Homemade Bacon

[panner50]

Homemade Bacon
Make your own bacon? It will take about a week or so but is so worth it. This is a maple bourbon bacon:

2 1/2 to 3 pounds of thick, center cut pork belly (skinless)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon bourbon
2 tablespoons coarse salt
1 teaspoon curing salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper


Rinse the belly and thoroughly pat it dry until the surface is tacky. Trim off any thin edges so that the piece is one long rectangle.
In a large, rectangular baking dish or pan, mix the sugar with the maple and bourbon until thoroughly incorporated. Then mix in the 2 tablespoons of salt, curing salt, and pepper and rub it evenly into the meat (like a relaxing, porcine spa treatment), spreading it evenly around the sides as well as the top and bottom. Tuck the meat, encased in all of the rub, carefully inside a sealable plastic bag (gallon sized will work, but oversized are better if you can find them) and lay it flat in the refrigerator for 7 days, massaging the liquids that will amass inside the bag into the meat and flipping it daily.
After 7 days, inspect your bacon. It should be firm to the touch all over, like touching a cooked steak — a sign that it has been cured. If the flesh still feels spongy and soft in spots, leave the meat in the bag and sprinkle it evenly with an additional 2 tablespoons salt and check it again after 1 or 2 days.
Once the bacon is fully cured, discard the solids, rinse the meat well, and pat it completely dry.

Smoke in your grill or smoker using your favorite wood until the meat reaches 150°F (you must check with a meat thermometer).

 

[Dawgluver]

Welcome to DC! Your recipe sounds great, thanks!

 

[Zagut]

Someone say Bacon?


I don't know about that recipe panner50?

You'd better send me about a pound so I can check it out.

Welcome to DC.

And remember the line from The Wizard of OZ, Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Looking forward to receiving my shipment of bacon.

 

[Paymaster]

Welcome aboard!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing the recipe.

 

[Josie1945]

Hi Panner
Your recipe sounds
delicious Thanks for sharing.
Welcome to DC

Josie

 

[liliedu13]

it's so fat for me

 

[outRIAAge]

I wonder if Panner is still here?

I only made bacon once. It took a month, including waiting for my 5 lb pastured belly to arrive at Whole Paycheck. I followed the public-domain Bradley Smoker recipe to the letter, including tracking down maple sugar to go with the maple syrup. I managed to score some 2-gallon Ziplocks, which made the curing stage really easy. I smoked it with maple, of course, and the result was spectacular.

But it was also five pounds, and it did the seemingly-impossible: it turned me off bacon, which just doesn't describe my diet these days. Here's a Bradley video showing a different style (cranberry/Jack Daniels), but it covers the process well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc285p1qyIw​

The belly also yielded about half a square yard of pigskin. What could I POSSIBLY do with that Here's Fergus Henderson, as adapted by Serious Eats:

 

[Cooking Goddess]

One of our members, who sadly no longer shows up (miss you, pac) took us along on his adventure of making bacon. If you're ever bored and want to read a long thread about his process, here it is. More than his process, all of the comments in between get a bit rollicking!