Pellet Fan
All Things Considered => General Discussion--Food Related => Topic started by: Michael_NW on February 02, 2018, 02:21:19 AM
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Thanks to everyone's contributions to the recent curing threads, I felt motivated to cure some bacon. I picked up a pork belly earlier in the week with that in mind. I almost faltered; someone coughDK117cough brought up the idea of making burnt ends from pork belly in the Super Bowl thread which nearly sabotaged the process by diverting the belly in that direction. But I held firm.
I'm using the dry-cure-ingredients-in-a-zip-lock-bag method. Got it started tonight. I really like the look of this belly; it's not as awesome as LowSlowJoe's recent pic, but it looks pretty good!
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That truly is some very good looking belly, that is going to be really good stuff.
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Agree with yorkdude, that is going to be some nice meaty bacon!
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Tuned in to this one :lick:
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Wow, I thought you told me the belly you got didn't look as good as those I've shown... That's a darn good looking belly there.
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I smoked the bacon I've been curing, this evening. If the aroma is any indication, it came out really well. I'll cook up some slices tomorrow as it got kinda late on me tonight. It spent 9 days in the cure; I would have smoked it after 7 days but had no time in the evenings this past week. This encourages me to do more and try some different flavors, but first I have to eat all this wonderful bacon. :pig: Thanks again to all of you; I wouldn't have even tried it without your support.
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Excellent job, looks really good.
Let us know how it is.
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Looks great. Let us know if you need company to take down some of that awesome looking and I am sure tasting bacon.
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Nicely done! I have 2 in the fridge I have to get started on...
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Fried up a few slices and made a quick BLT+C. It tastes outstanding, I'm sure in part to the fact that it was homemade so I perceive it as better. I know I'm not telling a lot of you something you don't already know, but really, this simple cured bacon is way better than any mass-cured bacon I've had. You're probably thinking, "Welcome to the club!"
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Looks great!
:clap: :clap:
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A nice piece of meat and you did a great job with it. :clap:
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guess i need to do one of these...thanks for sharing
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Great Job... I put off making bacon for several years, I was really freaked out thinking it all seemed so complex... that was back before I had discovered what many now call the EQ style of curing, which effectively means you use just enough salt and nitrite that it's virtually impossible to get it too salty even if you let it go for 5 days or more longer then you might have planned... the salt 'equalizes' with the meat and liquids that get pulled off, no more salt transfer takes place... With this EQ method, it's really quite easy to make bacon... I would strongly encourage anyone who might have been in fear of doing bacon, to give it a try, it's actually quite fun and very tasty.
But anyway... I experimented with a bunch of different spices and sugar types, and honestly I can't usually tell the difference between bacon made with white sugar, vs brown sugar... You'd think that it would be relatively easy to tell, but I did some blind taste tests, with my daughter, and we really could not tell... Same really for maple syrup and maple sugar... ( although if you put enough on it, I'm sure eventually you can tell ). Maybe it's because I tend to try and not over do it on my spices... maybe next batch I'll go overboard with some spices and see if I can taste any difference...
For the most part... a little black pepper and maybe some cayenne pepper to go with the salt and sugar is about all I typically use... My last batch used some salt and sugar free Memphis dust... it turned out good, but again, I'm not at all sure I can taste the difference between it and any other bacon I did in the past... I guess I need to try like doubling the amount of spices I use... :)
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that looks really amazing, glad you skipped the burnt ends!
Did you slice the bacon by hand? That's some skill I do not possess.
DK
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I need to try this.
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that looks really amazing, glad you skipped the burnt ends!
Did you slice the bacon by hand? That's some skill I do not possess.
DK
I'm glad you brought out the idea for burnt ends from pork belly! I wouldn't have thought of doing it on my own. That one's going into the Future Cook file.
Yes, I did slice them by hand. In fact, I just finished slicing and vacsealing the rest of it tonight. But I kind of cheated. :-X I'm not that skilled either, but I'm pretty good at painting inside the lines. So when I smoked the bacon I placed each piece as squarely as I could on the BBQ mats. The effect it had was to create a grid pattern on the meat, so when I sliced it I had some good lines to follow. I used my slicing knife and cut each 3 lb piece in half to create 6" wide slices. It just took some time, but then I like knife work so it was fun.
