16-2012, 01:41 AM
Bacon-Noob question:

I'm probably going to have to use one of my large stock pots to soak the bacon hunks in- should I try to keep some space between the pieces? Does it matter? What should I use as spacers, potato chunks?

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-22-2012, 07:55 AM
OK, curing finished the other day. There was some liquid inside the vac-pack, which I've read is normal. Other than that, it looked pretty much like any other piece of seasoned meat.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon010.jpg

I rinsed all the pieces off the best I could.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon011.jpg

And packed into my 2 biggest stock pots to soak overnight.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon012.jpg

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon014.jpg

I wanted to make sure the pieces had some space in between, so I ended up sticking some ice cubes in to create voids for the water to contact the meat.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon013.jpg

My overnight soak turned into a 2 night soak as I was only able to change the water once during the first night. I got 2 more water changes in over the next day, tho. We'll see if this affects the finished product or not.

After the soak, it was time to make the glaze. I took 4 poblanos and roasted on the stove. Here they are with the skins removed.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon017.jpg

I cut them into pieces and added them to a pot of simmering maple syrup.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon018.jpg

I simmered the peppers for a half hr. When I tasted it, it just tasted like syrup with green peppers in it- not hot at all. I guess I boiled all the capzaisin away. Oh well, there goes that idea.

Decided to just sprinkle a few of the pieces with cayenne before smoking.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon019.jpg

I ended up with 8 large rectangular pieces and one little end piece, so I did 2 pieces hot for the boss and 1 for myself to try. I did the little piece too just to finish off the bottle of cayenne .

I don't have any pictures of them on the smoker because it was such a hectic day, but I'll slicing it up in a little bit and will have a couple of that.

Thanks for lookin!

Hook_Line_and_Sinker
11-22-2012, 09:56 AM
:pop2:

Crazy Harry
11-22-2012, 12:14 PM
way to go

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-25-2012, 08:09 AM
OK, so it's been a few days but I finally got the time to vac-pack everything and get the rest of the pics up.

Here are the bacon pieces after smoking and chilling in the fridge over night.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon020.jpg

Slicing was easier than I thought it would be, thanks to my new 12" Victorinox slicer. I wasn't able to slice very thin, but I like it thicker anyway and that's what my boss wanted too.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon021.jpg

Gratuitous mound o' bacon shot:

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon022.jpg

I fried up a piece of regular and hot to see what they taste like- they were both pretty good but I think I like the hot a little better.

The smoke flavor was prominent but not over powering. There was very little salt, which is likely due to the extra long soak. I couldn't really taste the maple flavor at all, so I decided to add some to each bag before vacu-packing.

http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p430/TimAikin1/Cooks/11-8-2012Bacon023.jpg

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, considering this was my first time curing and cold smoking anything.

Home-made is definitely far superior to store-bought bacon- the texture is soft and almost creamy compared to the gritty, rubbery texture of mass-produced.

Some things I would do differently next time- make sure I have the day off for the smoke. I had a lot of other things to do and I couldnt monitor the temps as closely as I'd like to. I had a couple of big flare ups where the temps in the smoker got ove 300*.
I'd also like to do more glazing with the syrup to get more maple flavor into the meat. The 2 applications I did just weren't enough.

And definitely not soak more than 1 night.

Anyway, thanks for lookin!

bluetang
11-25-2012, 08:35 AM
Fine dang bacon!

Hook_Line_and_Sinker
11-25-2012, 07:03 PM
Oh ya that looks good

seattlepitboss
11-25-2012, 08:17 PM
I picked up a Globe slicer awhile back, not running and in dire need of some TLC. I tore it down, cleaned everything (the basic problem was the guy used vegetable oil on the slides and it got all sticky - NEVER lubricate with vegetable oil, always use food-grade mineral oil) and put all back together. Makes slicing bacon and ham a treat. I have discovered that home-cured ham tastes (to me) way better if it's sliced really really thin. Melts on the tongue, yum.

Anyway, I did up packages of 8 slices of bacon in Foodsaver bags and froze them. On a recent road trip I brought several bags along in the cooler. Sure was nice to be a thousand miles from home camping somewhere in the heartland and cooking my own bacon!

I'll try the recipe. I doubt the maple syrup does much. And poblanos really really vary in heat. Some are much stronger than others. You probably got some mild ones. Next time use just one minced serrano. About the same amount of heat as you should have gotten, way better flavor IMHO.

seattlepitboss

Sub-80
11-28-2012, 12:52 AM
Awesome looking bacon!

I have 21.5 pounds of belly curing right now myself... Xmas gifts. One of my cures is Chipotle Honey...along with some ancho chili powder:

http://i1254.photobucket.com/albums/hh616/sub-80/B4CF5621-0D93-470B-862D-8B196581CAA9-11969-00000AB26720AF6D.jpg

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-28-2012, 08:31 AM
Awesome looking bacon!

