Bacon - strange colour. Opinions please.

[Slamdunk]

It's done and it is terrific !!

Somehow I deleted the original pics, so here is what we were talking about,



After two hours soaking in water



Cut and fried up a couple slices of the ends to test the saltiness which my wife declared perfect !!



Nice colour to the meat before it goes in the smoker. Let it come up to room temperature (about an hour)



Preheated the smoker to 140 and let em sit for an hour or so with no smoke. And then 4 hours of Maple pucks until IT of 145.



Put them all in the fridge for an overnight cooling off and firming up, and then I got to use my new slicer the next morning- which worked very well . I sliced some thicker and some deli thickness to be used in sandwiches etc. On the better half's instructions, I only sliced two of the loins up and froze the other two.



Looked great and we had some with eggs and toast and everybody loved the bacon. Took a bit to the office and everybody wanted more - a lot more, yeah, as if that's going to happen,,,



Thanks for all your helpful advice -

[Habanero Smoker]

When I first saw the picture I was pretty sure that it was cured, and the difference in color was due to the different muscle groups. The color comes from sodium nitrite reducing to nitric oxide which bonds with th myoglobin in the meat. The more myoglobin (the darker the meat) the darker the cure color. I took a picture of my cured loin is the same area your photo shows, thought the difference in colors were noticeable they were not as pronounced as yours.

[Slamdunk]

Thanks Habs, now if I only knew what myoglobin was....so off to Wikipedia....ahh here it is,,,

Myoglobin forms pigments responsible for making meat red. The color that meat takes is partly determined by the charge of the iron atom in myoglobin and the oxygen attached to it. When meat is in its raw state, the iron atom is in the +2 oxidation state, and is bound to a dioxygen molecule (O2).

Meat cooked well done is brown because the iron atom is now in the +3 oxidation state, having lost an electron, and is now coordinated by a water molecule. Under some conditions, meat can also remain pink all through cooking, despite being heated to high temperatures. If meat has been exposed to nitrites, it will remain pink because the iron atom is bound to NO, nitric oxide (true of, e.g., corned beef or cured hams).

Grilled meats can also take on a pink "smoke ring" that comes from the iron binding a molecule of carbon monoxide to give metmyoglobin.[9] Raw meat packed in a carbon monoxide atmosphere also shows this same pink "smoke ring" due to the same coordination chemistry. Notably, the surface of the raw meat also displays the pink color, which is usually associated in consumers' minds with fresh meat. This artificially-induced pink color can persist in the meat for a very long time, reportedly up to one year. [10] Hormel and Cargill are both reported to use this meat-packing process, and meat treated this way has been in the consumer market since 2003.[11]

[canadiansmoker]

I have had the same problem you did with the discoloration when doing back bacon. It only seemed to be one particular piece that had the problem. A second time it started to happen I actually noticed it after the second day and added a small amount of cure to the problem spot and it seemed to be okay. The next time I did back bacon I was actually rotating (turning) the bags over twice a day for the first 3 days, and never had any more problems. I also had an independent thermometer in the fridge to verify that the temps were okay.

I'm still not 100% sure what the problem was, but I'm leaning towards how/where the loins were resting in the fridge. The problem area was always at the part of the loin that resting down (and typically the bottom piece if they were stacked). I never had the loins resting directly on the wire rack of the fridge, they were typically placed on plates, and they weren't placed on the bottom of the fridge. It could possibly have been the the plate was colder than elsewhere in the fridge, but that doesn't seem to make any sense since the temperature of the plate would be the same as the rest of the fridge (particularly since there was air movement below the plates).

I'm starting to lean towards too much pressure on certain spots that is preventing the cure from working in. This is only a theory and still doesn't explain why most other people don't have this problem, even when they stack their loins while curing.

[Habanero Smoker]

I have had the same problem you did with the discoloration when doing back bacon. It only seemed to be one particular piece that had the problem. A second time it started to happen I actually noticed it after the second day and added a small amount of cure to the problem spot and it seemed to be okay. The next time I did back bacon I was actually rotating (turning) the bags over twice a day for the first 3 days, and never had any more problems. I also had an independent thermometer in the fridge to verify that the temps were okay.

I'm still not 100% sure what the problem was, but I'm leaning towards how/where the loins were resting in the fridge. The problem area was always at the part of the loin that resting down (and typically the bottom piece if they were stacked). I never had the loins resting directly on the wire rack of the fridge, they were typically placed on plates, and they weren't placed on the bottom of the fridge. It could possibly have been the the plate was colder than elsewhere in the fridge, but that doesn't seem to make any sense since the temperature of the plate would be the same as the rest of the fridge (particularly since there was air movement below the plates).

I'm starting to lean towards too much pressure on certain spots that is preventing the cure from working in. This is only a theory and still doesn't explain why most other people don't have this problem, even when they stack their loins while curing.

From your post it is unclear if you were overhauling (turning the meat over, or changing their positions if stacked - rotating bottom to top and turning over) when you were having the initial problems, or if you increase the frequency you overhaul that resolved the problem. If you were not overhauling at all that can create the problem you first encountered. As long as I overhaul every other day, I never have a problem with the rate of curing, sometimes I will overhaul daily.

I feel you can't go by one theory, because there are multiple reasons that can be factored in. I not saying that cold temperatures was an issue for you, but as for the plate it will not necessarily be the same temperature as the air temperature. If it is in a cold spot, or touching a colder area or where the coils run through, it can be colder. For example, I have a beverage refrigerator, with no freezer. The air temperature in the refrigerator will average 39°F, but often there will be ice at the back of the refrigerator were the cooling coils run through.

[canadiansmoker]

Sorry Habs, I should have been more clear. I was overhauling daily (turing over, and changing positions when stacked) when the problems did occur. The problem seemed to disappear when I overhauled more than once a day for the first few days.

I agree that you can't go one theory, I'm just having a hard time coming up with many other ones at the moment.

As far as temperatures in the fridge goes, I had placed a thermometer in different parts of the fridge (even different spots on the same rack) to see if there was much deviation in the temperature, and the rack I had the loin on (middle rack) only showed about a 2 degree difference from front to back and side to side. I avoided putting the loin on the lowest part of the fridge to avoid the colder spots.