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Great Job... I put off making bacon for several years, I was really freaked out thinking it all seemed so complex... that was back before I had discovered what many now call the EQ style of curing, which effectively means you use just enough salt and nitrite that it's virtually impossible to get it too salty even if you let it go for 5 days or more longer then you might have planned... the salt 'equalizes' with the meat and liquids that get pulled off, no more salt transfer takes place... With this EQ method, it's really quite easy to make bacon... I would strongly encourage anyone who might have been in fear of doing bacon, to give it a try, it's actually quite fun and very tasty.
Thank you so much for helping me with this! I couldn't have done it without your input and knowledge; you helped remove a lot of the fear from the process. You and I are at opposite ends, I think: I tend to really lay the spice on and you may put it on a little light. I'm going to keep trying different things and see what happens.
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When I do pork belly 'burnt ends'... I do it with cured pork belly... actually I do it with bacon. Cut your bacon up into cubes... cook in the pellet grill at 250F or so... baste with your favorite sauce at least once... I like to call them bacon bits... not to be confused with store bought bacon bits of course...
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When I do pork belly 'burnt ends'... I do it with cured pork belly... actually I do it with bacon. Cut your bacon up into cubes... cook in the pellet grill at 250F or so... baste with your favorite sauce at least once... I like to call them bacon bits... not to be confused with store bought bacon bits of course...
Do you dust them with any rub at all?
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Looks like a nice piece of meat. What proportions/measurements did you use?
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I did some belly burnt ends a few months ago. They turned out great, but next time will try to get a bit more bark on them:
https://pelletfan.com/index.php?topic=587.msg5825#msg5825
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Looks like a nice piece of meat. What proportions/measurements did you use?
Hi Ssteppe, sorry for the delay in answering your question; I just got back into town from a long weekend getaway with the wife.
The pork belly was just over 9#. I sliced it into thirds to make each piece fit nicely in a gallon zip lock bag. I weighed each piece separately and measured out the appropriate amount of cure #1, Kosher salt, and white sugar according to the cure calculator found here: http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html For cure #1 the desired level of cure for me was 150 pmm, for salt I went with 2%, and for sugar I also went with 2%.
The percentages for salt and sugar worked out well for me. I may use more or less sugar in upcoming cures to see what I like, but the saltiness was just right.
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What was your smoke temp & times?
I am smoking some today after 7 days in cure. I like 230* till 145* IT.
I use Cherry & Hick mix pellets. (80% Cherry to 20% Hick).
Thanks.. :lick:
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What was your smoke temp & times?
I am smoking some today after 7 days in cure. I like 230* till 145* IT.
I use Cherry & Hick mix pellets. (80% Cherry to 20% Hick).
Thanks.. :lick:
Not sure what his were... but I personally smoke at about 165F for 6 hours... I feel the lower temperatures keep the fat from rendering too much during the process. I personally feel when I get up even towards 180F, the fat begins to melt much more then I'd like... also the higher the temperature you smoke at, the faster the internal temperature will get up toward 145F, meaning less time to get smoke soaked in... When I do at 165F, sometimes I have to turn up the heat a little near the end to get the internal meat temperature up to 145F... but I usually only do that if I'm already at least 5 hours into smoking it.
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Hey rughead . . . sorry for not being here to answer, and of course, it looks like I'm too late to help. I smoked it on the smoke setting on my MAK which gives me anywhere from 170 to 180. Like LSJ, I want as much smoke on that bacon as possible, so the longer it takes to get to 145 the better. I used 100% pecan for the cook.
Hey LSJ, I'm assuming that the bacon, once smoked and vacsealed, will benefit from sitting for a few weeks to allow the smoke to penetrate and homogenize in the same way that cheese would? I've got a piece I'm going to pull out and fry in about a week to see for myself.
Also, I've got 12# in the fridge curing with maple sugar. I actually set the sugar for this cure at 4% to see how much maple flavor I can get. I've read it can be somewhat subtle.
