Home Cured Bacon
Home cured bacon is a thing to behold. It's propper bacon, bacon with flavour, bacon with texture, bacon that does justice to the pig it came from. This recipe is for cold smoking only, we also have a recipe for hot smoking home cured bacon.In the drive to reduce costs or make a product appear better value, supermarkets and bacon producers pump bacon full of brine, the horrible white goo that comes out of your bacon as soon as you put it in the pan. This started as they wanted to pump the cure right way through the bacon to make it cure faster. But as a result, you end up pumping water into the bacon, increasing its weight. And guess what, not only do you have a product that can be put on the shelves faster, but you now have a product that weighs more and can be sold for more money. This is a wet cure.Proper bacon is dry-cured. The curing salts are put on the outside of the bacon, and it is left to cure through the pork. The salt cure will draw out moisture from the pork as it cures it and the resulting bacon will weigh less. Less weight, less money when you sell it. You can see why very little dry-cured bacon makes it to the supermarket shelf.Traditionally, bacon was cured in salt to kill bacteria, therefore extending its shelf life. The curing process involves salting the piece of meat or fish to lower the moisture content and make the meat unhabitable for the bacteria. As a byproduct, the meat takes on the salty flavour we all love in bacon.Smoking food is another method to extend the shelf life. The smoke again produces an environment bacteria can't live in as it is both antibacterial and an antioxidant. We, therefore, smoked bacon traditionally to increase its shelf life.In more recent times we have started adding nitrates and nitrites to our bacon, as they protect you from botulism. Both are naturally occurring in many vegetables, such as spinach. They also act as antioxidants, stopping the fats from going rancid. Some people try to avoid nitrates and nitrites as they have been linked to cancer, but I'd rather be protected from botulism than avoid the tiny risk of eating them. If you're going to avoid bacon and processed sausages, you should first start avoiding vegetables that have much higher levels of naturally occurring nitrates and nitrites.
Ingredients
Equipment
Grill Temperature
20°C
Surfaces
Method
Curing the pork
- Take off the bacon rind (unless you want to keep it).
- Cut your bacon into a slab small enough to cure (I'm limited by the width of my vacuum bags).
- Weigh the pork and measure according to the recipe that came with your salts to add the correct amount.
- Rub ⅔ of the cure into the meat side of your pork, getting it into all the cracks.
- Place your pork into a bag (vac-pac or ziplock).
- Rub the remaining cure into the rind of the pork inside the bag (it saves a lot of mess).
- If you're going to add any additional ingredients, now is the time to do so.
- Cure for 5-7 days as instructed by the recipe on the packet. Turn the pork daily, moisture will be drawn out of the pork.
- Once cured, open the packet and wash your bacon to remove excess cure.
- Place on a rack in your fridge, uncovered, and allow to dry and form a pellicule overnight (sticky outer layer).
- Choose your favourite smoking dust and add to your ProQ Cold Smoke Generator and light. Place it into your Egg on top of the charcoal.
- Pop your cured bacon on your stainelss grid and pop it into the Egg.
- Open both vents by about 1cm.
- Leave to smoke for 10 hours.
- Once smoked, vac pack again and leave in the fridge to mellow for a week.
- Now you can slice it and see just how good it is. We use a kitchen slicer.
Video
Notes
Additional flavourings: Once you have made your first batch of bacon, you can then experiment with additional flavourings. Some people will add more sugar for a sweet cure, some will add herbs and spices.
Fennel seeds added as you cure make a superb tasting bacon.
Black treacle will also add lots of flavour and colour to your bacon.
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