Best Bacon Brand

[braumeister]

My favorite is the thick sliced bacon I buy from the butcher's case (not packaged) at Kroger. They cut it just the way i like it, about ten slices to a pound. Under $6 a pound.

I do make my own on occasion. Pork bellies are usually available at Costco.

[frank]

oldshooter: can you add urls for directions on making your own bacon the way you do?

[Winemaker]

Here's one that I enjoyed and is pretty straightforward.


https://video.search.yahoo.com/searc...48&action=view

[OldShooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by frank oldshooter: can you add urls for directions on making your own bacon the way you do?

Sure. I'm flattered. I will make this a little long, to explain the process, rather than a short monkey-see-monkey-do that will make it look like there is only one way.

First, a pork belly: Costco is good. Our local butcher shop is great, but twice as expensive. You want one with the skin removed, which is the usual deal. Trim it a little bit if there are odd bits hanging but often I don't trim at all. I usually buy the biggest one I can since the work is the same as for a small one.

Next, the cure: Sodium nitrite is what preserves the meat, protecting it from the ugly stuff like botulism. The absolute easiest is Morton Tender Quick (MORTON® TENDER QUICK® - Morton Salt), which combines the tiny quantities of sodium nitrite with plan salt. Just use the amount required by the weight of your pork belly. For more money, Backwoods Bacon & Ham Seasoning | LEM Products will get you kits. IIRC, though, the sodium nitrite is in a separate envelope and I had to use the digital powder scale from my reloading bench to measure the tiny quantities needed. YMMV

(Re flavors, commercial bacon is injected with secret sauces. aka "pumped" bacon. The presence of ascorbate or sodium erythorbate in the ingredients list is the tell-tale. Flavors like maple are not fat-soluble, so just putting them on the outside will not flavor the bacon. I have had zero luck with flavor kits. Now I just use Tender Quick and a bunch of fresh ground pepper.)

I do a "dry cure,' simply rubbing the cure onto the pork belly. I have a vacuum sealer so I bag it that way. A ziploc works fine too. If ziploc, be very aggressive in squeezing the air out, as liquid will be drawn from the meat and you want this liquid to stay in close contact with the meat. Now put the meat in the fridge for a week or so, turning it at least daily. We are doing an "equilibrium cure" where the meat sits in the cure until the concentration of salts is the same everywhere, inside and outside the meat. Once you get to that point, it's game over, and the meat can sit in the fridge until you're ready to smoke it. Even another week or more. The curing turns the meat a reddish color (like bacon!) and it also make the meat more firm. You will notice the firmness when you handle the cured pork belly.

When you are ready to smoke, rinse the pork belly, cut off and cook a little sample. If it's too salty for you, just put the belly into some warm water for 20 minutes. Taste again and repeat until you're happy. I almost never have to do this but YMMV. Early on I left a pork belly in the water for an hour and a half and ended up re-salting it! So go slow.

OK, now we smoke: We are "cold smoking." We need some kind of box that is big enough to hold the now-bacon on racks or hanging. I have one of these https://www.campchef.com/smokers-gri...-vault-24.html bought for $80 on CraigsList. Something like this https://www.weber.com/US/en/grills/s...ooker-smoker-1 will work, too. Again, CraigsList is your friend. For a smoke source, you need one of these: A-MAZE-N-PELLET-SMOKER 5X8 with BONUS 2LB bag Pitmasters Choice BBQ Pellets You will have to buy this new because no one who has bought one will ever sell it!

Hang or rack the bacon in your enclosure, start the smoke generator and smoke to taste. (Note: don't use any heat source, just the generator.) I do 12 hours but I am kind of a some's-good, more's-better kind of guy. I think 4 hours is more typical. Maybe cut the bacon into three or four pieces and pull them at intervals to find the smoke level you like best.

Finally, we slice: This is the first place any skill is required. I cannot slice bacon evenly and thin enough, so I take my bacon to a chef friend who has a bug $$ commercial slicer. She slices it for me in exchange for a bacon tithe. (She complains when I don't make bacon often enough!)

So really there's nothing much to it except to find and store a smoking box. An inverted cardboard appliance box (with a small vent cut into the top) would probably work with the smoke generator sitting on a concrete sidewalk. Or, if you're a bit handy, make a folding box out of masonite and 1x2s.