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Hey rughead . . . sorry for not being here to answer, and of course, it looks like I'm too late to help. I smoked it on the smoke setting on my MAK which gives me anywhere from 170 to 180. Like LSJ, I want as much smoke on that bacon as possible, so the longer it takes to get to 145 the better. I used 100% pecan for the cook.
Hey LSJ, I'm assuming that the bacon, once smoked and vacsealed, will benefit from sitting for a few weeks to allow the smoke to penetrate and homogenize in the same way that cheese would? I've got a piece I'm going to pull out and fry in about a week to see for myself.
Also, I've got 12# in the fridge curing with maple sugar. I actually set the sugar for this cure at 4% to see how much maple flavor I can get. I've read it can be somewhat subtle.
yeah, I suspect that letting it sit for a week or so sealed up lets the smoke sort of mingle in with the meat a little more , very likely making it taste a little better with some 'age' to it.... Never actually tried to confirm that, but it seems very likely it would be true.
I cured a 9 pound belly last week, should be ready to smoke this weekend... I have another belly that's still cryovac sealed and needs to be cured soon... I figure I've got a month or so of good cool smoking weather left this winter, and hopefully will have enough stock piled to get me through the summer... I could smoke in the summer too, but it's just a little easier to do in cooler months
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LSJ, thank you for the idea of curing in cellophane rather than zip lock. Have you ever vacsealed a cure? I suppose to do that one would have to be very careful to get an even distribution over the entire belly.
I'm almost out of time for curing belly. I'm starting to get into the busy time for work and I won't see much of a break until July or so. Having tasted homemade bacon, I'd love to be able to put away a bunch of it to have over the course of the year. I'm not afraid to smoke bacon in the summer, but it's just harder to keep the temps in the pit low.
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LSJ, thank you for the idea of curing in cellophane rather than zip lock. Have you ever vacsealed a cure? I suppose to do that one would have to be very careful to get an even distribution over the entire belly.
I'm almost out of time for curing belly. I'm starting to get into the busy time for work and I won't see much of a break until July or so. Having tasted homemade bacon, I'd love to be able to put away a bunch of it to have over the course of the year. I'm not afraid to smoke bacon in the summer, but it's just harder to keep the temps in the pit low.
I have vacuum sealed it before. .. however I find it really tricky to get the belly covered with cure in the pouch without making a mess of the inside of the pouch... whẹn the opening of the pouch gets messy, getting a good seal becomes hard to do. So, I find wrapping in cellophane to be less difficult
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I cut my belly up into manageable size pieces the are relatively uniform in thickness ( for that particular piece )
Getting cure evenly distributed on a piece isn't too hard...
I just did 12.75 pounds this morning...
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Boy oh boy that looks really good.
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I have vacuum sealed it before. .. however I find it really tricky to get the belly covered with cure in the pouch without making a mess of the inside of the pouch... whẹn the opening of the pouch gets messy, getting a good seal becomes hard to do. So, I find wrapping in cellophane to be less difficult
Thanks for the input, LSJ! I was thinking the same thing about vacsealing for the cure; I find it hard enough to keep from making a mess of the zip lock to ensure a good closure. The cellophane does sound like it would be easier to keep tidy and also easy to ensure that all the cure ends up on the meat.
I've got two 10# bellies in the fridge waiting in the wings . . . I think the cellophane method will get a test run with them.
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The bacon looks really great Michael_NW. I have a question though and I apologize if it ends up being a dumb one. I see you have a Mak 2 Star just like I do. With the meat already being cured why is it cooked to 150 IT? Couldn't it just be put in the cold smoker section of the Mak and you could smoke for hours and hours to get the smoke you wanted on it without concern of rendering any fat until you sliced it for cooking?
Also has anyone tried making bacon from Berkshire pork belly? Is it worth the extra money?
Thanks for any thoughts people have on the matter.
