Smoking Bacon & Pork Loin

[Edward176]

Hi all, I am new to smoking and have taken on a major smoking project of wet curing and smoking bacon, pork loin and a brisket at the same time. I'm using an old family wet cure recipe from the "old Country". 60 grams Kosher salt with 2-4 cloves garlic per Kilo of meat. The salt is dry rubbed with the crushed garlic and left to rest in the fridge for 24 hours. Then the usually Juniper Berries, Bay Leaves, Whole Pepper Corns and All Spice (Pickling Spices) with 1 liter water per Kilo of meat. After the initial 24 hours the usually spices are added to the meat and refrigerated for an additional 6 days. Wednesday will be the final curing day and Thursday I rinse and soak the meat, dry overnight in the fridge, and hopeful smoke Friday morning.  Now I didn't use and pink salt or any form of nitrates and plan to hot smoke in my Bradley smoker 180-190'F to an Internal Temperature of (150'F to 153'F). Now I"m doing this for the first time and wondering if there is anything I missed or should be doing?   

[Habanero Smoker]

With the low amount of salt you are using, I would not call this a cure, but a flavoring brine. If I am calculating correctly this early in the morning :), you are making a brine with 5% - 6% salt. For salt curing only you need a 10% or higher amount of salt to wet brine. The Marianski's state in there books that you can safely smoke/cook uncured meats at temperatures of 180°F or higher, and they are very cautious about food safety. The USDA states not to smoke/cook uncured meats lower than 225°F. I generally will not go lower then 200°F when I smoke/cook uncured meats in the Bradley.

[Edward176]

Thank You Habanero, I'll take your advice and smoke at 200'F till I reach a minimal Internal Temperature of 151"F. I'll do a bit more reading and research for the future. Do you suggest a higher concentration of salt (say 90 grams per kilo) for the future? Once again Thank You

[Habanero Smoker]

Your welcome. The below link is an excellent site for learning about curing and brining. It is full of a lot of technical information, that you may not need to know, and may appear overwhelming at first, but it is organized well into sections, and often you can just read the section that pertains to what you want to do, and generally that is enough.

Making A Brine. They suggest to buy a brine tester, but if you follow his chart there is not need to purchase one.

[Edward176]

Hello Habanero, I smoked all my meats yesterday and everything turned out just wonderful. I thought I"d be done in around 4 hours, but to get all that meat to Internal Temperature of 150'F took about 10 hours. I stopped smoke after 4 hours and maintained a box temperature of 210'F. The bacon turned out the best and tastes even better.  ;)  Today I steamed the Beef Brisket for 2 hours to IT of 180'F and its actually very very tender. The Pork Loin is nice and moist and when cut very thin (that's the way my wife likes it) makes a lovely sandwich cold cut. All in all it was an experience, thanks to your advice and assistance. Once again Thank You very much. Now I'm hooked on smoking my own bacon and cold cuts.

[Habanero Smoker]

Great to hear everything turned out alright. Looks like you have some good eats.