BACON: List of curing , smoking times & temps...

[Mr Walleye]

Oh... by the way the bacon looks mighty fine!  ;)

The only other thing you may want to do is to resize your photos to 600 x 800 so they are not as big.

Mike

[FLBentRider]

That is some fine looking bacon! It looks fom the pictures that it cured all the way through.

[chrispy]

Yeah, it is cured all the way through.  The flavor is very good.  Not too salty.  It could have used a stron ger maple flavor, but otherwise a great success.  I have the other piece to smoke this weekend ;D

Chrispy

[FLBentRider]

I and others here are still trying to find a way to boost the maple flavor.

[westexasmoker]

Looks great...I've got a couple in the fridge for this weekend!  What if you gave them a glaze of syrup and molasses right at the tail end of the smoke????  And of course use mesquite!!

C

[deb415611]

Chrispy,

Looks great!

[Smoking Duck]

Good looking bacon, chrispy.

Just wondering if anyone has injected the bacon with maple syrup and whether or not that would affect the curing process?

SD

[Smokin Soon]

Duck, thats a idea I will try with my next batch, some careful injections of some slightly heated pure maple syrup after the drying process before it goes into the smoker. Could be spots of goo in the loin, but it's worth a try. What do the pro's say?

[Milehi]

The last batch of bacon I did, I mixed maple syrup, maple flavoring (Mapleine ) and brown sugar and rubbed it on the bellies. Vac pac and back in the fridge for 2 days before smoking. Had plenty of maple flavor.

[wyoduke]

Milehi ,
thanks i am going to try that. :)

[mjdeez]

Hi MW,
My curing supplies just arrived and I'm ready to start my first bacon curing attempt. But I have a question...

You can see why folks question me about the amount.
1lb .32oz or .02lb
2lb .66oz or .04125lb
3lb 1.0oz or .0625lb
5lb 1.6oz or .1lb
10lb 3.2oz or .2lb

Cure #1 directions call for 2 oz. per 50 lb of meat. So... just curious why you use 8x the recommended amount?  Is it because when the liquid comes out of the meat not of the cure makes it into the meat? I'm doing the cure for about 10# of pork belly (first time bacon!) today, so I probably should have asked this ahead of time.

For the rest of the rub, I'm using a 3:1 ratio of salt to sugar (based on this website, luckily my scale has a setting for metric: http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/weblog/pivot/entry.php?id=561&w=my_weblog) and I will also use a bunch of crushed garlic, peppercorns, and bay leaves. Not very precise but it'll work.  EDITED after making the bacon: The cure calculator from the localfoodheroes website produced VERY salty belly bacon even after multiple soaks, but I cured it for 15 days. Be warned.

Thanks,
Mike

PS this forum is great. I've been lurking for awhile and just joined up this week with a couple of questions.

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi Mike;

Welcome to the forum.

Mallard Wacker is not using cure #1 (salt 93.75%, and sodium nitrite 6.25%). He is using a commercial cure mix that does not contain sodium nitrite, but not as the same concentration. He is using Butcher-Packer Buckboard Bacon Cure. The amounts he has listed is for that cure mix only.

That a nice link to a cure #1 calculator. So use the cure, salt and sugar amounts generated by the calculator.

[mjdeez]

Hi Habs,
Thanks for the feedback. Glad I trusted my better judgment with that.  I guess I was confused, finding some Cure #1 at butcher-packer.com... http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=237_12&products_id=55 

Got about 10# of curing belly in the fridge, can't wait to triple smoke it.

It's been a good day, I had been looking forward to making this all week: http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=18316.0
Came out great. Pretty much the same ingredients except some smoked cheddar on baked potato instead of the Greek salad.  Thanks Punchlock for that recipe.

-Mike

[Habanero Smoker]

You are more then welcome. The triple smoke bacon is great. The key is to reduce the moisture and concentrate the flavors. The more you can keep the bacon between 70°F - 90°F during those three days the better the outcome will be.

Your link to the cure calculator is one of the better ones I have seen on the internet. It's the first one I've seen that also gives the salt and sugar amounts. I haven't fully tested it yet to see if it matches the amounts I use. If the amounts are close to mine, then I won't have to make batches of the Basic Dry Cure - I can just use this calculator.

[MallardWacker]

Welcome MIKE...

BBB cure and the stuff from Butcher & Packer I believe are different. (two different companies)  I had only used BBB once. I had much better results for me, especially in my flavor likings

HAB is right I think...these are the two products I use.  What ever you do I would recommend measuring it correctly.  More is not better in these types of cure.

http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=237_12&products_id=59

and

http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=237_12&products_id=54

Makes sure you post up some pics of your adventures.