For much more information, go here and use the search function: The BBQ BRETHREN FORUMS. - Powered by vBulletin to learn more. Or join and ask a question. There is a member called IAmMadMan who is really well informed and generous with his information. Especially look for his stuff.

Erratum: In post #11 I mentioned that "uncured ham" would have been cured with celery or some other sodium nitrite source. Hams are made from the upper rear leg of the pig or the upper front leg ("picnic" hams). Sometimes these cuts are offered as "uncured ham" when they are really just pork -- having never been cured into ham. I guess this is just to tell the consumer where the meat is coming from. The color and firmness is a dead giveaway.

@winemaker, any comments are welcome. Feel free.

[Aerides]

the best bacon is not in a pack, but strips fresh cut in the butcher section.

My fave is the Market bacon at the Fresh Market. Nice and thick.

[tmm99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aerides the best bacon is not in a pack, but strips fresh cut in the butcher section. My fave is the Market bacon at the Fresh Market. Nice and thick.

How do you know they actually slice the bacon there? As for Whole Foods, their bacon in the butcher section comes in boxes, sliced. (They told me...)

[Aerides]

Um I guess I just believe them? They say all their meats are cut fresh daily, and they do have a lot of men in white coats looking messy?

[rodi]

We buy the kirkland bacon and it tastes fine to me. We don't eat it often... maybe 1-2 times a month. But when we do - we cook up a whole pound... and have BLT sandwiches with the leftovers. We freeze the part that we aren't cooking.

As for fenugreek... TMI to follow.... my only experience was when I was nursing babies and a working mom... I was desperate to keep milk "production" up so I could pump to provide bottles of breastmilk for daycare... and pumping isn't as efficient as the baby... But fenugreek helped with that. Significantly and noticeably. As did oatmeal. Natural remedies for a modern, working mom issue. It allowed my younger son to avoid formula altogether even though I went back to work at 12 weeks.

[OldShooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aerides Um I guess I just believe them? They say all their meats are cut fresh daily, and they do have a lot of men in white coats looking messy?

Ask them if they cure it in a tumbler. (https://www.waltonsinc.com/equipment/vacuum-tumblers) AFIK that is the normal way, as a commercial establishment can't wait around a week for an equilibrium cure; too much money and cooler volume needed.

If you get a blank look instead of a coherent explanation, you have your answer.

White coats do not make people traditional butchers any more than owning a violin makes you a musician.

[Aerides]

Yes I'm quite aware a coat != expertise

But it tastes so good I don't want to know otherwise!

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter White coats do not make people traditional butchers any more than owning a violin makes you a musician.

You're probably one of those skeptics who think wearing a lab coat doesn't make you a scientist either.

[flintnational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mamadogmamacat only been on this diet (really a lifestyle change as i assume both sugar and more carbs will always be no good for me) for nine days now. It was remarkable how easy it was to drop the sugar entirely (perhaps because i never did use all that much). it has reduced my brain fog (which i had attributed solely to menopause) noticeably, with only a small effect on my energy level, which is moderating already. Will check out Farmer John. Where do you buy it, or are you referring to a literal local farmer ? I checked the label on Wellshire, and the only ingredients listed are pork sea salt black pepper fenugreek nutmeg white pepper mace allspice. Also says no antibiotics used on the pigs So, are you referring to how these ingredients interact?

It is not my favorite bacon, but if you are avoiding sugar Costco/Kirkland low salt bacon does not have any added sugar. We buy it frequently. I sometimes cure and smoke bacon at home. That is my favorite.

FN

[travelover]

We buy the Trader Joe pre-cooked bacon. I know - heresy. But I hate the mess of cooking bacon.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by travelover ...I hate the mess of cooking bacon.

Me too. That's why I cook it on the grill using an old baking pan.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter ... BUT: OP mentioned uncured bacon. "Uncured" bacon is completely bogus. Meat is cured with sodium nitrite. Normally this is done by adding a tiny amount per pound when the product is salted. Hucksters, though, cure with celery juice which is naturally high in sodium nitrite. (Other vegetables are, too.) They use enough to get a good cure (they have to or the meat can spoil.) but because the exact concentration of sodium nitrite in the celery is unknown, the FDA requires that the product be marked "uncured." As good hucksters will do, they have exploited this FDA requirement to bamboozle the buying public into believing that it is some kind of superior product. Check the ingredients list for bacon, ham, etc. or any other cured meat product marked "uncured." You will almost certainly find "celery."

