Bradley Maple Cure bacon....

[ExpatCanadian]

Hi,

Need to tap into your collective experience.....  I started a belly a week ago today using the Bradley Maple Cure, and the recipe from the Bradley site for it....  adding around 1/4 cup of maple syrup and a couple of tsp. of Maple concentrate + the cure amount called for.

Now...  7 days in, it still feels pretty soft to me, not the firmness I would expect.  Has anyone got any experience with the Maple Cure, does it normally take more than 7 days?  The belly slab is around 1.5" thick, and fairly uniform.  I don't like super salty bacon, so my main concern is if I let it go much longer it's going to be too salty. It does have really good colour though....  looks really good IMHO:

[Habanero Smoker]

I've never used it. There is a bacon recipe on the Bradley site. It states for their Maple cure, the curing time is 1 week per inch of thickness; so you should go at least 3 - 4 days more. If you go a few days beyond that, it won't make much of a difference.

Bradley's Maple Cured Bacon

[Halifax Aussie]

I cure mine for about 10 days and after curing leave in water to leech the salt for 2 hours changing water every half hour.
Comes out fine. 
Man that sure is a nice color on that belly.

[ExpatCanadian]

Thanks for that....  I'm just getting impatient!!

That avatar of yours sure looks familiar  ;)

[oakville smoker]

Ex Pat

I have used the Bradley cure just the way you are.
The count is about 50 pounds plus so far
Usualy its abpuit 7 days till it firms up
never found ithe final result to be salty
A little more time and you will be good to go

[ExpatCanadian]

Well, the time has come....  I pulled the belly from the cure last night, gave it a rinse and fried a small piece to check for saltiness....  if anything it's more sweet than salty due to the maple syrup I added to the cure, so that's good.  Heck it might not even be salty enough...  but rather that than the other way round.  I actually went with the suggestion on the Bradley site to wrap it in paper towel, then newspaper overnight in the fridge, this has sucked a lot of the surface moisture out and it's pretty much ready to go, but sadly I've got that thing called work to go to in a few minutes....  so it's sitting on a shelf in my wine fridge on an inverted rack for a final drying period until this evening:

As you can see, my "wine fridge" gets used for a little more than wine!  My pancetta will be hanging in there by the weekend for it's 2-3 weeks drying phase...

[Tenpoint5]

Looks like it's gonna be good Expat!

[monty]

hey Expat - i think you saw my thread. i used the Bradley Maple Cure too and i let mine sit for 10 days. i soaked it for a good ~2 hours at the advice of some threads on here. if anything it wasn't salty enough!

i think next time i will try rinsing thoroughly (per Bradley directions) and fry a piece to test it out. i think a 2 hour soak/rinse might have been too much.

[ExpatCanadian]

.... i soaked it for a good ~2 hours at the advice of some threads on here. if anything it wasn't salty enough!

Hi Monty....  yes, I did read your thread and decided to fry up a piece before soaking and realised that it wasn't particularly salty, so I left it alone after the rinse.

I smoked it last night, and it looks fantastic...  I wrapped it up overnight and this morning took it out and squared the edges off for easier slicing.  I've got a really good relationship with my local butcher where I buy most of my meat, and he is going to slice it for me on his big commercial slicer, which is fantastic and will save me buying one myself.  Might cost me a couple rashers...   but a small price to pay I suppose  :)

Believe it or not, I haven't tasted the finished product yet...  I'm not much of a hot breakfast person, so this morning the trimmings from the edges went back into the fridge and I'll have my first taste test this evening.  I'll post some photos of the finished product tonight too...

Incidentally, I only took it up to 135 deg. IT.... I know some go higher, but I wanted more of a raw product....  I hope this is safe... and obviously I will be frying it before eating it.  I know lots of guys here do it to that temperature too, but if you start searching through Google, most seem to recommend at least 150 deg.!

[Quarlow]

Sounds really good Ex. Love to see the finish prod.

[ExpatCanadian]

Well, got home and cooked a pretty darn amazing arrabiata pasta with the trimmings from the bacon.....  and it got eaten so fast, no photos got taken!!

However, the main chunk is still not sliced....  so when that happens I'll post a photo!

[squirtthecat]

darn amazing arrabiata pasta

Care to share that sauce recipe?

[ExpatCanadian]

Care to share that sauce recipe?

Of course!  Nothing complicated...  although I realised this morning that I got my terminology wrong...  I MEANT to say "Amatriciana" sauce.... not "Arrabiata"...  similar, but the bacon makes the difference.  In reality it should have been unsmoked pancetta... but come on, there's only so much you can expect!

Anyway, here is what I used:

• Chopped up the scraps of bacon left over from squaring the smoked belly up for slicing (ended up with a heaped 1 cup measuring cup)
• Chopped one small onion
• 2 cloves of roughly chopped garlic
• Chopped dried chillies
• Sea salt
• Fresh ground black pepper
• Passata di pomodoro (around 2 Cups)

Fried the bacon until the fat started rendering out....  then added the onions.  Fried until the onions were soft, then added a couple of heaped teaspoons of dried chopped chilies, the garlic & a good pinch of sea salt & some cracked black pepper.... fried for about a minute more.

To this I then added the jar of homemade "passata di pomodoro" (not my own, but the real deal given to me by some Italian friends when my wife and I were there for our anniversary last autumn just as they had finished processing 500kg of their home grown tomatoes!)

I then reduced the heat to a very low simmer, covered the pan and let it bubble away gently until the bacon was really tender....  about 30 minutes.

I cooked enough spaghetti for 2 (ok, who am I kidding, it was enough for at least 5 ;D).... only until "al dente".... then drained, added a glug of Olive Oil then and added the sauce to the spaghetti.  Quick toss and into our bowls with a heap of fresh grated pecorino cheese! HEAVEN  :) :) :)  Amazing smoky chili-spiced goodness....! (.....and NO leftovers....)

Now, just can't WAIT to finish my Pancetta to try some authentic Carbonara!

[squirtthecat]

Thanks Ex!  That sounds great..

I was looking for an Arrabiata sauce recipe, but I'll have to try your Amatriciana now!

[ExpatCanadian]

Ok, finally managed to get down to my butcher to get my bacon sliced....  here are some photos just to close off this thread.

All sliced...



Divided into roughly 1lb each...



Vac sealed...



Chef's treat  ;D