Our Nicky's Canadian Bacon

Our Nicky

Ingredients

1 (or more) pork loin(s)

Hi-Mountain cure at a weight ratio of 1:25, cure : meat

(If you can't find Hi-Mountain cure check the web himtnjerky.com - Morton Tenderquick will also work)

Instructions

Buy a pork loin about three - four inches thick and as long as it comes. If you can one from a get a home raised hog or even find an unseasoned loin so much the better. Most loins I find these days at the grocery store are pre seasoned, but they work too.

Go to Walmart and find a $2 rectangular plastic tub with a lid. It needs to be large enough to hold the loin and small enough to fit in your refrigerator.

Trim the loin of any fat you don't want to eat and rub it with cure at a rate of 1 pound of cure for each 25 pounds of meat. Set the rubbed loin in the tub, cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 10 days turning after the 5th day. By that time the cure will have disappeared, there will be liquid in the bottom of the tub and the meat will have a pinkish hue. All is normal. Some people pour the liquid off. I don't bother until the curing is done. The pink colour of bacon is attributable to the nitrates/nitrites. If you cure without them the bacon is more the colour of pork - which of course, it is.

The thicker the meat the longer curing is required. Weekend Warrior tells me that cure works its way into meat at a rate of approximately a quarter of an inch a day. I have cured thicker loins for two weeks - in which case turn the loin at the seventh day.

At the end of the curing time remove and rinse the loin and soak in cold water for two hours. The less you soak it the saltier it will be. I have soaked for times between 1 and 2 1/2 hours. If you soak less you can always soak again after smoking but it's hard to go the other way. Try two hours for the first time.

You can also cure other cuts in the same way. Weekend Warrior makes awesome buckboard bacon from butt. That's what really got me started.

Set up the Egg for direct cooking and add presoaked smoking wood chunks when well alight. I use cherry and or apple. If you are using native wood from fruit trees from a producing orchard check if they have been sprayed with anything you'd prefer not to eat. Most hardwoods can be used for smoking. Some, like oak, leave a more pungent smokiness. Fruit or nut wood is probably most commonly used.
Remove the loin from the soaking water. You can smoke it naked or add your favouite rub. For the Sunshine State Eggfest I rubbed the loin with Worcestershire sauce, cheap yellow mustard and a rub one of my kids sent me for Christmas. As the loin is already well flavoured, rub is like a bit of icing on the cake. Don't overdo it.

Keep the Egg below 250F and smoke the loin until the internal temperature reaches 150F. Meat absorbs smoke flavour more effectively at lower temperatures. Shut down the Egg and remove the loin to a cool place. Leave it on the Egg for an hour or so if you want a smokier flavour, although the longer you leave it the dryer it will be. I take mine off at 150F.

Allow the now smoked Canadian Bacon (Back Bacon in Canada)to cool. You can chill, slice and vacuum pack it, (having a deli slicer really helps but it tastes as good sliced by hand) or leave it whole and slice it as required. You can slice it thick or thin or dice it for adding to things like chili. Keep it refrigerated.

To cook the bacon - and it still needs cooking - just slap slices on a 350 - 400F Egg direct for a couple of minutes a side for say 1/8" slices, or more, depending on how well you prefer your bacon cooked.

Happy curing

Notes

Number of Servings: approx 150 slices

Time to Prepare: 1-2 hours