That's right, nothin is more manly than making your own bacon. Here we go:
You need the following ingreadients:
-10 lbs of skin-on pork belly
-4 tsp of pink salt, also known at DQ Curing salt
-1/2 cup of kosher salt
-1/2 cup of maple sugar (or brown sugar)
-1/2 cup pure maple syrup
Mix everything together (not the pork yet dummy) to make a thick paste
Rub it evenly over your pork belly
Seal up your meat in large ziploc bags. They're gonna hang out in the fridge for a week. You need to turn them over every day to redistribute the cure - massage that meat good!
After a week, the meat gets harder to the touch. Rinse the cure off, and pat dry. Put it on a rack over a sheet pan, and back in the fridge overnight - this dries off the meat so the smoke sticks better.
Take it out, let it come to room temp while you fire up the smoker. I used a combination of applewood and maple
Smoke it to an internal temp of 150F. Maverick dual probe thermometers are the shit, I highly recommend.
Just out, let it cool down a bit
Remove the skin. Keep it for adding flavour to soups, beans, etc.
get out the slicer and go to town
and you have made bacon!
LOTS of bacon
GLORIOUS BACON
then I pull out the foodsaver, and vac seal it in manageable sized packages. I leave a bunch as slab bacon, because it's great to cut into matchsticks and toss into a salad, and stuff like that. Also great thick cut on a sandwich.
Hooray, hope you enjoy! Feel free to ask any questions. 10 lbs of pork belly yielded 7 lbs of finished bacon.
You need the following ingreadients:
-10 lbs of skin-on pork belly
-4 tsp of pink salt, also known at DQ Curing salt
-1/2 cup of kosher salt
-1/2 cup of maple sugar (or brown sugar)
-1/2 cup pure maple syrup
Mix everything together (not the pork yet dummy) to make a thick paste
Rub it evenly over your pork belly
Seal up your meat in large ziploc bags. They're gonna hang out in the fridge for a week. You need to turn them over every day to redistribute the cure - massage that meat good!
After a week, the meat gets harder to the touch. Rinse the cure off, and pat dry. Put it on a rack over a sheet pan, and back in the fridge overnight - this dries off the meat so the smoke sticks better.
Take it out, let it come to room temp while you fire up the smoker. I used a combination of applewood and maple
Smoke it to an internal temp of 150F. Maverick dual probe thermometers are the shit, I highly recommend.
Just out, let it cool down a bit
Remove the skin. Keep it for adding flavour to soups, beans, etc.
get out the slicer and go to town
and you have made bacon!
LOTS of bacon
GLORIOUS BACON
then I pull out the foodsaver, and vac seal it in manageable sized packages. I leave a bunch as slab bacon, because it's great to cut into matchsticks and toss into a salad, and stuff like that. Also great thick cut on a sandwich.
Hooray, hope you enjoy! Feel free to ask any questions. 10 lbs of pork belly yielded 7 lbs of finished bacon.
Last edited: