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The last thread really inspired me to make bacon so I wanted to contribute to this one. I've probably cured and smoked 25 pounds of pork belly over the last 12 months. I use Ruhlman's basic cure but I've sometimes added coriander or rosemary or sage, etc. I just use a 22 inch Weber one touch gold kettle grill to smoke. Just bank the coals heavily to one side and regulate the vents to keep it well under 250°F. I have used apple wood chips and the Jack Daniels pellets wrapped in foil. Poke a couple of holes in both sides of the foil and toss it right on the coals. I usually use one pouch right near the beginning of the smoke - too much smoke overpowers any additional flavors in the cure. Here are some pictures of the most recent batch. I did two 4.5 pound pieces this time and a majority has already been given/traded away to friends and family. Make your own bacon. It is totally worth it.  Awesome pork bellies  Bones removed  Rubbed with cure and bagged  After 9 days - rinsed and dried and on the grill  After about 2.5 hours they were 148 so I pulled them  linked for big  Skin removed  sliced  Delicious  Save for later
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Nov 1, 2011 02:35
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 23:40 |
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Appl posted:That was an awesome post, great job overall. Thanks. Re: slicing - That was the second belly and about halfway through it I decided to get thicker. That is when things fell apart with consistency of slice. The first belly went very well. I think you're exactly right about freezing for better results. I took both slabs out of the fridge and started cutting the first belly and then vacuum sealed it all up before starting the second one. On the second belly the knife dragged quite a lot more and the meat itself was much less "solid" feeling. The Victorinox 40645 12 inch granton edge slicer is just as frighteningly sharp as any slicer I have ever seen. I would recommend this knife (and I think Cooks Illustrated does too?) if you are looking for a dedicated slicing/carving blade.  Next to my 8 inch chefs knife.
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Nov 1, 2011 13:43
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$2.35/lb sounds completely reasonable for pork belly. I get mine at the big city market and there are at least three meat stalls there that I can find it. I know that I can ask my butcher at the smaller local grocery store to get some in for me. They smoke their own bacon, so maybe if there is a store or shop around that does their own bacon, you know they have to have pork belly coming in. I know others here have had success asking a local restaurant to order some extra pork bellies that they can buy, but you would probably have to already have a pretty good relationship with the back of house (or at least management) to pull that off. Best of luck!
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Nov 4, 2011 23:07
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I made another 10 lbs or so of bacon. I love me some bacon. Fresh belly, basic cure with a handful of cracked peppercorns, Oven smoked, then sliced and packaged. Then of course the best use of bacon - BLT. Oven smoking was interesting. It was about 20°F outside so I figured it would be too much of a pain to tend my kettle grill. I took a handful of applewood chips the I soaked in water and put them in an aluminum foil lined bowl. I took a couple of charcoals and got them going on my stove burner and dropped them in the bowl with the applewood chips. Worked great, smoldered the chips nicely. I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a serious outside venting hood on your range/oven because the whole house could have smelled like bacon for awhile... of course 2 weeks later it is like 70°F out and now I want to make more just to compare. I'm getting a lot better at slicing consistently. I think squaring it off makes a difference, and that gives you the added bonus of the odds and ends to use for beans/soups/braises/etc.
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Mar 18, 2012 19:03
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bunnielab posted:Bacon Questions: Depending on the thickness my bacons have required 7-10 days to feel completely cured. I would use time as less of a guideline and take it out of the cure when it is "firm". I wish there was a better way to describe that. It doesn't feel like raw meat anymore. It still yields slightly but doesn't feel mushy when poked. I don't think there is a problem with removing it from the cure and letting it hang out in the fridge for a day or two (as long as it is sealed up). I know some people will recommend that a pellicle forms before smoking it and that can easily be achieved by leaving it uncovered in the fridge for many hours or overnight. I would recommend taking the belly out of the cure when it is firm, rinsing it off and patting it dry, then put it back in a clean ziploc until the day of or day before you smoke it. Then uncovering it in the fridge overnight before you smoke it. As for the pellicle, what do people here prefer? After I rinse and dry the belly, I just let it sit out at room temperature for 30-40 minutes while I mess around preparing the smoker and getting the fire ready. I can't say I ever tried to achieve a pellicle on bacon, but I also smoke skin-on and it doesn't seem to make too much sense if you cut off that huge surface area.
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Mar 22, 2012 02:53
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I have a big 12" slicing knife and I slice all of the bacon in one go after it is cooled. It is a pain in the rear end, but you get pretty good at it after a while. I like to vary thickness so I have some nice thin 1/8" slices and some thick 1/4 - 3/8" slices for different uses. I have not tried to take it to a store near me to have it sliced but that would be worth a try - the worst outcome is they say no and then you slice it yourself. As for storage, I have a foodsaver that I use to vacuum seal in .5 lb packages. I usually end up giving about half away and there is no need to freeze the rest because it lasts so drat long in the fridge.
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Mar 25, 2012 16:31
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dms666 posted:I have to order curing salt from butcher-packer since I cant find any around here. I'm assuming 8oz is plenty and buying 16oz of it is just overkill? Probably just going to be making bacon to start, with eventually trying some other things. You are going to be fine with 8oz unless you are doing 10lbs of bacon a week or something. It is a very small percentage of the cure/rub.
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Oct 26, 2012 01:40
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It is super easy to take the skin off post smoking - not that easy to do before smoking. But as GigaFool said it allows seasoning more of the finished product you will be eating.
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Jan 7, 2013 19:23
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Petey posted:bacon bummer The whole thing is essentially a wet cure. The salt should draw sufficient moisture out of the pork as it sits and cures that there should be liquid in the bag/dish and that is why you want to flip it regularly - to even out the cure. It seems odd that when you got it out of the cure originally "it looks a little brown and dry". It should have a squishy texture like a brined porkchop or something. So it will be firmer than when you put it in the cure, but not at all dried out. If I remember right the meaty part of the belly is what gives up the moisture not the fat, so a leaner belly will result in a wetter cure. This picture from earlier in the thread is a good example of what I would expect it to look like after the cure: Kid posted:After a week of curing, with me flipping the bag over each morning, I rinsed the belly off Did you cure the belly in an airtight/ziploc bag and was there a lot of moisture released during the week you let it cure? I wouldn't give up on the baconing. Use this less enjoyable stuff for building flavor bases for soups and braises, and make some more for eating by the slice.
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Jan 21, 2013 16:11
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 23:40 |
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Errant Gin Monks posted:So 3 oz is roughly 85 grams. you can get on average 125 grams of confit meat from a single duck leg quarter. You need 24,225 grams to do 285 3 oz servings, so 194 average duck legs (53 pounds of meat). So I would do at least 75 to take into account weight of the bone. Have fun making a boatload of confit though! Sounds delicious. I love the math of scaling this up. I am now trying to imagine making more than 15 pounds of meat/anything at a time barring a large turkey or a pig roast or something. I LOVE it. Fake edit: I have made a lot of bacon before... but this seems different for some special reason
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Dec 12, 2013 03:04
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