I have 21.5 pounds of belly curing right now myself... Xmas gifts. One of my cures is Chipotle Honey...along with some ancho chili powder

MMmMmmMmM, that sounds really good. Wifey is already making suggestions for "...when you make your next batch..." I wasn't planning on making more for quite a while, but we're going through it pretty quick.

I might have to try that next time.

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-28-2012, 08:38 AM
All you bacon pros out there: Is it better to season your bacon during the cure using dry chile powders or during the smoke with a mop? Also, when you rinse off the cure, how thorough should you be? I was pretty thorough and got off most of the seasonings and spices- I think this may have resulted in a weakened flavor. Or, maybe it was the extra day of soaking. Or both?

Sub-80
11-28-2012, 09:22 AM
All you bacon pros out there: Is it better to season your bacon during the cure using dry chile powders or during the smoke with a mop? Also, when you rinse off the cure, how thorough should you be? I was pretty thorough and got off most of the seasonings and spices- I think this may have resulted in a weakened flavor. Or, maybe it was the extra day of soaking. Or both?

Excellent question...and one I'm searching for the answer myself.

This is my 2nd attempt at chipotle/honey bacon. My first attempt was good...but not as spicy as I'd like. The thing is, it tasted great on the taste test (prior to soaking)...but a bit too salty. So I soaked. The saltiness was reduced to a good level, but the chiptole flavor was also reduced to where it wasn't strong enough.

I think it comes down to being careful with how much salt you use to begin with. I'm not going to soak the chipotle-cured bellies this time to see what happens. I also added some dried spices this time to kick it up some more...the ancho and dried chiptole pepper (along with the chipotle in adobo)...

I'll let you know how it goes....it's all trial and error!

Sub-80
11-28-2012, 09:36 AM
All you bacon pros out there: Is it better to season your bacon during the cure using dry chile powders or during the smoke with a mop? Also, when you rinse off the cure, how thorough should you be? I was pretty thorough and got off most of the seasonings and spices- I think this may have resulted in a weakened flavor. Or, maybe it was the extra day of soaking. Or both?

Your question was timely...I emailed Michael Ruhlman about the same thing...he responded this morning...

His response was brief but to the point..."only soak if too salty".

So...I guess if you are wanting spice...add enough during the cure (that is trial and error)...and be careful with the salt. Try to get it where soaking won't be necessary. I personally hate the idea of a belly getting all happy in chiptole and ancho for 6-7 days...only to wash it all (or much of it) away later.

chad
11-28-2012, 10:02 AM
The cure and excess salt should be rinsed off well. The extra seasoning will flavor the bacon surface but won't penetrate like the cure. You will want to re-season prior to smoking to get the pepper/spice/whatever flavor on the outside of the bacon. YMMV!

My son salt/sugar cures (no Cure #1) with herbs. He likes the results but, since he does not use pink salt, he hot smokes his bacon after the 10 days of cure. He rinses and then re-seasons with the herbs.

gtr
11-28-2012, 10:31 AM
I do all my flavoring with the curing process. All I add when smoking is cracked black pepper all over the surface.

Nice looking bacon there! :clap2: It's been a while since I've gotten bellies to cure and I've been using store bought bacon, which, no matter how good it is, doesn't ever seem to match home-made.

Sean "Puffy" Coals
11-28-2012, 10:33 AM
Great information. Thanks to all!

I guess what it really comes down to is sampling the bacon after rinsing off the cure to see where the salt content and flavor is at.

Next batch I will cut a slice and taste it before I decide if I will soak or not and re-season as needed before smoking.

Also, perhaps I will invest in some dry honey powder, maple syrup powder and some quality chile powder since using straight syrup, while tasty, becomes very sticky after cooking the bacon.

Sub-80
11-28-2012, 11:19 AM
I recieved another response from Ruhlman...

Put the desired flavors in the cure....and yes, soaking will take some of those flavors away...so again, it a comes down to using the correct amount of salt for the cure (so you don't have to soak).

Sub-80
11-28-2012, 12:33 PM
I do all my flavoring with the curing process. All I add when smoking is cracked black pepper all over the surface.

Nice looking bacon there! :clap2: It's been a while since I've gotten bellies to cure and I've been using store bought bacon, which, no matter how good it is, doesn't ever seem to match home-made.

I've never added anything post-cure...except smoke...do you think the pepper makes a big difference at that point?

I've wondered if I should add anything post-cure....I just never have.

inspecchi
12-15-2012, 02:24 AM
Has anyone had luck making Canadian Bacon? I have a shoulder roast in the freezer that I would like to try making Canadian Bacon. Any help will be appreciated.