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The bacon looks really great Michael_NW. I have a question though and I apologize if it ends up being a dumb one. I see you have a Mak 2 Star just like I do. With the meat already being cured why is it cooked to 150 IT? Couldn't it just be put in the cold smoker section of the Mak and you could smoke for hours and hours to get the smoke you wanted on it without concern of rendering any fat until you sliced it for cooking?
Also has anyone tried making bacon from Berkshire pork belly? Is it worth the extra money?
Thanks for any thoughts people have on the matter.
Hey elenis! Thanks for the comments. My dad once told me there were no dumb questions, just dumb mistakes. It's all good.
I cook the bacon to 145-150 IT simply to pasteurize the meat as insurance - I want to be sure that it's safe to eat. Lots of folks like to cold smoke their cured meats and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I like the results I get by smoking at 170-180 grill temp. And I'm not concerned with rendering the fat from the belly. Very little of the fat renders out, and I mean very little. I think the bacon would have to get much warmer for there to be an issue with that, but regardless, I haven't experienced it. And as for taste, there is plenty of smoke on that bacon to give it a great flavor at those temps.
So, like pretty much everything BBQ, YMMV according to your tastes and preferences.
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Oh, and I haven't tried a Berkshire belly, or even tried looking for one. I wouldn't know where to find it locally and I just haven't gotten to that point, yet. But I imagine the bacon from a Berkshire would be stellar!
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Here's my last bacon smoked this past weekend. I tried using maple sugar to see if any of the maple flavor would translate; but as others have stated before, it pretty much gets washed out by the smoke as it's a very subtle taste. But the taste is still outstanding.
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The wife and I had BLTs after work, last night. Such a simple meal, but was still so enjoyable.
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Great looking end result!!!
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Here's my last bacon smoked this past weekend. I tried using maple sugar to see if any of the maple flavor would translate; but as others have stated before, it pretty much gets washed out by the smoke as it's a very subtle taste. But the taste is still outstanding.
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The wife and I had BLTs after work, last night. Such a simple meal, but was still so enjoyable.
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A British guy over on Facebook, insists that you can get maple flavor... the way he does his, is he basically does what might be considered double curing... or I suppose aging in the second part...
But anyway , he cures his like you normally would, then rinses that off... and then adds even more maple flavor sugar and that sits and cures for another week, but he never washes that second maple sugar layer off... I haven't tried it , but I suspect it would give some maple flavor.
My problem is that I hate bacon that's got too much sugar on it... and commercial maple flavor bacon always seems to be the way I hate it. The reason I hate it is, that when you fry it you get this really gummy layer of burnt sugar/maple on your frying pan. So I imagine that if you do it like I was just describing, you will get some maple flavor, but you'll also get the typical sticky residue on your frying pan.
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My problem is that I hate bacon that's got too much sugar on it... and commercial maple flavor bacon always seems to be the way I hate it. The reason I hate it is, that when you fry it you get this really gummy layer of burnt sugar/maple on your frying pan. So I imagine that if you do it like I was just describing, you will get some maple flavor, but you'll also get the typical sticky residue on your frying pan.
Exactly! So it's not just me that deals with having to clean all that caramelized sugar off of my frying pan! I noticed that especially with this last batch since I was trying to get the maple flavor and doubled the sugar from 2% to 4%. I haven't given up, though. But it's not like I'm unhappy with any of the bacon, so far.
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Yeah, longer, more time consuming...but oven or pit, no curl, no mess...great bacon, and I am going to do a 1lb. BLT right now!
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12 pounds smoked this past weekend, another 11.5 in cure for next weekend
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Great looking bellies, LSJ! I picked up two that were barely 1 1/2" each but the flex in them had me thinking there was more meat than fat in them. I'll find out tomorrow night as they go in cure.
My free time is disappearing fast. Spring is always my busiest time at work: the days are longer and once I throw in Saturday, too, there just isn't much time left for anything extra. My cooks drop significantly in number and I can already tell that my time on this forum is much harder to come by. Gotta get the bacon done while I can!
