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[Bar-B-Lew]

Will you guys that are doing these pork bellies move the threads to the recipe section when you are finished or create a separate recipe thread later.  I would like to come back to a few of these different approaches at some point this Spring.  My travel schedule for work is about to get stupid again which may prevent me from doing this as I may not be home long enough to complete the process.

[Bentley]

We will see how it comes out 1st!  No problem...

[Michael_NW]

Looking good, Bentley! I will be very interested to hear your take on how they are different and how they are the same when they are both cured and smoked. I've got a 12# belly in the fridge I hopefully will start curing this weekend. I gave away almost all of what I cured last week to my boss and co-workers.

Most of the tables I have seen show cure penetration of 1/4" a day, so a 2" thick piece would take 4 days. also have read that one can under cure but not over cure unless they use the wrong amount of cure.

That's what I have read, too, as well as been told to from others' experiences. The cure can go long within reason, just never short.

[Bentley]

Day 8.  I guess I will go slice off a piece or each, fry up and see if I need 2 more days!

[Mudflap]

Day 8.  I guess I will go slice off a piece or each, fry up and see if I need 2 more days!

How do you tell if it is cured enough by slicing/cooking slice from the out side? Do you slice chunk down the middle then cut off a strip to make sure the center is cured? Just asking because the last time I made it I went 10 -12 days and it was very salty.

Mudflap

[Bentley]

I guess as I now think about the question, it is curing from top, bottom, and sides, so it seems to me that the cure at 8 days should be close to the same, 1/4 inch in, or 8 inches in...And yes, they are done, and then some!

[pmillen]

I guess as I now think about the question, it is curing from top, bottom, and sides, so it seems to me that the cure at 8 days should be close to the same, 1/4 inch in, or 8 inches in...And yes, they are done, and then some!

I may not understand this.  I was thinking that at ¼-inch penetration per day, 8 days would be two inches from the top and two inches from the bottom.  So a four-inch thick slice would be completely penetrated.

Am I doing this wrong?

[Bentley]

Wet on right, rub on left in all photos.

It has been so long since I did a rub cure, I did not understand yorkdudes statements about the firmness, but now understand it.  I also believe that mowin (I think) in another thread spoke that he did not like wet cures for belly because they leave the belly soft for lack of a better word. It just never mattered to me as the end product was all I cared about. Now seeing both methods I understand what both are referring to!

As far as taste, well, they need to be dried, smoked, and then cooked again before I make final comments on taste.  They are pretty close.  To me, the Wet Cure is much saltier, but my brine/cure was 6.5% so guess what Mr. Nimrod...In the future that will be a 3%.  The Rub Cure was a little less salty.  But I used the Diggy Dog calculator and it gives amounts for all ingredients for the rub cure, I can't seem to find that for wet...sure it is out there.

Will see how they both taste after I finishes them completely, but I just do not see a huge taste difference at this time. 

Kristin does not agree with this opinion I believe...

[Bentley]

I think that math would be right...I am not the one to get the science end of this stuff, I am just a do it and see how it comes out guy...but I think both of these would probably have been done at 6 days!

I may not understand this.  I was thinking that at ¼-inch penetration per day, 8 days would be two inches from the top and two inches from the bottom.  So a four-inch thick slice would be completely penetrated.

Am I doing this wrong?

[yorkdude]

Well how cool is thanks for the side by side. I very much want to try wet but it has never worked for me in the past. Your wet cure looks great, I never had such luck. I am all tuned in as to which you prefer.

[Bentley]

At this point, I do not see an advantage of one over the other for taste, so it would seem to be a...use what works best for ya...If space is an issue, the rub cure would probably be the way to go.  An advantage of that is a lot less cure, and for that reason alone I will probably change for Belly at least!

[Bar-B-Lew]

was there more shrinkage when you cooked them on the dry rub than the wet rub

[Bentley]

They seemed about the same eyeing it...I should have weighed them!

[LowSlowJoe]

Honestly, I've never wet cured... well, I have, but never with water.

 I consider curing in a bag, with nothing but dry ingredients to be wet curing...  the only water is that which is pulled out of the meat, but that moisture tends to be left hanging around on the meat... so it in a sense is wet cured. 

  I personally wrap my curing bellies in cellophane , I find it very easy to do ( the hardest part is yanking the hunk of cellophane off the roll/cutter and not getting it all waded up )... I wrap it as tightly as I can, so any moisture that gets pulled out of the meat has no place to go really, it just sits there...   heck, I don't even 'flip' my belly while it cures anymore, because I'm so confident of how close the cure is held against the meat.

  Taste in general... again, I've never done a immersion cure, so I can't directly comment to any taste difference there might be between the two methods Bentley has done.... However I can tell you that in general... It's very hard for me to tell the difference between bacon cured using white sugar, brown sugar, or maple sugar...   My daughter and I have done several blind tastings, and my conclusion is that I absolutely can't tell the difference between the types of sugar.  I think to make much of a difference in flavor , you'd have to really go excessive with things like sugar, or spices....  Now salt's a different matter... I'm certain I could tell the difference between bacon made with 3% salt, vs 2%...   for me 2% is plenty of salt... 3% would be too much.. but I guess to some degree it depends on how much sugar you added...

  I've cured 2" thick hunks of belly in as little as 5 days and haven't seen any signs that the cure didn't penetrate all the way into the belly... However, I normally go 7 to 10 days, and because I use 2% salt, there's virtually no chance of it becoming too salty , even if I were to go more like 14 days I don't think it would become too salty.

[Michael_NW]

  I personally wrap my curing bellies in cellophane , I find it very easy to do ( the hardest part is yanking the hunk of cellophane off the roll/cutter and not getting it all waded up )... I wrap it as tightly as I can, so any moisture that gets pulled out of the meat has no place to go really, it just sits there...   heck, I don't even 'flip' my belly while it cures anymore, because I'm so confident of how close the cure is held against the meat.

That's interesting. I'm going to have to try that.

Great looking bacon, Bentley! I'm interested to see if you can tell any difference once they're both smoked and cooked.