newtwoq
is one Smokin' Farker
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2012
- Location
- Richmond, Va
Got the bacon going last night!
Started off with a local belly
Took it out of the package and found that it still had the skin on (it was a gift)
But it showed a lot of promise looking at the sides!
The next step was to take the skin off, I have heard you can leave the skin on, but it will take the cure twice as long to make it's way through the meat as it doesn't penetrate the skin as well, so I used a sharp boning knife and took about 10 mins to slice the skin off while trying to save as much of that good fat as possible!
When we flip it over we find some nice looking meat!
The next step in the process is to measure the thickness and the weight of the belly. The thickness is used to determine how long the belly needs to stay in the cure in order to reach equilibrium and the weight is used to determine how much of each ingredient to weigh out.
Next comes some calculations, these are much easier to perform in grams as you don't have to worry about any odd fractions. Then I weighed out each ingredient and in a bowl they all went. This is going to be a very simple recipe using just Morton's Kosher Salt, Sugar, and Cure #1. I forgot to take a picture of my notes, I will add specifics tonight.
Once weighed out and mixed together the cure was applied to both sides of the belly and the whole thing was placed in a 2.5gal zip-lock bag. All of the cure that did not stick to the meat was also dumped into the bag to ensure that the cure has the right amount in it for equilibrium.
This all was placed into the fridge last night and will be flipped every other day.
This morning, I noted that a good portion of the salt had been absorbed into the meat and there was some liquid in the bag. I'll share more as we are going through the flipping stages!
Started off with a local belly
Took it out of the package and found that it still had the skin on (it was a gift)
But it showed a lot of promise looking at the sides!
The next step was to take the skin off, I have heard you can leave the skin on, but it will take the cure twice as long to make it's way through the meat as it doesn't penetrate the skin as well, so I used a sharp boning knife and took about 10 mins to slice the skin off while trying to save as much of that good fat as possible!
When we flip it over we find some nice looking meat!
The next step in the process is to measure the thickness and the weight of the belly. The thickness is used to determine how long the belly needs to stay in the cure in order to reach equilibrium and the weight is used to determine how much of each ingredient to weigh out.
Next comes some calculations, these are much easier to perform in grams as you don't have to worry about any odd fractions. Then I weighed out each ingredient and in a bowl they all went. This is going to be a very simple recipe using just Morton's Kosher Salt, Sugar, and Cure #1. I forgot to take a picture of my notes, I will add specifics tonight.
Once weighed out and mixed together the cure was applied to both sides of the belly and the whole thing was placed in a 2.5gal zip-lock bag. All of the cure that did not stick to the meat was also dumped into the bag to ensure that the cure has the right amount in it for equilibrium.
This all was placed into the fridge last night and will be flipped every other day.
This morning, I noted that a good portion of the salt had been absorbed into the meat and there was some liquid in the bag. I'll share more as we are going through the flipping stages!