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Any tips on curing a pork loin? I did one awhile a year or so ago and it turned out really well, but can't remember really how I did it. Local grocery chain has pork loins for $1.38/lb. I did use the iSmokeHogs cure app for getting the ratio. I plan on getting at least a 10 lb one and getting it cut into thirds, maple syrup on one section, brown sugar on another, and keeping the other plain. I don't know how much syrup or brown sugar to use though. Thinking I smoked for a couple of hours at 150 and then let it cool completely (overnight). TIA!!
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Any tips on curing a pork loin? I did one awhile a year or so ago and it turned out really well, but can't remember really how I did it. Local grocery chain has pork loins for $1.38/lb. I did use the iSmokeHogs cure app for getting the ratio. I plan on getting at least a 10 lb one and getting it cut into thirds, maple syrup on one section, brown sugar on another, and keeping the other plain. I don't know how much syrup or brown sugar to use though. Thinking I smoked for a couple of hours at 150 and then let it cool completely (overnight). TIA!!
My basic formulation is this...
All of this in relation to the weight of the meat ( and if you had liquids, in relation to liquid weight plus the weight of the meat )
2% salt
1.5% sugar
0.192% Cure #1 (( that yields 120 parts per million added Nitrate, USDA limit/requirement)... 0.25% Cure #1 is a very common amount too, which is about 156 PPM ))
other spices can be added more or less to your own desires... I start at about 0.5% dry spices, such as pepper, Cayenne, rosemary, etc... you can make very good bacon with just 0.2% black pepper... anything more is just getting fancy.
Something I've been trying to do recently is to make it all add up to 4% total... But it's proving to be a little tricky and I'm not sure it's worth it... with 2% salt, 1.5% sugar, and ~0.2% Cure #1, that totals 3.7%... Leaving 0.3% for spices... Which can easily be done, but it limits you on how creative you can easily get with spice content...
But let me try and explain why I like the 4% total idea... first let me be clear on what my formulation would be...
2% Salt
1.5% sugar
0.192% Cure #1
0.308% pepper ( or some combination of dry spices)
So, lets say I have 4000 grams of pork belly...
I mix up 80 grams of salt, 60 grams of sugar, 7.68 grams of cure #1, and 12.32 grams of pepper ( or combination of dry spices). This all adds up to 160 grams of my personal cure mixture... I would apply it to pork belly ( or other pork ) at a rate of 4%...
So, if I cut my pork belly up into hunks, I'd weigh one of the hunks, multiply that weight times 0.04 and I'd know how much of my cure mixture I'd need to apply to that single piece of pork belly... If it was a 1000 gram piece I'd put 40 grams of my cure mixture in a shaker jar I have, and then begin to sprinkle that cure on the pork... I'd do it as evenly as I could, and I could see how much cure I have left in the shaker, ( because it's clear ) and when I was out of cure in my shaker, I'd know I had the correct amount of cure on that hunk of pork. The even number percentage just gives me math that's a little easier to work with... also, if I make my cure consistently at some set percentage, if I have some left over, I can save it for my next cure... Anyway, this is what I've been doing lately, not sure it's worth the hassle, because with a calculator, i could multiply 0.041 just as easily as I can multiply by 0.040, ( or whatever my total percentage works out to be... but this should give you an idea of how I go about doing my cure(s).
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Any tips on curing a pork loin? I did one awhile a year or so ago and it turned out really well, but can't remember really how I did it. Local grocery chain has pork loins for $1.38/lb. I did use the iSmokeHogs cure app for getting the ratio. I plan on getting at least a 10 lb one and getting it cut into thirds, maple syrup on one section, brown sugar on another, and keeping the other plain. I don't know how much syrup or brown sugar to use though. Thinking I smoked for a couple of hours at 150 and then let it cool completely (overnight). TIA!!
Yeah, my work doens't get affected that much by nicer weather, but my personal free time tends to find other ways to occupy itself as warm weather starts to settle in. Once I smoke my 11.5 pounds of bacon this weekend, i'll have a total of about 36 pounds of bacon that I've made and will have vacuum sealed and frozen... from April to September ( when the weather's relatively nice) I can eat 6 pounds of bacon a month without running out before October when the weather starts to get cool again... :) Hmm... 1.5 pounds a week... I hope that's enough. :) Worst come to worse, i could find some time to make more if I really need to.
