First bacon

gmac

Here is the first half belly made into hot smoked bacon. Just ready-cure and brown sugar rub for one week and then smoked for 3 hrs with apple chunks until it was about 165 internal. Not really sure what the target is for hot smoked bacon. Gotta buy a meat slicer!!

Little Steven

Looks good! You try any?

Conneggticut_Yankee

Internal temp is typically 150. 165 I'm sure is not a big deal. Where did you get your recipe? Usually you need to add salt in addition to a small fraction of sodium nitrate. I'm not familiar with ready-cure. Does that already have the additional salt added? 

Your local butcher may slice it for you, for a small charge.  Not a bad option if you have 10lbs of bacon to slice. I've been slicing it by hand and it's been fine, though time consuming if you want nice slices. 

gmac

Conneggticut_Yankee said:

Internal temp is typically 150. 165 I'm sure is not a big deal. Where did you get your recipe? Usually you need to add salt in addition to a small fraction of sodium nitrate. I'm not familiar with ready-cure. Does that already have the additional salt added? 

Your local butcher may slice it for you, for a small charge.  Not a bad option if you have 10lbs of bacon to slice. I've been slicing it by hand and it's been fine, though time consuming if you want nice slices. 

Ready cure is 1% Sodium Nitrate plus a whack more salt so it's sort of a ready to go without more salt sort of cure.

buzd504

Nitrate or Nitrite?

gmac

Little Steven said:

Looks good! You try any?

Not yet. Letting it cool to fair up for slicing.

Little Steven

I don't know how you resisted, I was eating mine as I was slicing it...and mine was cold smoked

gmac

It's a bit too salty but I did add some extra salt just before smoking. But I thought I rinsed it well enough. Gotta try cold smoking next time.

gmac

Actually, just sliced and eaten cold its amazing. I fried some and it seemed saltier.

gmac

buzd504 said:

Nitrate or Nitrite?

Nitrite I think.

Little Steven

Did you soak it or rinse? Mine was less salty than store bought but I would like to minimize the salt. Was reading up on stuff today and the nitrite percentage doesn't have to be as high as most recommend. I would like to go to a bit shorter cure time to test the ready cure. A bit scary and I guess you find out if you don't cure it enough the "hard" way. I have about 15 Kg on right now due to come out Sunday. May pull it Saturday and give it a soak, dry and slice on Sunday.

gmac

Just rinsed. I just did a rub based on the instructions on the bag. Seemed to work out it 50:1 so 2500 grams of pork belly needed about 50 grams of cure over the belly. Added brown sugar after and wrapped in Saran and foil. It didn't seem firm enough so I added some salt for about an hour prior to smoking. Just rinsed and patted dry, didn't allow a pellicle to form as I have to be at work tomorrow and so had to smoke today. I have another 5 kg of belly in the freezer for the next attempt. Want to rig up something to cold smoke but not there yet.

Conneggticut_Yankee

Sodium nitrate, sodium nitrite. Apparently either

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curing_salt

Mine is nitrate.

I've never given time for a pellicle to form and have always had great smoke flavor. Maybe I'll give if a try just to see the difference.

Just got an a-maze-n and looking to try some cold smoking as well.

gmac

Readycure is 1% Sodium Nitrite.  It worked very well for me without adding any supplemental salt although I did add a bit more a week later because it didn't seem quite "firm" enough. I just covered it with brown sugar too.  I fried some up for lunch for a bacon and tomato sandwich and it was awesome.  I've got another belly in the freezer so next time I'll probably do some with maple syrup and some with a pepper crust.  It does burn fairly quick so I found it best to use a low heat.  There's a lot of sugar on it...

I'll try to post a fried picture which means I need to go fry more