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Makin Bacon Day 4
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toquina
Posts: 94
Here is day 4 of the bacon process. I never would have thought that this much liquid would come out of the bellies. I am looking forward to Thursday to get these bellies on the egg.
Check out my blog for daily recipes and updates on the bacon
http://Athomecooking.wordpress.com
Check out my blog for daily recipes and updates on the bacon
http://Athomecooking.wordpress.com
Comments
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Closer! Can't you get closer than that? stike could do better than that and he's inept!
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toquina: Just read back on some of your prior posts for this 'bacon'. You are strictly using salt & sugar? No pink salts or pre-mixed cures?
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Not only sugar and salts, no curing agents. Read this recipe in Grilled magazine. If I remember correctly you only need to use the curing agents if you are going to be eating the meat once it comes off the smoker, with the bacon it will be cooked (fried) before consumption. Do you know if this is true????
http://athomecooking.wordpress.com -
toquina: Nitrates do not add any food safety factor, such as allowing you to eat bacon right off the grill. They due however bring the curing process to a level that salt/sugar alone is not capable of. I am guessing you will be smoking the pork to about 140*? Or do you plan to cold smoke? Keep in mind, that once above 137* pork is safe to eat, but who would want to eat raw/uncrisp bacon? It is safe, but not what any of us are after when it comes to bacon. I am fully perplexed why they would instruct to to drain the liquid, as this actually becomes part of the brining process. I think you will find this is going to taste more like pork than the bacon flavor we all grew up with. FWIW, there are folks on this forum that have been curing bacon, whole hams, proscuitto of duck or pork...(I could go on and on) for many years! You might consider listening to the input you have been given. You can truly learn a lot here if you allow your walls to come down.
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Nitrites physically Alter the meat and provide a piquancy and flavor that salt alone cannot
Frankly, your recipe is essentially a form of prosciutto, which is fine.
Pork can be 'cured' any number of ways, and no one is saying you are doing a bad thing. But you aren't going to be making "bacon" in the sense you are familiar with. You're salt-curing pork belly
Your pouring off the liquid will serve to produce a highly salted, firm belly.
Prosciutto is similar, but further dried for a year or moreed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante -
Well said.
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Pretty sure that these are actually pix from the Mars Rover. :laugh:
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Okay now that we have discovered you are not using nitrates, you are basically following a technique which can just be called salt curing. It's most likely one of the fastest methods because it uses a higher amount of salt which is really good for leeching out water from meat. In the old "curing for preservation" days kegs of salted meats had a drain hole which allowed for the liquid to leak out. It carried a lot of blood with it which was a good thing, as blood will foul a brine without refrigeration. Which was the reason folks preserved meat in salt in the first place, they didn't have a fridge. If tubs or zipper bags of salt cured meats are refrigerated, there is no need for draining. One thing you might notice with your bacon is that it may be darker than you expect, but this is natural with a salt cure. (nitrates are what makes bacon pink.... sort of like the difference between a pork roast and a ham.)
Modern dry curing methods which are really "flavor cures" use nitrates and have several advantages like food safety if you are smoking at low temps for longer than the 4 hour window...., the nice pink color we expect to see in cured foods..., a slight texture change... and flavor.
Home curing is a great hobby and usually the most important advice I give is to keep good notes so you can make accurate changes if needed. And to pay attention to details (amounts of cure, time, temperature etc.). You are already doing both of these things, so that is a plus. I hope you will give dry curing a try in the future. And it's not limited to bellies, you can also process boned butts, pork loins, or thick pork chops. Loins come out like Canadian bacon.Happy Trails~thirdeye~Barbecue is not rocket surgery -
Should I expect this to come out more like pancetta then bacon. I am really interested and can find cheap bellies any info is welcome
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