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My problem is that I give so much of my cooks away there isn't much left for the freezer. Just gave another 3# of bacon to another coworker . . . I can't help but want to share the food I enjoy. Having said that, I just put 18# of belly into cure tonight, along with 10# of pork loin. Once those are cured, smoked, sliced, vacsealed, and frozen I'll be done for the season. My wife says we're keeping all of it . . . so I guess we are. ;D
I wrapped the pork loin in cellophane but the belly went into zip lock. The bellies are thinner, but they are close to 75% meat. That's going to be some goooood bacon!
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Yeah, I give a fair amount away too... In fact I need to give my sister a few pounds of it now... I had also told a couple co-workers about my bacon and told them I'd give them some to try...
But, at some point I have to restrict that , because what typically would happen is someone would want more... and I'm convinced that if i were ever to try and sell my bacon at a price that would even come close to paying for my time, I'd have to charge like $8 a pound, and I would feel bad about that price.
I bet I spend probably close to 3 hours of time to turn 10 or 12 pounds of meat into bacon... and that's just the time it takes to cure, cleanup, put it on the grill, take it off the grill, put it in the fridge , slice it, package it up. So, if I paid myself say $9/hour, the labor costs alone would be $3/lb. I try not to think about it too much, because if I really valued my time any more than this, I'd probably not even make bacon for myself :).
Actually as most of us know, it's not about paying ourselves for our time , it's a hobby. And honestly , I probably get more pleasure out of making bacon, that just about any other activity on my pellet grill. It's just so darn tasty.. But I also have other hobbies, not to mention other things that need to get done... So, Bacon is just one of things in life to share and do..
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I can see giving my BBQ away, they can have it all...But I am not a Big enough Man to give away bacon!
I will edit my post. Now reading your entire post, I have lots of fridge room. I could see curing bellies if these friend were willing to pay for the...that would be acceptable! Ohh, and they get a smoked slab of bacon, to heck with this sliced and bagged stuff!
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Bacon should be served at every meal!
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I got a 10 pound side from Costco and I also bought some Pork Cushion meat at RD thinking I was going to use it on sausage. I decided to try it on bacon. So they all came out to about 2400 grams (A tad over 5bs.). There were 4 pieces of cushion meat, I am starting with two.
It will be cheap bacon if it works. I tried it once with butts and was not happy, but I think the process was flawed. I am happy I have been able to cut my bacon cost from about $4.25/lb. for any halfway decent bacon, to $3/lb to Costco bacon, to now possible $1.30/lb bacon. Probably would be best if it does not work...in the last 6 weeks, I have probably missed eating bacon on only 5 days!
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Not bad, not bad. That's a great price for good bacon.
It will be cheap bacon if it works. I tried it once with butts and was not happy, but I think the process was flawed. I am happy I have been able to cut my bacon cost from about $4.25/lb. for any halfway decent bacon, to $3/lb to Costco bacon, to now possible $1.30/lb bacon. Probably would be best if it does not work...in the last 6 weeks, I have probably missed eating bacon on only 5 days!
My grandfather ate bacon, eggs, sausage, cakes, and sometimes cereal every morning of his life. Of course, he was a dairy farmer and worked hard so he and Grandma ate well. He lived to 96 . . . I should do so well. I think I need to eat more bacon!
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I guess we will find out next weekend!
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Hate to sound stupid but what is cushion meat? Is this going to be buckboard style bacon? We have made buckboard a few times and it was really good but a little too tough/firm for breakfast but made really good BLT's.
I found the answer on the cushion meat. Just guess I have never heard it called that.
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^^^ Count me as curious too. What is cushion meat? I saw it in the monthly specials flyer for my Restaurant Depot as well.
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All I know is the name. It seems like the Eye of Round of the Pig, real lean for pig, so not sure how it will do.
And on a side note, I thought this was the thread I started about curing bacon several weeks ago...So sorry to have put the one from a few days ago in here. Need to pay more attention!
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Bacon should be served at every meal!
Time to find an online retailer to buy that t-shirt...and one for my 6 year old.