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-grills/propane/smoke-vault-24.html bought for $80 on CraigsList. Something like this
https://www.weber.com/US/en/grills/smokey-mountain-cooker-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.
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