Yep, this kind of stuff drives me nuts. I just read an article on Cooks Illustrated - they sent samples out for testing, and the "uncured" bacon had higher levels on average of sodium nitrite than traditional cured bacon.

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how...ate-free-bacon

Quote:

And the Applegate Farms Uncured Sunday Bacon averaged more than three times the level of the regular bacon: 35 ppm nitrite

"uncured bacon" is an oxymoron. It is the curing that takes it from being pork belly to being bacon.

And:

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal...afety/ct_index

Quote:

While sodium nitrite cannot exceed 200 ppm going into dry-cured bacon, sodium nitrite cannot exceed 120 ppm for both pumped and immersion-cured bacon.

Look at the ppm (mg/Kg) levels in these vegetables!


Fresh Vegetable Nitrate (mean, mg/kg)*
Arugula 2597
Beetroot 1727
Broccoli rabe 905
Celery 1678
Lettuce (Romain) 1241
Spinach 1845
Swiss chard 2363

Mean values reported in milligrams per kilogram (parts per million) of fresh vegetables from P.
Santamaria, A. Elia, F. Serio, and E. Todako, J. Sci. Food Agric. 1999; 79: 1882-1888.


-ERD50

[zedd]

The best bacon, hand's down, bar none, stick a fork in it it's done:

Mama's bacon.

DW's recipe made from our own organically grown hogs finished on apples and pears.

It all starts here: That's a mighty fine pork belly.
image002.png

Cured, apple wood smoked to perfection then sliced

[mamadogmamacat]

Thanks all. Obviously Ive learned a lot. The focus on the word "uncured" has been educational for sure. But it also gives me a bit of a chuckle.....perhaps its my autism showing but I only put that in there because it was part of the brand description on the package, and wanted everyone to just know exactly what I had bought, as opposed to the other half dozen or so Wellshire bacon options, for comparison purposes. Really do not care much about the health issues as bacon is not exactly a health food or something that will be other than a rare treat on this new diet, or again other than it was interesting, "homemade" as it were, options, since that is something I will never do, now that I know how much of an effort it is......way too much like work for me. Just wanted to delve into the collective experience to get what may be the best or one of the best store bought brands for those occasions when I do indulge in bacon. It has however been a great discussion, and it is clear several people have gotten something useful from it. Yet another reason why this is such a great site.

[Winemaker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter BUT: OP mentioned uncured bacon. "Uncured" bacon is completely bogus. Meat is cured with sodium nitrite. Normally this is done by adding a tiny amount per pound when the product is salted. Hucksters, though, cure with celery juice which is naturally high in sodium nitrite. (Other vegetables are, too.) They use enough to get a good cure (they have to or the meat can spoil.) but because the exact concentration of sodium nitrite in the celery is unknown, the FDA requires that the product be marked "uncured." As good hucksters will do, they have exploited this FDA requirement to bamboozle the buying public into believing that it is some kind of superior product.

Not to hijack the thread, but this is along the same lines.

Sulphites in wine. They are made naturally during the fermentation process; and are also added to wine, based on formula based on ph, to help preserve it. Think apples turning brown after exposed to oxygen, sulphites prevent that. Nobody puts sulphites in wine for the sake of sulphites, why raise your costs? There is usually more sulphites in dried fruits and fruit juices, for the same reason.

Back to bacon. Take some cooked bacon, coat in brown sugar, and slowly bake in oven. Pig candy..........yum!

[flintnational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by travelover We buy the Trader Joe pre-cooked bacon. I know - heresy. But I hate the mess of cooking bacon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Me too. That's why I cook it on the grill using an old baking pan.

+2

I learned this trick a couple of years ago. Place the bacon on a lined cookie sheet and bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Eliminates the splatter and the need to flip the bacon. I cook a large batch and keep the extra in the refrigerator for use when needed (bacon emergency).

FN

[Scuba]

I like the Oscar Mayer center cut bacon. The meat/fat ratio is more to my liking. I like bacon somewhat crisp and this bacon is not too thick, making it easier to cook crispy but not burned bacon.