My Turn at Bacon!

chadpsualum

After some seeing some good bacon posts on here I had to give it a go myself after my local Costco started selling whole bellies. After picking up a 9.5# belly I cut it into thirds and tried the recipes I found on http://amazingribs.com/recipes/porknography/making_bacon_from_scratch.html.The only deviation was that I added puréed Jalapeños to the Maple recipe. 

The cures started last Wednesday and I smoked them with Apple and Cherry at 200F for 3.5 hours (IT of 150F).  They went in the fridge when they were done and then I hand sliced and bagged them this morning. Of course I cooked a few pieces of each flavor to try (baked at 400F on a wire rack for 22 min).  The Regular was great, the Asian was good, but different (I'll have to integrate into some recipes). The Maple Jalapeño was awesome. Could definitely get the Jalapeño but not really spicy. Very good.  I'll definitely be doing this again!

Here's the start of the wet cure:


This is after smoke:

Finally the slicing and sealing:

blind99

good work! 

bgebrent

Nice work brother!  Hard to bear homemade Bacon!

chadpsualum

bgebrent said:

Nice work brother!  Hard to bear homemade Bacon!

Thanks!  Now that I've got one of these under my belt I'm going to have to give that Rosemary Garlic recipe a go.

20stone

Nicely done.  You can now cross bacon off the list of things you can buy and like. 

20stone

As a side note, your bacon looked so good I bought a belly this morning.  It just goes to show that I am not the only bad influence.

jonnymack

awesome work man!

JacksDad

Amazing! When I get the guts to do bacon, so to speak, it's going to have jalepenos in it!

@chadp Can I ask... How did you slice it?

chadpsualum

@JacksDad ... I used a knife I got off of Amazon that I use for Brisket (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005P0OIBM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )

I took my time just tried to slice as carefully as I could to get consistent thickness on each slice.  The knife does most of the work!

northGAcock

First the bacon looks awesome. Secondly, I am amazed by the hand cutting of bacon I see on here. Very consistent. I guess I would have to hold off on the Bloody's to do that myself.

chadpsualum

northGAcock said:

First the bacon looks awesome. Secondly, I am amazed by the hand cutting of bacon I see on here. Very consistent. I guess I would have to hold off on the Bloody's to do that myself.

Thanks for the kind words!  It was my first go at it so I will gladly take the compliment!  It's funny you mention Bloody's...I had one after I was done cutting these up (and cooked samples).  The Maple Jalapeno piece in the Bloody was good.

northGAcock

chadpsualum said:

northGAcock said:

First the bacon looks awesome. Secondly, I am amazed by the hand cutting of bacon I see on here. Very consistent. I guess I would have to hold off on the Bloody's to do that myself.

Thanks for the kind words!  It was my first go at it so I will gladly take the compliment!  It's funny you mention Bloody's...I had one after I was done cutting these up (and cooked samples).  The Maple Jalapeno piece in the Bloody was good.

Again nice job Chad.....note to self....after cutting the bacon.

JohnH12

Looks great. I just got a couple of whole belly slabs and plan to jump into the middle of this.
I got the premix cure and some cure #1 salt from Sausage Maker  so I can do one with the premix and then try other recipes.
I've also never had skin on bacon so I'll do half with and half without this time just to see if it's worth the effort to fillet the skin off the whole thing.
The biggest difference I think will be the cure times. 5 day for the skin off and 10 days for the skin on slab.